Colin Unger

Unlike the league, the players union really seems to be taking everything public and throwing a pity party for themselves to try and divide fans.

Players stick together. The league is wise to not pay the bonuses which are part of the players 2019 contracts and pre-payment on what they hope the players will do during the 2019 season. I can assure you that if the league paid the bonuses and a collective bargaining agreement is not reached the players would not be paying the money back. The league would refund season tickets and sponsors. Negotiations are tough but even tougher when they pay money to the party you are negotiating with and then try and negotiate.

I would think that that would be pretty normal for a cfl. Team. Where is Calgary at after the loss Singleton and Durant. I would imagine they are less than Winnipeg. Another top team in the league is Hamilton and they're pretty similar to Winnipeg id say. One of the few teams that are blessed with two ratio breaker's in Ted Laurent and Jamaal Westerman. And future bright with all those picks they got for "John" Manziel After that, they've got nothing special overly special. Edmonton is nothing special. Didn't even have a good offensive line despite starting 3 Americans last year. Montreal has some good front end talent in Muamba and Loffler. But we all know Loffler isn't going to be a long career type guy and their cupboards are empty for the next few years thanks to poor management. The point im making here is that Winnipeg isn't noticeably worse than the rest of the league in terms of proven commodities and they have a bright future. Who knows what we will think of Gray, the 2 first round picks, Couture, Jones, Petermann, and Simonise by the end of the season. They all have high upside. Im not worried about Winnipeg's Canadians versus the rest of the league right now.. Should I be? Winnipeg is well positioned IMO if the league drops down to 5. Mainly because we didn't way over pay for a Canadian. If the league drops to 5 the only Canadians who will really be worth money is a player who would be playing even if they weren't a Canadian. So guys like Harris, Laurent, Westerman, and potentially Loffler. Suhk Chung's contract is a joke in a league with 5 Canadian starters. You can replace him with an american for 80k.

The real question is not how much talent was lost but how much talent remains. Winnipeg may still have close to the best Canadian talent in the cfl.

Im gonna laugh when the CFL announced that only 5 canadian starters are required starting this season

I'm not saying that these players aren't good players and that I wouldn't rather have had them coming back. However, I felt the same way about TJ Heath and Jamal Westerman. Loffler is a good safety still however his style of play has been significantly impacted by all the new rule changes that have come out in the last few seasons where he's no longer able to light receivers up once their fingers touch the ball. Safety is simple not the impact position it used to be. In his first two seasons he had 7 forced fumbles and 0 last season. Calgary played great defense and won the Grey Cup with Adam Berger playing at safety. It's one thing to have to replace 3 ratio breakers who are all-stars. However, in these cases, we are talking about a guard, a center, and a safety. Not a right tackle, linebacker, and defensive end. The bombers have been drafting and developing replacement players in these positions. Positions that have largely been considered non-ratio breaker. Meaning that there is a steady supply of Canadian who can play these positions. You just gotta keep drafting and developing them. Which Winnipeg has. We didn't look that bad defensively even when Hect was in at safety. With an improved pass rush this season we should be just fine. The defense is not something I'm worried about. In the CFL you're always going to have turnover. At any other time, I would be worried about our offensive line after losing players of this caliber. But at this juncture, we will be fine because we have players in the system who can fill those roles. When Walters took over we were 5 starters short of an offensive line and nothing in the system. Now we lost 2 guys and have several options already in the system who can fill those roles and 2 picks in the first round. There's a reason why Winnipeg made no attempt to sign a veteran offensive lineman in free agency despite having the cap space to do so. These 3 Canadians keep being brought up however I'm not worried about it. I'm more concerned over whether or not our quarterbacking and receiving will be improved over last season.

Correct. Goosen needed to develop for s period of time first. I believe we wanted to draft Pierre Lavertu because he was the only center in the draft who could potentially come in and start immediately. Calgary traded Gott for a pick and then picked Lavertu before we could do we drafted the next best center and developed him.

Right. And some times they ain’t as good as the previous starter and sometimes they are a significant upgrade.

I hope nobody is suggesting that I don’t think that Chung is a good guard. What he lacks in physical ability makes up in fight and tenacity. But he struggles against physically dominant defensive tackles like Mica Johnson. Chungs got a real mean streak out there.

It’s true that Chung only made it as an all star due to voting from outside Manitoba. I’m sure that the Toronto cfl media really breaks down the deep analytics before making these decisions. I’m not suggesting Chung isn’t a very good Canadian guard. Just that he’s probably not the best right guard in the league. Im much more concerned about what kind of center will have to replace Goosen than whether or not Grey will become better than Chung.

While both Goosen and Chung were all-stars only one of them really deserved it and that was Goosen. Winnipeg offensive line in general received votes from across the country due to the performance of Andrew Harris. Chung wouldn’t have been an all star had it been based only on the votes from Winnipeg media. Sure Grey wouldn’t have started this season had they still been around. There will be growing pains early on but he has an excellent chance of being better than Chung in the long run. He’s certainly further along than when Chung started as a rookie. And it was only going to be a matter of time before Grey would was the top offensive lineman available in his draft year would be starting. He’s the kind of guy you move an asset to get into the lineup. Winnipeg will still have a dominant running back and our tackles will give our qbs time to throw the ball.

https://www.tsn.ca/report-cfl-buys-alouettes-with-goal-to-sell-to-new-owners-1.1288582 Sounds like the CFL ended up buying the Als. Let's hope they can find a strong local owner with the ability to deliver a new stadium.

