SpeedFlex27

Will the Riders move Hardrick to LT??

He didn'tcare about the Stamps or a new stadium. He just cared about the photo opp.

I just got back from Arizona...

I remember Banks pounding his fists on the ground after his TD was called back. That guy doesn't have a lot of great memories when it comes to the Grey Cup.

Yeah, I guess. I wasn't anyway. It's not easy being a PR player. Not getting the reps in practice yet has to be ready to go at anytime. And the money as a CFL player isn't that great. Some of these guys do it for the love of the game hoping for a chance.

I don;t think any of us were dissing Richmond. He was a PR player for a long time & an opening on the OL finally opened up. He wanted more money, didn't get & surprisingly retired. That's quite an either/or scenario. Most players would tell their agent to find another team to play for with the most money available. I do wish the guy the best with the rest of his life. No hard feelings from me.

Don't be surprised if he shows up coaching high school or the Rifles in the future. Most of these guys try to give back when their playing days are over.

It's well & good for Argo management to stand firm & not overpay any of your star players just on principle. However, like Nero watching Rome burn as he played his fiddle once too mzny players leave then it's impossible to repair unless they rebuild. I think we'll finally find out what kind of a head coach Ryan Dinwiddie is...

I think Bluto is having a bad day.

If Plan B is to retire if you don't get your Plan A then sayonanra. The guy had a chance to move up in the pecking order & chose not to. As a fan, I thank Drew for his efforts but I guess that it's time to move on.

Schoen & Bailey in one day!! Happy beyond Heaven they're both back. I can relax now as getting just one of those guys was Job #1. So, signing both is outstanding. Walters is a genius & to think we nearly lost him.

Bailey is a loyal "foot soldier" as a receiver. A complete player & does whatever he is asked to do. I hope we can keep him.

We start the season so early now that the GC is wrapped up mid November. There might be the odd year where it's minus 25 with a foot of snow on the ground but that'll be the exception & not the rule. So, teams can still load up on the passing game rather than buckle down for a frozen field & frigid temps. My point is the run game is important in the playoffs but it isn't as important as it used to be.

I think anyone who seriously thought that the Bombers would have moved on from Zach Collaros just to keep Brown were out of touch. That was never going to happen. Besides, Brown isn't here anymore.

Agree, I think people wanted us to move on from Thomas, Briggs, Schmekel & other players. Not players like Hardrick & other starters. More of a rearranging of the deck chairs & not a massive rebuild.

When you compare Winnipeg to QC is there a big difference?

We have to sign Gray first. Though, Yoshi's signing in Regina may hasten that now. Good luck to him with the Riders. He's going to need it.

There are still lots of issues across the league. Remember Randy Amrosie told a Commons Committee in 2020 when he was trying to secure funding from the feds to have a season that the league was losing $20 million dollars a season pre pandemic as of 2019. I don't see any growth by the league financially or in the stands. The league is stagnant & looks lost with no real plan for growth. How long will these owners stay around if their team;s don't start turning a profit within a reasonable amount of time?

I don't agree. Where the Marquis Player Rul;e becomes a problem is in a non salary cap league as then the $600,000 you talked about can be used to up salaries as you said. In a hard cap era, the reality is any new money left over won't cause an inflationary explosion of increased salaries as there is a check in place to prevent it & there are penalties for going over the cap. And next season, the cap only goes up by $100,000.

Jean Drapeau? Behar would fit in nicely here.

No, no, no, no. You & some here are saying that the universe will explode if we add a marquis player rule. There will be a hard salary cap in place. One GM won't spend to $5.5 million if the cap is set at $5 million. All you'll get is ONE player per team not included in the cap. Teams will have some manoeuvering room to sign some of their star players that may leave for elsewhere or give them the financial room to sign a key free agent or three. Whatever they want to do. It won't be financial armageddon. As far as, "We tried this in the 90's", the CFL is a much more disciplined league now financially. We have better & more responsible owners than we did thirty years ago. No Murray Pezim's or Nelson Skalbania's in today's group. Yes, we have some **** GM's like Chris Jones but again he still has the hard cap to deal with if he wants to go nuts signing free agents.

No, it's not. You can think that but it's not true. Montreal even with a new owner is still not making money. Ottawa is losing money as they can't even get 17000 to a agme anymore. Hamilton is lucky to break even. Toronto is not making money. Regina has never recovered from the pandemic. Edmonto is broke & seriously considering private ownership. Calgary claims to have 13,000 season tickets but I went to a number of games last season & if there was 10,000 fans at McMahon Stadium that was a good day. Vancouver is still in trouble & can't fill the stadium more than 25,000. If Doman gets tired of losing money then the team is in trouble.

If the salary cap goes up $100,000 a year & you have one player per team who is a Marquis player geting paid outside the cap how is that going to make everyone want $25,000 more as per your example? The salary cap isn't drastically going up but money is being circumvented to help create financial flexibility on the roster. To retain top end players like Dalton Schoen while paying one elite player like a Zach Collaros on every team not included in the cap.

The league is almost under now. Nothing has changed.

I don't get how you're equating a Marquis Player Rule to inflating an already tight salary cap. The MPR is outside the salary cap so it's a separate entity. One has nothing to do with the other. The salary cap can remain the same from one year to the next but adding the MPR suddenly opens up over $500,000 for the Bombers in the case of Zach Collaros. It won't inflate the salary cap per se but it gives teams that have what they consider an elite player more wiggle room to sign players inside the cap.