Colin Unger

Can't believe Cottoy gets that kind of money. He must of really cashed in on a decent season last year. I wouldn't be happy with that kind of dead cap. Outside of offensive linemen I'd reserve that kind of money only for Canadians who would remain in the league if somehow their qualification as a Canadian was revoked. Even Gittens Jr is a bit questionable. Demski is a bargain. If Philpot continues this all season I could see him certainly being offered north of 250k. You could argue making him the highest paid receiver in the league even without his passport.

We end up playing extra Canadians because we have our Canadian positions where we have dedicated to drafting depth behind the starters and then we have several Canadians at other positions who are our best player or close enough to our best player at those positions. I don't favor this strategy but i do believe this is the rationale for what we're seeing. The thinking is that if you're going to start an extra american on the offensive line right now then you're not developing a Canadian at a position that we have committed to being Canadian and you risk a situation where injuries can dictate during a game that you actually have to bench an American starter mid game if your non-canadian position Canadian starters get injured. Again i believe this is the thinking but personally when you have some Canadians that are so weak as Thomas and all of our Canadians on the offensive line this strategy doesn't pass a cost to benefit analysis.

Id rather have Brady at what we are paying him then Ouellette at what he's getting paid. For our style of offence Brady is the exact kind of back we need. Its no surprise that the first time we really got him going this season was the first game we won. Beyond his abilities, his passport, and marketing benefits he's also a leader on the field and helps to establish a certain attitude and way of playing that helps us to win games. There are some other runningbacks in the league that are decent but nobody quite like BO IMO and there's no guarantee we're going to be able recruit anybody on his level when you look at the whole package he brings to the table. Right now I view him as the one player next to maybe Zack who's play can single handedly turn this season around. And Zach probably needs Brady Ball to be firing on all cylinders in order to be successful under these conditions.

Based on the body of work i wouldn't disagree. I would rate Streveler has the better overall runner. Basically he can do everything Crum can as a runner but with a much stronger body. Crum to this point has demonstrated superior passing.

I agree with this one in part. Dru Brown was far from a sure bet as a starter. It can't be argued that his play in Ottawa this year has been a step down from his play in Winnipeg last season. He looks to me like a Kevin Glenn in a best case scenario and Dru Tate in a worst case scenario. However to the point about how he would look just as bad as Zach in this offence. Well we would probably have surrounded him with better players. The point of it was to save money and get good value for Zach. Potentially, we could have traded him for a top notch younger Canadain offensive lineman, re-signed Hardrick and Bailey.

Some bomber related updates from PFF from our win vs Ottawa Tyrell Ford – DB | Winnipeg Blue Bombers | 75.6 defensive grade Tyrell Ford is the second highest ranked defensive back in the CFL after five weeks, showcasing his top-end ability to play the position. He was once again a pivotal piece for the Blue Bombers defence in Week 5, allowing only one first down in passes thrown in his direction. Pivots have started avoiding Ford as of lately, the highest compliment a defensive back can get. Brady Oliveira – RB | Winnipeg Blue Bombers | 83.6 offensive grade Winnipeg finally found a way to get into the win column and a lot of it has to do with their star running back. Oliveira had the highest receiving grade (90.7), third highest offensive grade (83.6) on his way to 129 rushing yards over 23 carries.

Minus Fayad as an option.

So if Garbutt tweaks something this week coming off a long injury what is the plan exactly at defensive end?

What happens with the guaranteed portion of Zach's contract if we trade him? Only a team re-signing a player can offer guaranteed money and only on a 3 year deal if I'm correct. Does his new team inherit the guaranteed portion of the contract or does Winnipeg still have to pay that portion?

I was hoping once Garbutt was healthy we would have him and Fayad so we could focus Adams at DT where i think he is more effective.

So you’re saying on the plays where Streveler is qb Zach’s not really going to be doing much? That would present some issues

Why would I do that? When did I say go a man short?

