wbbfan

He didn't do amazing, that is for sure. but he also got single digit reps. Dobson was much worse for much longer. He was much better in 21 than kola has ever been. But I mean, it's poop or get off the pot time with a lot of these guys. Well past it even. I'm not saying we are wrong to be out of the market on every single guy. But if we were in the market, I think only Chungh and goosen were gone. I don't think BC made him the highest paid ol, but it was an over pay. Especially for what we had in stock. If we retain a fraction of that list, this is a whole different team. Couture, and Desjarlais are the biggest misses. I fully believe both are back with reasonably competitive offers. 25 year old elite NI ol with an incredible knack for setting the aggressive physical tone, that is gonna get the big pay day every time in the cfl. We ended up paying lawler nearly the same money he had in edm, we haven't saved a bunch of money from losing these guys. I agree from Elis perspective. I would too. Desjarlais was gutting to see go to ott. Gray never settled properly at guard. (he shouldve been a RT, and shouldve replaced hardrick.) Couture leaving was awful too. Lawler I get letting walk. Grant going for like 10k? Hansen who took a cut with toronto any way cus we over paid him the previous time, lots of meat on the bone imo. Fact is, in the cfl, you just can not let that amount of OL especially candians walk for that many years with out gutting your franchise. Goosen, suhk, couture, bonds, hardrick, desjarlais, we lost a better ol than we had half of last year. How do you pay a guy like kramdi and lawson (and I love lawson) top notch money but cheap out on guys who brought you to grey cup wins?

I do agree we need that nasty guy like desjarlais. Ever since he left we haven’t had that. He set the tone and every one else tried to match it. Wallace could be that guy, don’t know for sure though. We need that back for sure. I don’t think we actually had that on the dl though. We could sure use it though. “Back home” is an excuse. Half our team is American and play away from home the whole season. Who is our last true home grown ol? Sheridan? We weren’t competitive in the pricing of any of those guys. Just like we weren’t in many free agent departures. Kongbo, sayles, other sayles, jsk, lawler the first time etc. I think we felt as though the next man up would always be a couture, desjarlais, stove, Alford etc. and we got to a point where the cupboards ran dry, and our ability to keep/attract top guys suffered because we wouldn’t give up on vets that will play for cheap. Case in point, Tui Eli has dressed for 52 games as a bomber. This is the 6th year since he turned pro. He started 5 games including the west final in 21, and I think one game since then. Kola has played 62 games in his career. We are soo married to maintaining the status quo and the value of the 6th ol, that we’ve made double switches on the ol to keep him as the 6th guy and play rookies inside. I fully believe in what he can do from what I’ve seen. If the bombers don’t, they should’ve moved on a while ago. If they think continuity with the 6th ol in a sub pack for a hand full of snaps is worth as much as an every snap ol, then we are pooched. Has familiarity bred contempt in the bomber brass? Sure looks like it. Has it been addressed now? Think we will know a week or two into free agency, if not camp through pre season for sure.

I did see Harris talking about yoga and movement stuff late in his time here. Gsp worked with ido portal, who is the greatest movement coach in history. And his head trainer, firas zahabi, is among the very best at running camps and managing fighters training needs. (Up there with winklejohn) every camp and fight cycle, firas basically tore down gsps game plan and style to rebuild and evolve it. At times completely changing it. He micro managed gsps to training regiment to an extraordinary degree. Every one saw movement coaches become popular from ido/firas and then condits crazy guy. But what a lot of people didn’t see is gsp doing some thing different every training day. In camp or out of it. A lot of people have tried to replicate what tristar and Jackson-winklejohn do/did. Almost none have been successful. Plus, gsp didn’t need a heavy active SnC routine (which if it brings any/enough value to fighting has been widely debated for decades) he basically never stopped training camp during his run. He was training 4 plus days a week multiple times per day in multiple disciplines year round. And his athletic potential was already maximized. The guy had no off button. Probably a half baked plan by Harris to try to shed the responsibility, time and work of football SnC. Which again, is awful for most people who aren’t gymbred. I’ve also seen people who get too deep into yoga, who end up doing more harm than good. (It’s more a mental failure forcing things rather than a yoga issue). In order to cheat flexibility they end up messing up joints and soft tissues rather than gaining musculoskeletal flexibility. I could see Harris having messed him self up stretching too hard/forcing it rather than stretching smarter. Billboard material, or maybe banner material on this site lol

