Colin Unger

Seems like teams may be using the football operations cap of a more polite way to give people their walking papers. Anyone we should cap out of the organization?

The riders have been spending 3.5 million per year on football operations than Winnipeg. Aside from scouts, players and coaches what else would that budget extend to? I guess some of it could be going to a large fake injury list that didn’t count against the cap.

It sounds like NBC was holding off on the AAF because they were more interested in the XFL. When you look at the team locations on a map the XFL is more interesting to national networks. The AAF only seems to capture the southern portion of the map. They seem to be targeting more markets that might have a local fanbase who would actually go to a game where the XFL is moreso targetting a wide television audience.

I’m pretty sure that the job would go to Buck. I’d be tempted to take a serious look at Ryan Dinwiddie. I was impressed with how he handled being rushed into the OC job in Montreal and he’s since coached under Dave Dickenson and could maybe duplicate what they’ve been doing so well in Calgary.

Whoa.. Paul Lapolice just got downgraded to second-best offensive co-ordinator who isn't his team's head coach.

It seems like the Canadian Mafia are a lot nicer than their name suggests. We always seem to get the short end of the stick when it comes to being ruthless.

We may not need to worry about his play calling much longer.

Maybe someone else has a better memory than me. In fact likely most of you do... I seem to remember some sort of new policy in the league where teams actually have to provide compensation when they hire an assistant coach who is under contract with another team... if so would we not be in line for compensation if Lapo gets a head coaching gig?

That’s also 550 k that we’d spend elsewhere. There like 350 free agents. I would think Jeffcoat is the more likely of the two to sign in the nfl.

This is good news for the Never Lapo's on the board. He might actually get considered by the loser of the Claybrooks sweepstakes now.

Being physically limited and playing on a team with a subpar receiving core can lead to between the ears problems cropping up. He needs to go home and get healthy and the team needs to focus on upgrading the receiving core for him. I honestly think Streveler is saving Nichols job right now. The fact that Streveler is so promising leads me to believe they are fine with sticking with Nichols as a bridge guy. If there was no shining star on the horizon they might be more interested in looking at other options.

Im not looking for an excuse for his play in 2018. I'm looking for a reason to believe he can play like he did in 2017.

The disadvantage the CFL has here is that field hockey is one of the most popular sports in India. I mean.. I moved to India it would be a lot easier for me to figure out field hockey than Cricket for example... Football is very hard to understand if you didn't grow up with it.

The league should really start a Punjabi language broadcast like the nhl has done... would probably be more effective than the diversity campaign was.

Wouldn’t be surprised if all if he goes under the knife pretty soon here. Hopefully he can get back to 2017 mobility.

I’m not convinced. Lapo builds the offence around the players he has. Both Khari Jones and Darian Durant put up massive passing numbers under Lapo. When your receivers are sub par and Nichols with a knee brace is your qb you have to take a different strategy to maximize wins. I’m hoping for an upgraded receiving core and Nichols can return to 2017 level of mobility when he averaged 7.2 yards per carry.

The biggest advantage Winnipeg has is we can build our cap around his contract. BC most likely tries to build their cap around Mike Reilly and will have to offer Bighill money from whatever is left over in late Feb. I also wouldn’t be surprised if BC wants to go with Herdman and spend money elsewhere.

Yeah. So far he’s been better at finding defensive backs than receivers. Just like his playing days

Time to sell high on Neufeld. Sign Chung and Goosen and trade Neufeld for RJ Harris and picks. You have to create an opening for a guy like Gray. To me he was better the day he was drafted than Chung was the day he was drafted and also has a higher ceiling.

Maybe they like that kind of thing and will add Jennings as their backup

I guess some may go... Doesn't seem like a big payday for them since the AAF season will already have started by the time they would be available to sign in that league. The cfl used to let players out early to go to the XFL but with 3 year contracts in the AAF and no chance of the player returning for the next CFL season i don't see that happening.

I'm not saying no players will sign there straight out of college... But the guys who are willing to sign early are not of the same quality. For example, Streveler, Sayles, and Bryant all signed with the Bombers in May. The list of newcomers signing January/Feb is a list of guys who didn't make the team.

They come to the CFL but typically don't sign until after the undrafted free agent period. Like Streveler, for example, waited that out before signing. Even Canadians who get drafted into the CFL typically exhaust nfl tryouts first. You're scraping the bottom of the barrel to sign an NCAA player who doesn't think they have any shot at an NFL contract.

Traditionally they all wait to see if they get drafted. Players are 100% focused on the NFL until such a time as that door is closed. They would risk getting hurt in the AAF and missing their shot.

The CFL needs to think about these new leagues in their new CBA but I'm not too worried about it. It probably won't have a massive impact on the CFL's opportunity to sign players out of college. The fact is that any college player worth anything is going to wait until after the NFL draft and the undrafted free-agent signings before going to an alternative league. Then at that point they will be faced with signing in the CFL and making money pretty much right away or wait 8 months for a chance to collect an AAF paycheck. The AAF will be more of a league for NFL cuts and the CFL will still be finding those young players who didn't get drafted. The Zyltra/Streveler type guys will still come up here. It will be harder to sign late NFL cuts though during the CFL season.