Id like to see a scheme also when we have Zach back where essentially there's a 3 back set. Streveler, BO, and Zach. At the last moment on of Zach and Streveler motions to receiver and the other slides over and accepts the shotgun snap. This would prevent defensenses from doing too much to shut down the RPO stuff with Streveler because until 2 second before the snap they have no idea who's going to be in a qb.

And granted he was mostly playing against sub CFL talent in the 2nd half and largely 4th quarters of games. I'm not suggesting making him a drop back passer. But if we are to ever rely on him as our guy we're going to have to device something that allows him to be successful and stay healthy.

My sentiment is that he practiced in the NFL all those years and was basically used as a real quarterback and not a gadget guy. His second last year in the NFL he had such an amazing pre-season as a passer that they decided to find a way to keep him around. And he did show some things versus Calgary that tell me there's some potential there. But the way things are going it seems unlikely to materialize. I think there would certainly be growing pains and at least at the moment we aren't in a position to suffer while he makes mistakes and learns from them. The best bet for him to learn is when he's playing and teams find a way to deal with the RPO stuff. Gray getting a chance at tackle was likely something that might have happened had he become a dominant guard.

In terms of Collaros being back next week so they wouldn't consider the idea of needing Streveler the last the season. Yeah that was the entire point I was making. If all Streveler can be is a run first QB then we never should have gone into the season with just him and Wilson as backups.

Hence what happened to him in Hamilton. Even when Lawler is back i think we are better off with Clercius starting over a rookie american and start another american offensive lineman. I agree with that. But they should be proactive in fixing the offensive line which doesn't seem to be a priority.

The annoying part about all of this is we could literally be starting 4 americans on the offensive line if we wanted to right now and we choose not to start even one additional offensive lineman.

As much as we'd like for that to be the offence until we fix the offensive line and get Lawler back I don't think it will be. With the lack of any real attempt to fix the offensive line with new players and the lack of any improvement from out Canadians on the offensive line its hard to imagine at this point that the offensive line will be fixed before next season. And Streveler isn't going to last doing it. I doesn't right now even look like Brady's body is physically up for the task. On top of looking at making some personnel changes to the offensive line i think we should also be looking for an american running back who we can roster who can do some of the same physical running that Brady does. It would be nice to make come out in the first quarter with Streveler and Brady and physically beat up teams and then when the defense is warn down bring in Zach and do some passing. I just don't see this style of offence lasting for much longer. I bet Zach is back starting next week.

I strongly disagree. They would make some changes to this strategy if they were faced with going the rest of the season with Streveler/Wilson because of how impossible it is that Steveler could survive the strategy we used in the first half. He almost didn't survive on half of football playing that way. And he showed in the 4th quarter last week that he does have some ability as a passer. I think what happened yesterday was that unexpectedly the strategy they came out with early ended up being successful enough and Ottawa failed do score points so we continued with this strategy at least for the first half and then used Streveler more as a decoy in the 2nd half. I doubt the gameplan was to play like that for the whole game.

So what you guys are essentially saying is that the way Streveler was used in the first half looked like something that was sustainable over an 18 game schedule? It's nice to see that Unger derangement syndrome is still alive and well within the usual suspects here.

I think we had a great strategy in this game for this game. They decided to optimize the game plan for victory rather than Chris Streveler's longevity. And it worked. I bet they're certain the Zach is back next week the way they sacrificed Streveler'd body in the first half. This wasnt the time to stretch Steveler and help him to grow as a passer. This was a game we absolutely needed.

Until Zach is back does it really make a difference who's at receiver?

I sure hope he's in game shape. Its not like he got cut out of training camp.

Its pretty frustrating that a deal with Whitehead, if it is in fact complete, took this amount of time to actually come to fruition. He missed a whole additional week of practice. Could be a while before he's in the lineup. We're desperate for wins right now. Another couple of losses and the media is going to start talking about how hard the coaches cap makes it to fire people.