Lmao accurate. Height in a rb is the most over rated attribute in football. Shorter the better imo. I cringe watching 6’+ RBs run through the trenches. gre hee heeasy. lol. I quit competing in kickboxing because I’d rather get punched in the face than run too. The dedication of guys who love playing football soo much that they do the required SnC work year after year is incredible. Most sports you don’t need that. Football demands it. Unless you’re blink lol. I played and worked with guys who were crazy talented but wouldn’t even do the ice bath to safe their life. That’s why to me it’s the best sport and the best athletes. You can’t be slow, you can’t be weak, you can’t be lazy, and you can’t be soft. Many sports you can be most or all of those.

I'm not even mad tbh. He was at least soo transparent and straight forward that it's hard to hate him. He lived every moment like it was his last. Played hard, partied hard, slept... honestly I wouldn't be surprised if he slept in the locker room with some of the turn arounds I saw from him partying to playing. I loved football as much as any thing in my life till my kid was born. When I turned to coaching low level I was trekking across the continent to every back water imaginable to participate in clinics from positional to coaching. Awful trips on shoe string budgets staying in places soo greasy it make the trailer park boys blush. The wish to play more was as strong after as it was when I got to play, but still I hated the weight room, and the strength and conditioning stuff. Some people just aren't wired for that. I'd rather work stupid hard than lift weights or run. Maybe thats part of why I love blink soo much. He's my spirit animal.

I actually think we have the core, if healthy. Wallace, and randolph could be impact players for us this year on the OL. On the DL I really like woods, Adams, fox, lawson and what garbutt rounded into late. I think we need to make some tough moves to get away from some old guys, and prioritize spending on the lines in free agency. 2 players, 1 end and C or tackle, away from having the best line play in the league again. And, the continued development of our young guys. Perfect world, we make a splash move at C, and DE. Garbutt rotates as a di, WJ rotates in the 30 to 40 swap, jake is either cut or the last NI on the roster, and we heavily rotate fox/lawson/woods and adams inside out. Randolph steps up and becomes the RT, and a new C stabilizes the interior. Wallace steps up and takes a G job. Maybe thats dobson, maybe its paddy rotating and playing the 6th ol.

Im honestly un sure. All the money they keep spending in FA, this year they finally aren't jettisoning half their previous years FA hall. But it is hard to know what any team is doing cap wise, or if penalties even exist in reality.

Offensive issues have been useage as well. Kola, rostering augustine and countless DI's only to never use them, etc. But more so the O has been in game management. I can list lots of guys who have had their useage bemoaned on here. Guys like Agudosi, our KRs, kola, eli, gray, dobson, the early season walking corpse version of neuf, the last year of hardrick, Lofton, using randolph and vanterpool in the wrong spots at times, plus the punter, our 3rd imp wr for much of last year as well. Id also add that the D last year after the first few was very good. Much better than the previous years D. The 23 D under performed a lot imo.

I could see him replacing Griffin as the rotational Wil on 2nd down and passing plays, with griffins moving into a starting role. Does the harris thing feel like when Dressler came here to you? Dressler never had the animosity here harris did there, at least through the lenses of my rose tinted glasses. Also, what is your guys expectation for free agency? Do you guy think the riders will be big FA buyers again?

Every thing Jones forward is varying degrees of dumpster fire. Dickie was red hot peak trash though. Atleast jones lead them to some wins.

