3rdand1.5

Ok, yikes....Zach the game started already......blown coverage for a TD against, fumble on a return and now an illegal kick out of bounds...

BC should be good, but I am not sure they should be as good as media is hyping them up to be. Although they host the GC and VA is a very big play exciting guy to watch when he is on, so it is understandable that media will try to create hype and stories around this. As I mentioned above VA is and has always been a great athlete, but has had struggles in the mental portion of his game. Last year he for the most part didn't get too high or too low, and showed maturity and growth, it still begs to be seen if he can keep growing in that regard, or if as history has shown he falters back to his ups and downs. He also had a very good, very experienced receiving core at his disposal to use his strengths with, does he still have that with the high changeover in his starting receiving corpse? If he doesn't can, he successfully adapt to a different style of game, last year he lived and died on the "big play". The big question is, with Stanback the Lions do have a solid ground game, will they use it, will they use it enough to not become one dimensional and if they do will that affect VA's ability to get into his rhythm on the field. again VA was at his best and was very good, when he got into a rhythm and the big plays were happening. If they choose to use the run game enough, will VA be able to be patient and turn "it" on and off within a game to allow a run game to get established and then find that big play magic only in between running plays. I for one do not think BC will use the run game as much as even they want due to this. I predict they will start the year trying to establish a more balanced offence, but that this will come at the cost of VA doing what he does best, which is pushing the ball downfield. I predict after a few weeks they will go back to last years one dimensional big or bust offence, to get VA back into a groove.

Ah, who cares who starts, as long as they rotate through and keep guys fresh. At least this year we potentially have guys that can....

It shows 9 or 10 starting CDN, but I am fairly confident that with the guys we kept and the looks of it we will see a fairly heavy rotation on defence. We have a lot of import DL, and a few more import LB kept around. I for one could care less if the game one roster shows 10 or 11 CDN starters, and heck don't care if they all are on the field for the first respective side snap....as long as we rotate and keep guys fresh especially the front 7 on defence. I was rooting for Chris Smith and Kody Case, but it seems both got nicked, maybe we see one or both back. Mosses had the resume, but has had an injury history and rumor is he is injured again, so...maybe nothing or it could be his body just telling him it can't do it?? Petrishin has now been cut two CFL TC's, again maybe something we don't see with him.... On ward and upward and let's focus on how to best make life very difficult for Fajardo even with all those pesky CDN's......

They are nicer than the blue camo abomination we trotted out a few years back

I'm up and I'm down, I'm hot and I'm cold, I'm in and I'm out....I'm on a Morning Big Blue Forum..... I am looking forward to seeing the front seven on defence tomorrow

I am usually pretty bad at guessing but here we go West BC Wpg Sask Edm Cal East Mtrl Hammy Ott T.O

Case, Shmek and Kolankowski could field some pretty wicked hair flows..........

Could someone refresh my memory....how did Josh Johnson look in Regina?

My two cents... First year guys that show very well get PR/active roster rotation and grow and learn the CFL nuances and build chemistry etc. Second year guys that put in the time, looked really good over year one, got their feet wet and maybe had some active game day rotation and proved they have some chemistry, and picked up some nuances can push for active roster and playing time or if needs are made available starting spots Of course, there are some exceptions to this, but using this framework, who do people on here think are holdovers from last year that will push for starting or more active roles, and who do we think will be the "first year" guys we look to groom for 2025? Rarely does this team start raw rookies, so realistically even though as Booch has pointed out some do have better physical attributes and upside, let's look realistically within the framework of what we tend to do and look at year two or three guys to be excited to see get more play time and let's look at some of the guys Booch and others are really high on as options to make PR/active and be groomed. I for one am excited to see Fox and Habba. I think Cole could make a very good LB, and I am very excited to see if/who we may keep to back-up potential work in and groom at MLB. (Biggie is amazing...but father time never ever losses) I also question if Rosary could make JA expendable...that is my out of left field projection this TC (Rosary takes JA's roster spot)

