wbbfan

New Rourke was a gamble for sure, though his high ability to reach his ceiling is much, much better than Elgersma's. Even with the injuries. It almost always makes sense to take a low-cost shot at a high upside QB. It's been an extremely long time since the QBing in the cfl was in a good place. It's certainly not the worst for his development. If he gets another NFL camp invite and preseason action, it's probably best for his development. Closely followed by if he came up here right after being cut last year. His chances of making an NFL roster are basically zero. He could make a PR, though that would leave him in a tough spot for next year, where he still won't make a roster and also won't be able to develop more on the bench. Pay-wise, yeah, he is walking himself into a minefield. By the time he is out of the rookie Canadian money range at this point, his NFL window will be damn close to closed. He hasn't made much since turning pro, and he's barely played. That's rough to dig out of.

If he doesn't get another NFL camp invite, he should be here for camp. He got a lot of workouts and no offers. It's hard to say if that's a good thing for camp, but it sure seems like a bad thing for him since he doesn't have one currently. If he doesn't have a plan to be here for camp and doesn't have an NFL camp invite, I'd be shopping his rights hard. If he gets another NFL offer, I'd be shopping his rights soft and be looking to flip him as soon as he was willing to come up mid-season. Mid-season QB drought is real. Having a guy like him is an asset to a desperate team. I'm not losing my mind over his lingering down south. The amount of time he's spent out of football and off the field, the time it's been since he played a regular-season game, all of this reduces his value to me. You expect a Canadian QB who played CIS ball to be up here fairly quickly if you draft him. Choosing to sit out for workouts, a UFL non-roster spot, and NFL combine cup holder raises red flags about his intangibles. And he needs to be a high-intangible guy to succeed. He's a depreciating asset hiding behind some smoke and mirrors. The whole thing hasn't come apart, but it isn't far from happening. It is far more concerning to me that we gambled a 2nd on this guy and didn't seem to have a hot clue about this.

yep. I wonder if the team knows that. He's getting some thing now atleast for development. Not just sitting on a couch waiting for a call and doing the odd work out.

Yep, this drought has been worse than the post season one. One of the few things you can count on in the cfl is draft is teams rushing to pick OL. Once the first one goes, we will see a run. And we will see teams reach to get them. Top end of this ol draft is pretty strong.

if not more

This would be a great time to give him a pay bump and lock him in for another 2 years or even more. but it would make more sense for him to bet on himself and play it out. especially if he has a strong camp

iirc this is wallace’s last year on his rookie deal. I would be open to moving wallace, but only for a younger equally high upside ni ol who will be under control for a while. Well that or a qb but i don’t think there is a qb on the market to make that deal. Vaccaro and henning are extremely high upside guys available. I hope that we grab one of those two.

At that point we clearly will be talking about the TC MVP, who will be cut before he can be handed the trophy. I don't see any great football names as of yet. So I'm pulling for it to be major williams so we can have some major paine gifs in chat when he makes plays

100%, this stretch is awfully slow. Vaccaro at 4th? Yes please. I'd love Henning as well. Cenacle is a make-or-break pick for scouts. His testing and knee injuries are massive red flags. 4.8 40 is turning the wrong kind of heads. Very good 3 cone, middle of the pack at best short shuttle, and declined to do the bench press or any of the jumping tests. His pre-injury unofficial jump numbers and 40 were fringy to begin with. Is he healthy? Does he have enough left in his legs to make plays in the cfl? You like his hands, size, build, and how he plays with the ball in his hands. As well as his production. Needs real polish in terms of route running, tons of talent in the kid though. It's a weak draft for WRs, but to take him high you really gotta have a good read on him as a player, person, and health wise.

Siskey didn’t give us many hints as to who the starter will be. That said, based off of our conversations with Tyler and HC A.J. McCarron – we’d predict that Corral is leading the way, with Elgersma in a close second – and Michael Hiers right behind him. Sounds like elgersma has had a pretty good camp down in the ufl as well

Before the current UFL, they did play some. Currently, the pay has not met the requirements to get the passport. Is the UFL a dead end? No. Is it a (better) pipeline to being more than TCF in the NFL? Also no. Most positions would be better off coming up here imo. Though some exceptions do exist. Specifically, QBs, TEs, special teamers, interior OL, and some defensive tweeners who'd be out of a position up here.