Me either. They were all over social media as well though, and even in the games with giant needles made out of cardboard n junk. All the vitriol over the brawl where the rider players jumped Harris when he scored a td.

Yep. He was such an anomaly. It was like he played in fast forward.

accurate. that is an interesting thought. Thing is, he had excellent running power against big guys. And like harris, brady etc, he did an excellent job of not letting dbs square up to him. His COD and acceleration is still the greatest I've seen in pro football. Generally I would agree that most quick type guys from the past would struggle with smaller more athletic backers today. But blink was an outlier of outliers. His speed at 3 and 5 steps would still be elite in the NFL 10 years from now. Now, if only he would tuck in his dang jersey he probably could've doubled his yards after first contact lol.

They were solid, but they were not top tier by any means. Blink made them look a lot better than they were. After every thing that transpired with him and riders/fan base, it's pretty wild.

Yep. I think they just do things in their own sweet time and don’t gaf if it has negative side effects.

https://www.nfl.com/prospects/quandre-mosely/32004d4f-5312-7483-d636-d6156facd5c6 4.38 40. Looks like a super dynamic athlete with tremendous size for db. His fit for our system is exceptional as well. Blue chip prospect for sure. Also a really big factor is hes a huge teams cover guy. Looks like a more athletic version of Cole/ayers. Much leaner than Ayers and a bit leaner than Cole, but same kind of tool set. I bet it’s gonna be Mike miller.

Blink has always been a guy who was considered to have coasted on his raw talent. And largely for good reason. But Harris isn’t that far off his standard. Both guys had tons of heart and all the effort you could ask for, when they were on the field in a game. Other wise? Cruise control. Harris had 3 great years here behind one of the greatest o lines to ever play in the cfl. He had 2-3 really good other seasons and almost as many meh seasons. 6/8 years blink went over 1k. First year he was in a 3man back field, last year injured and traded. Played with some of our worst ols. 4 years in a row over 1500 rushing. 3 years in a row over 2k from the line. How good could blink have been behind a line like that, against a league filled with small lbers? Harris was a great back. 70% talent, 30% effort. If I’m picking a rb to coach guys, Carey is high on the list. I put the over under at 2 years for Harris coaching in ssk and the cfl.

Right? Honestly this is gross for both of them.

Its all kind of blurred lines now. If you got a guy like cole who can play some sam and S and is really good on teams while also being able to play wil it's easy to see him as a 4th imp lber. Even Ayers, Could be groomed to do some of that and brings a ton of value on teams.

That’s a tough one. Not counting dbs taking half the snaps at wil last year and sams prior to Kramdi, we’ve frequently had 3 with a di lber playing teams. I believe we have a few times had 4 imp lbers just between wil and Mac. In 18 I believe we had all of biggie, wild, jsk and kyrie on the ar once or twice.

Dare to dream but with the bodies we have already idk. Imagine if Walter’s whole thing about over spending cus we host the gc this year was for deception lol. Fa starts and we go full bc scooping guys. Man that’s be soo sweet. ol and dl are what I’d really like to see us spend on. And spend well.

My concern is that by over pricing the secondary and Canadians, that we will lose many of Dobson, lawler, schoen, ford etc and have to replace them all with cheaper league vets who are slightly better than replacement level but much more expensive than replacement level players. If biggie is the only hard guy to let go of (and he’s the easiest by far imo) it’s not going to be a great off season. At that rate we will likely need one or more roty type first year guys.

Yep. Ford is high on the list of guys in the secondary I want to retain. But we are in a damn tight spot with soo many expensive dbs already. When I roughly broke down the league avg salary for the top 10 at each position group, it was clear we had a ton of guys over that amount and were over the average by a lot at some spots. Db and dl is where we’ve been saving money. It won’t likely be the case this year. Gotta cut from some where.

Could do a full roster of his man crushes. Heavy balls, sticky stala, every rider player ever etc

Thats it back to saskatchewan