The problem with giving players more money at this point is that there are still two teams that are losing money year after year. I want the players to get more money but not if it ends up costing the league a team or two. Its like the players want more money for rookies and more guarantees and perhaps pensions for veteran players. Where's the money going to come from? Owners in Toronto and Montreal out of goodwill or perhaps more money from Manitoba tax payers? Not sure how giving the players more money at this time grows the league. Im optimistic that with the global initiative eventually, player wages can increase significantly. But now doesn't seem like the time. Seems like players want everything that the AAF did which ultimately doomed them to fold. Some form of guaranteed money for veterans I think could work if it was done right. It would force teams to stick with what they've got which would be good for continuity. Similar to how the football operations cap makes it so that a team like the Riders didn't just fire their whole coaching staff and hire whoever they wanted after Chris Jones left. Would force teams to be more responsible.

Im all for the command center correcting more calls. The officiating in the CFL without this aid was horrible. So long as it doesn't slow down the flow of the game.

My understanding is that there's already interest in Mexico for paying the CFL for broadcasting rights. If the CFL can get money from the United States surely they can get money from Countries who have a growing interest in football who don't have the NFL.

I agree with you here. If all you ever do is put out fires you never deal with the root problem that is causing the fires.

I'm too old for this many changes!

The thing about Calgary and possibly Winnipeg is that they both had some injuries that held them back last year. Losing players in the CFL is inevitable but somehow good teams find a way to keep getting better. If Nichols is back to being the same guy he was in 2017 Winnipeg will be just fine. And if he's the same as last year Streveler will be more ready to run the entire offense this year. And Calgary had such a rotation of receivers that it eventually started to affect their dominant offense and they had to rely more on defense. The defense won't be the same but the offense could be better than it was. I'm expecting Winnipeg to be even better defensively than they were last season. It took Winnipeg a while to figure out how to employ Bighill and this year the pass rush should be absolutely dominant with the addition of Jefferson. They also have quite a few younger guys who are getting better each year like Wolitarsky, Alexander, Sayles, and Bryant.

They lost Walker who hardly played and Duke Williams. But they added DaVaries Daniels, Greg Ellingson, and Sir Vincent Rogers. Id say that these three guys can make up for half a season of Walker and Duke Williams full season. Edmonton has been a bit of a receiver factory. Probably has a lot of do with the coaching. In terms of the passing game I think Jason Maas is right up there right now. From Bowman to Zylstra and Williams the next guy up becomes a star.

You never know what will happen. Outside of Calgary and Winnipeg who will both at the very least will be solid it is hard to predict. Saskatchewan could be awful and the could be competitive. They will need to keep Zach healthy and I'm not sure they can do that. They will have to press more offensively and Zach simply isn't a quick release type of guy. He's still going to take shots. Not only does he need to stay healthy he needs to play a lot better. Their defense won't be as good but honestly, they could go from being elite to being average at best. Chris Jones was a great defensive coach and he had a large coaching staff at his disposal last season giving him a major advantage. Yeah, they were able to pick up a run plugger at DT but will lose some of the pass rush and big-play capability they had last year. Also, Hughes didn't do a lot down the stretch and he's going to be a year older. Improving the run game is important but I don't think they have the same level of coaching on offense that Winnipeg has in terms of being able to disguise things and get a team away from keying on the run. Powell had a lot of success but he was playing on a team that had more passing attempts and completions than any other team in the CFL. He wasn't really something you could key on as a result. Edmonton I think will be the most improved team in the West. Jason Maas isn't very likable but he's a great offensive coach. Mike Reilly wasn't a 5000 yard passer before Maas came to town. He used to rely a lot more on his legs and get injured a lot back in the Chris Jones/Mcadoo days. I would expect that Edmonton's passing attack will be similar in quality to what it's been over the past few years and their defense can only go up after a few key additions. BC is a big question mark to me. He's on a new team with new teammates and coaches. He is still gonna put up some totals but might not be as prolific as he's been in the past. And in order to afford to pay him, BC is going to have to start a lot of unproven players on defense. What it really comes down to is how much of an impact Claybrooks alone can make on defense. Suhk Chung is an over priced but solid addition but BC probably still has some issues at tackle. They didn't previously have a good track record of protecting their qb's and I have no reason to believe that a Canadian guard will change that.

The one game he went to must have been a bombers riders game

According to Ryan there are several interested CFL teams. I would love to see Winnipeg make a play for him even though we don't really need him. There's some nostalgia from when he used to play here and the idea of signing him away from the Riders is appealing. https://leaderpost.com/sports/football/cfl/saskatchewan-roughriders/jon-ryan-works-out-for-saskatchewan-roughriders?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR33voaPfODqMJtUS2pbRr7Ic4ywOkcmmDPqzMeLqFCy4-TDtmJy41eO20w#Echobox=1554666392

Going from Bartel to Ryan would be a pretty significant upgrade. I'm thinking he would average approx 8 yards per punt more per kick and also be more accurate and better hangtime ect. If he can improve their net punting by 7 yards per punt that would add 46 net yards each game on average. Let's face it.. This is a team that's gonna be punting a lot here

It could be a case where they are going to be paying him a lot of money for a punter and want to make sure he’s still in good shape and can be as much of an impact punter as possible. It’s a good move for a team that is going to have to rely on good special teams, defense and ball control to compete in the west.

With Jabar Westerman being released by Montreal I wonder if Winnipeg will go after him? He could really help the team solidify a Canadian position on the defensive line. Between him, Thomas and a draft pick they could get that done.