Idk how they run their camps down the UFL, but a 4th arm for camp would make a lot of sense. It is a shorter, earlier season so I can see not needing 5, but just 3 would be pretty surprising to me. Still, to your point, Elgersma has to be expected to be the 4th man on the chart. 99% of the time, especially in this day and age of the cfl. Yep. Even pro polish. If im looking at a guy who had a so so camp and some good pre season action, vs a guy who sat on a PR for 2 full years im gonna lean towards the guy with 2 years too. Right decision, love that guy, hope he has a brilliant post playing life and maybe coaching career. Or just volume. Especially if you need to push Wrs/Dbs. You need arms to do that.

Yep. The random chuckitius he comes down with is pretty bad. Doesn't seem to matter how many DBs are in the area; if he has it in his mind to chuck on that snap, it's going deep. OFC we want to win the cup every year. But the realistic hope for me is that we have a pre-Zach 2019 type team building again. Where the D/teams went out expecting to have to win the game every week. And won many, many games. Rebuild the team into one where every unit feels like the QB of the team with the need to propel us to a win. That way if we find a qb worth growing with, or get another older guy we have the supporting pieces to dominate again.

It's true, but there are other factors that make it less likely for us. Like, none of them were turning 38 years old when they had the comeback. Doing that in your early 30s is very different than doing it at 40. None of them had the massive list of serious injury concerns Zach has faced his whole career. Zach already had one miraculous career resurgence, and it wasn't one big injury that held Zach out or back last year. He's been held back by a big old stack of medical issues for the last 2 years. We will be giving Zach basically the best case scenario this year. More OL talent than you could shake a stick at. Seriously, our send best OL unit this year is better than the best of the last 2.5 years or so. Rbs and depth, WRs with top-end talent, and an OC that is basically hand-picked for him. I hate that we are tied to Zach; I hate even more that we have no contingency plan. I hate most that we had no real way of doing any better at QB this offseason. But it is what it is. Have to hope for betting QBing room next year at this point.

rest of that list is trash but i can’t argue with out spot

Is he that much of one? Idk. I don't think you actually know till the guy comes back. Very strong community guy.

try to retain extra pick value at the top of this draft. it’s probably gonna be rather thin for our needs. I love manu and his upside, but vaccaro has similar upside with less long term flight risk. Manu could start for two years and be gone again to the nfl, would probably be a big fa flight risk. yeah, franchise anchor inside maybe c maybe g. Strong chance to be here and stay up here. He’s basically the best balance of upside, and pick security we see. i’d do that if that’s what it took.

I like Elad well enough, worry he might be a high floor low ceiling guy. Higher than where Id want to take him, but he probably will go high. Could have a great fit here if he eased us out of using a DI for the dime db. I LOVE me some Rohan Jones. But he is gonna get a good long look down south. He's a big TE with great hands, he's an athletic outlier, and equally an analytics darling/outlier, and he's even flashed some very good blocking game. If a team is gonna start him and reshape their formations around him, he could be a star. Play him as a flex TE/slot/H-back. He's returned kicks, run the ball, he's deadly downfield, but you could run a screen game up here with him as well. Too good a chance he sticks in the NFL for far to long to risk that high a pick with imo. Demontagnac is the type of wr you're probably gonna be stuck with in this draft if youre looking for one. And we are. Again, I'd rather take that risk later on. I'd love to have Vaccaro come home, but I'm not holding my breath. I'd love to work a trade for the rights to Manu for him actually. As manu is coming closer and closer to running out of leash down south. If he doesn't find a way/place to get regular reps this year, and stay healthy, good chance next year hes up here.