An inside DL of Fox and Lawson with Jake and Schmekle rotating in and the next best Imp. on the PR or active as needed growing and learning is a fairly solid rotation that is budget friendly and all indications are responsibility sound and has developed chemistry. Unfortunately, we lost Lawson to what seems like a serious injury. No doubt Jake and Schmekle are not as great a rotation as it was with Lawson in. Maybe one of the other IMP. interior d-line not named Fox is better than Jake and Schmekle, and maybe one can get into the rotation but assignment responsibility and chemistry and personality etc. plays into the equation, it's not just about pure talent. How many times do we see sports teams with ridiculous high end talent lose out to teams with far inferior talent. It's not like Jake is terrible give him some benefit of the doubt. If we have Jake and Fox starting with Schmekle rotating to start the year it is what it is. Let's try to look at it glass half full.....with the injury to Lawson, one of the other interior D-lineman will get an extended look and more development time then they may have otherwise had, and because of that it may make our overall roster better.....

My two cents are this for week one. I believe barring further injuries that will be our starting D-line as Fatty listed or very close, and as GCn20 listed Cole/Kramdi being 1a/1b. Kramdi IMO will probably "listed" as the starter.

Looked like Jonathan Rosery was up with the 2nd team early today. He looked real nice in Monday's pre-season game. Could JA and his higher back-up salary be challenged??

So we were planning to start the season with a new CB, and a new DE and some tweaks on the interior DL, now we are lost our best CDN D-lineman, our allstar MLB and our other CB all to the 6 game before the season even starts.....whew oh and with a new DC....... I to a degree agree with some of Booch's and others sentiment about letting new guys get on the field, but at this point that is a ton of change. IMO too much change to have that many new guys regardless of how good they look or what they may have in potential. While I do agree that they may not be the highest potential guys, but Thomas and Schmekel will be needed in heavy rotation to start the year along the d-line, Caldwalder, Gauthier, and Kramdi will be needed in heavy rotation to start the year at LB. It hopefully will not be a long term thing with the injuries and it MAY allow a guy like Rivers, or Garbutt, or Mosses, or Petrishen as examples to get longer looks and some rotation to get familiar with the 3 down game and our system, which may pay dividends after Labour Day. If nothing else it will be an interesting defence this season at least for the first few weeks...

Thanks to the guys who clarified Chris Smith. I liked the way he attacked the ball and with speed. I mentioned it and Booch went a little more into it, Cruickshank didn't show well. He was too tentative IMO.

After sleeping on it and taking a step back, Strev. got comfortable, took a couple hits and seemed to find his groove-this is a very good sign The O-line struggled-but with it being televised...sort of...and all the rotation I could not pin point anything good or bad honestly Receivers, again hard to really judge, Strev didn't push the ball, and until Wilson got into a late game groove, our passing game was abysmal-Adams led the team I believe, our top draft pick scored, and red shoes had a couple nice grabs RB, looks like we have a great depth behind BO, perhaps a missed assignment on blocking-couldn't tell but the Strev. sack may have been a missed block by the RB? Other QB's-oh boy, the back to back picks, short one hops, balls behind, happy feet......let's hope if they get time in preseason game 2 they look better D-line-started off great, I think this was a strong point-Schmekel got a ton of play time LB's Mosses seemed to have "instinct" and was always around the ball when in, would like to see more of him in game 2- Karamoka looked good against back-ups, seemed to play very aggressive DB's hard to tell, but we gave up some passes against and let some receivers behind us Kicking, Castillo huge FG, Sheehan seemed to punt more traditional, Maestro didn't do himself any favours KR- Blackman went the wrong way, Cruickshank to me didn't seem to have "it", one of the returners really attacked the ball and seemed to have speed, but not sure who it was?? Kick coverage-was putrid! Penalties-far more than I expected It's preseason, it is what it is, a few good signs IMO but also a few concerning signs I will be watching hard in game 2 namely kick coverage, penalties...on to a long stretch of TC and game 2