Low pay, and aiming at that will get you there. The thing is, most rookies are on pretty low contracts once they pay taxes and convert, not to mention living expenses being up here. After all that, even if you come in at 100k, what are you sending home? 25-30 maybe? For anyone with a family, it isn't a living wage being a rookie QB up here. Id say they have good talent. Skill levels, I mean, you always end up picking a tool kit that balances one of arm strength, and accuracy/touch. That's really all throwing sports. And part of the struggle in developing QBs. No different than MLB teams developing pitchers. The throwing talent is completely separate from throwing athleticism, and extraordinarily nuanced. You usually hope to end up with a guy who throws just hard enough and has the ability to put the ball where it needs to go, or a guy with a cannon and athleticism who is as much playing spray and pray in the pass game. Intangibles can be tough to quantify, beyond what you'd expect as well. Because basically all the QBs coming up are at best 2-year starters, it is very hard to tell what is a product of an intangible and what is a fluke or other factors. Back in the day, when every QB going pro was a 3-4 year starter, and a 3-4 year HS starter, you could get a much better evaluation of the guy. Yeah, I mean, teams and players don't want to wait. But at the same time, you only learn so much on the bench. I think young prospects need more seasoning in the first year and a half or so, then after that point. You really have to stress test them. Practice isn't a source of that at all anymore. So we see young guys who have sat for a year or two, know the system, understand most of the nuances of the game, but haven't been battle-hardened enough to be able to make use of those assets. If I were running a team, this is what I would do. Break down the QB prospects into 2 lists. Long list guys, and short list. Long list guys are ones that you've scouted extensively and are ready to keep around for 2 years, almost no matter what. Like how we waited out dru browns early struggles. The short list is guys who have the raw tools you like and may or may not be available. These range from flyers to guys you would watch for a few months to a season to get a better read on while they are on the team. Bring in 4-5 max of these guys. Assuming you have no real QB2, but a starter. You do install with your starter and give heavy, heavy rep time to the prospects. You likely would be lucky to have more than 1 long list guy at a time. So 3-4 short list guys, and as you see critical red flags, you replace them with other short list guys. Mainly, a lack of mental toughness, mental ability to read/progress/improvise, or a lack of the balance of touch/accuracy/release/strength required. You break camp with 3 on the ar, but any time you get one, you should take a vet for QB2. So you end up sitting with 2-3 developmental guys. Any long list guy, or a short list overachiever, goes on the 6-game out of camp. You test the mettle of the remaining kids, cycling them through pr, scout team, heavy drill use, and short yardage stuff on the ar. As they break, you replace them. At 6 games, if any are left standing, you switch them for the first group and sit them on the ir for 6, giving the first group a chance. So you sit a max of 2 QBs on the IR, with a starter/backup, and 2 guys going from pr to ir fighting for a spot. Repeat that grinder until you have 2-3 guys who are at least ready to be between qb2/3. Guys, you can't expect to easily replace them with free agents. Then, you run the blender again with them. You do this and hope to go into the next camp able to move on from QB2 or not being crippled if you lose qb 1. To run this blender, you need to be airlifting and cycling DBs and WRs as well. You can't really practice with QBs facing a real rush, but you can run a ton of Skelly. And you force them to run it on double time to create that friction to struggle against. You call snap, get the QB the ball, and he has to rely on post-snap read and reaction. Shorter than 5-second routes till whistle and next QB up. You'd also need more offensive coaches than D to facilitate running this. You'd each scout to dedicate more time to QBs than the rest, or maybe 1-2 almost full-time on QBs. You probably need to have 2 years to get to the point you want to be at. But most teams' QB plan amounts to either, Hope you hit the lotto, Hope your guy doesn't get hurt/diminish/retire/leave in FA, or Hope someone else can develop a guy who goes to FA that you can poach. Which is how you end up with 40 year old qbs with injury records longer than all the pages Stephen King has written. We are on the cusp of losing BLM, Zach, and Harris in this league. MBT and Masoli are basically done in all but paperwork. Vaj and Fajardo are 33-34 with a ton of wear. The pest hasn't played well outside of or been healthy-ish since 23. As bad as the coming rule changes are, the biggest crisis that the league faces is QBing. If that ship isn't righted with a new group of younger talent, the rest of the stuff will just be the straw that breaks the camels back.

Thats not what is happening, but that leads you to lunch box qbs. Which did not work out well for AFL etc. Pretty much. I know the cost would be a lot. Probably the larger of the last 2 cap increases, if not both of them in size. And that doesnt even include paying starters more money. But as the qb goes, so goes the team, league, and sport.

Yeah, it'd be nice if they developed a great dining/pub area nearby. Polo Park isn't what it used to be lol, they dodged a bullet moving away from there. South Kenaston is better shopping now.

It'll be interesting to see how the turnout goes for the riders. 500 bucks for the year seems like solid value for season ticket holders. But that market is not as spend crazy as it was when they broke their streak. The stadium location for them is awful. (aside from the fact its in Saskatchewan) Having a tailgate spot with a park and ride might not be bad, except for the driver. Makes me glad for where the stadium is now. It was a risky move but once they figured out traffic a bit its been a massive W.

The NFL pr pays about 220,000 for less than 2 years of service and 300k for 2 years of service, for the whole year. Plus, a full camp is 10-20k plus any signing bonuses. So you're looking about 230-320k for a full year of camp + Tc. Add on the exchange rate of 35%+, and the taxation level is about half of what you pay up here. Roughly that means you'd have to make about 425k at minimum to compete with a QB who goes through camp and sits on the pr the whole year. At that point, of course, you won't get those guys to give up on that chance and come up here. But that is the ballpark level of competition for rookie QBs. To improve our QB pool, I think you'd need to have rookies able to earn around 200k USD. 175k probably still makes an impact, 150k maybe. Last year, the 2nd tier vet backup QBs (Evans, Shiltz, Strev, etc.) made in the low 100k range. After taxes in American bucks, they are probably lucky if they bring home 60-70k. And you know the raw rookies are making even less than that. Triple that, and push that pay level down to the rookies. Then you'll see guys making the decision to stay in football and come up here who wouldn't otherwise, and see the guys who would come up here do so sooner.

Talent isn't the primary limiting factor. It's everything that comes after talent that brings success; that's what is lacking. Wilson has plenty of talent. Chase did. Grainger had crazy talent. We get raw talent QBs these days. It takes a lot to polish them if they don't wash out. And a whole lot of them do wash out. This isn't a bombers thing either; this is a league and football-wide issue. Half the starting QBs in the league are closer to pension than to college. More than half, frankly, suck at being a starting QB. The NFL is struggling for QBs, and they've opened wide the maw to vacuum up and hold as many guys as possible. The PR expansions and increases in pay mean we don't get a polished guy with talent anymore. The NIL money makes that problem even worse. Plus, the NFL has diversified in offensive systems along with the college game. No more do we see guys completely ignored because of the offence they ran. Why come up here and, at best, get to play behind a shaky OL (League and sport-wide OLs are struggling as well) and risk a poor quality of life for less money than you make as QB2 at a good program? You always have live and breathe football guys, but the modern generations of football players have far more diverse interests. It's no longer a prerequisite to love football more than a good quality of life. Also, the modern transfer window has hurt a lot of kids' development. Instead of toughing it out and earning a spot after 2 years, they transfer or drop down to juco to try and get a better starting job. The transfer window is fair for the kids, but it isn't an aid in developing QBs. It helps many positions, but not QB imo. Look at Elgersma, a relative unknown to most us scouts until he went pro (compared to us prospects that the scouts have watched since middle school), and he's still getting enough interest to linger on the periphery of the NFL. If he were a Texas/Florida/SoCal, etc. kid who had performed well in junior and high school, we'd never see him. We saw a few years ago Edmonton, Toronto, and Montreal dipped their toes into massive QB pools for camp. Talking 10-ish QBs or more. It failed miserably. What kids with talent need to develop is time and a lot of effort. They also need to have great intangibles, like Dru Browns mental toughness, in order to survive and embrace the grind to step up to qbing at the pro level. It's easily the hardest job in sports. A lot can, and has been said (by myself and others) about the negatives of our scouting and roster management/development strategy. If we see a red flag in the work ethic, ability to uptake the game, passion, or mental toughness of a QB, he is gone.

i mean our d would love playing him in scout team