We had an issue with Jeffcoat, he was a good guy all indications were he was a great teammate and when healthy a force, but.......he was in and out enough that we didn't really develop a replacement "rip the bandaid off" as someone above mentioned and overall, it hurst us. We are seeing the same with Biggie. I get he was hurst most of last year, but he was not good enough. Biggie is a perennial all-star, one of the best MLB to play and we got many great years out of him, unfortunately if we keep him in and out we will do the same thing we did with Jeffcoat. IMO at this point Biggie should be insurance only, park him on the 6 game and have a true open competition for MLB. If the guy we roll with falters Gauthier is a very serviceable stop gap, but I don't want him to be the main day one starter, and I really like the guy......

So Lemon is allowed to practice and rejoin the team with an appeal, Kelly was allowed to practice while suspended (until backlash changed that) Interesting....

I was trying to keep an open mind and consider the possibility that he was innocent, or it was a case of he said/she said maybe with some misunderstanding. I still say there is always two sides to every story and the truth always lays somewhere in the middle.....but.....as more comes out it sure looks like "trouble Chad" was at least partially at fault of what he was accused of and DID act inappropriately. As others previous mentioned, he has a history, the Argos knew this before they signed him and it appears they knew something was happening, at least to some degree they knew. The real troubling thing for me, is not that another athlete screwed up, it's that even still with all the information that has been released/leaked out, the optics of it from the Argo organization are blurry at best. I while not quick to judge, believe that, young or old, black or white, male or female, straight or other, able bodied, or disabled every individual should be able to go to a place of employment and not have to deal with discrimination or harassment. Unfortunately even with all the talk and promotion of this n today's society, it appears the Argo organization and by extension MLSE failed in this regard.

While this does seem harsh at first, I believe this is the best way moving forward. This should be the new precedent, in saying that one could very much have a solid argument that a DUI with an accident, off field assaults, weapon and/or drug charges, abuse of CFL drug testing staff or refs, clear repeated offences with severity as in Marino should have been higher.

T.O without a QB for half the season at best.....Curious about salary etc. as did he not get roughly 50% of his salary already in effect not giving the Argos a massive savings on his games missed?

So we filled the loss of BOLO, Filled the "loss" of Damian Jackson with a CDN, added some depth along both lines...no stand-out starts but depth that we hope one or two turn into staters one day....overall IMO a good draft when stepping back and looking at it. We didn't get any of the "sexy" name picks but IF the big name OL we took a flyer on ever comes up North..... IMO no big swings, no immediate impact but just a good overall draft.

We have been spoiled with a great pipeline of O-lineman, it's a bit thinner than usual as of today, I expect and hope we get it restocked to our usual spoiled levels over the next two draft classes. We haven't has as much luck in drafting along the D-line, but IMO I think we can do better than Bennet and Schmekel...maybe one or both surprise but I am skeptical

Winnipeg/Manitoba has many, many good and great features and things about it, but to say our downtown is anything but bad would simply be a lie. Our downtown has nice pockets during the day and maybe one could argue very small circumferences around a few select businesses into the evening, but for the most part as soon as work ends, the concert ends, the Jets game finishes etc. it's hold your wallet in your pocket and get back to the suburbs as quickly as you can.

Yes, and one could argue we maybe should have done a bit of it last year as well. One could also argue.....and we have many times here that we could even cull a bit more this year. It really is a balancing act and no one way is perfect, and no GM or idea is going to work perfect every time, but at the end of the day and would venture to guess most educated fans would agree that some culling of the heard was required and probably overdue. Our current scouts un-earthed a few pretty darn good players, let's hope we find out that we have a couple more in the pipeline. Losing Dru and Bolo sucks but they were buried behind stars, and deserve a chance at more playing time, Yoshi and his energy is tough to lose but his value got too high for our situation to absorb. Let's develop the next Schoen, Nichols, Sayles, Stove and hope we have even one guy as good as them currently in the pipeline! One thing we can all say is this year at TC we should see some actual "real meaningful" battles