JohnnyAbonny

Fair point. The more I think about it, Bombers offence at full heath is going to be soooo much better than anyone else’s. Unless Powell or another QB takes a huge leap, I might have to change my prediction to Bombers- Pork everyone Middle teams- .500ish Ottawa/Calgary- Bad

I don’t know, they could have a decent D I guess but I think McCheese is the worst starting QB in the league. Once teams take away their running game, I just don’t see that offence being able to keep up with anybody. As far as the Riders go, coaching alone should garner them a couple more wins than last year, and I don’t see them being particularly worse in any area. They have a fairly solid receiver corps, and the Mace D will be average at worst imo. Harris isn’t going to win them a championship or anything but I see them as being above both Alberta teams right now. Solid middle tier team imo.

I’ve never started one or a GTD, fresh karma. Not a lot of hot takes but here we go.. West Bombers 12-6 BC 11-7 Sask 10-8 Edmonton 8-10 Calgary 4-14 East Hamilton 12-6 Montreal 11-7 Toronto 9-9 Ottawa 4-14 Bombers still top dogs. I expect the games to look pretty similar to last year. We all hate Sask but they’re unfortunately never as bad as we think. They and BC could be interchangeable at 2/3. Edmonton improves but Jones will do enough dumb things to keep them out of the playoffs again. Calgary will be close to folding after the season. They’re screwed big time imo. They’ll be lucky to win 4 games. Hamilton starts slow but finishes strong and wins the east. Toronto plays good D but not enough for a playoff victory. Montreal more of the same, without the luck of teams shitting themselves against them. Ottawa ruins Dru Brown and they play musical QBs all year again. WSF BC over Sask WF Bombers over BC again ESF Montreal over Toronto EF Hamilton over Montreal GC- I’m not jinxing that

It’s funny until they run roughshod over everyone with a fresh d-line every 3rd play. If Taylor Powell can take the next step, seriously look out.

We all said the same thing last season and then Walters proved it can be done. If they’re going to be shedding salary for 2025, there’s a lot of other older players who will be gone before our 2 star receivers in their 20s lol

I’m not sure but I know they were paying him well into 2009

Iirc he lined up with his hand on the paint on a 3rd down at the 1, I don’t remember him in many games after that.

Bauming was pretty pumped about Josh Johnson on the show the other day too

I’ll eat crow with a smile on my face if he turns out to be the every down pocket pusher we’ve been missing. Just give us a monster DT and I’ll be happily wrong any day.

When the vets are underperforming, loyalty can look like cronyism from an outsiders (new players) perspective. Totally different line of work, but at my job management catered to a select few senior employees, who in turn performed and got the work done exceptionally well. The culture was very much like “FIFO” when I started there 15 years ago, morale was sky-high pretty much across the board. As physical work goes, those guys either aged out of being able to do the job well, or got entitled and unhelpful to the guys below them. Management kept catering to “their guys” without opening up the preferential treatment for anyone else coming up. Now it’s a decade later and the place is toxic as hell. To me that’s the fine line the club is walking right now and it could go either way yet. It’s the second 6 weeks of the season which will be very telling imo.

It’s preseason. We like to analyze the minute aspects of the year(s) past, and talk about how we may do things differently. It’s like a game in itself, what would you do to make the team perfect? You’ve always got such a great grasp of what others should be discussing, I’m curious, what direction would you steer the conversation?

In his case, as funny as it would be for us, It’s gotta be Sask. 2-3 years at the tail end of his career isn’t gonna make him put a blue jersey on for the HOF.

For sure they need at least one NI in rotation, they’re just not going to be able to use 2-3 plus a global this year and still be impactful. Lawson is really the only starter quality Canadian they have right now on the DL.

Same for me. I think Willie in particular should probably play 2/3 of the snaps they had him out for. His style lends itself less to fatigue than anyone. Im pretty sure we all see how that front rotation was key to the dominance of 19/21. They got lucky with Kongo and Hansen those years, now it’s time to tweak the ratio to bring back the 7-8 man rotation, regardless of nationality. It’s almost like mid-22 they made a conscious decision to use the roster differently. Right around the time they traded that DT Wilcots to Hamilton

Bingo. Start Ford, DNA Alexander. If Ford gets hurt BA can come in for 29 plays without having to bugger around with the ratio. Then they could have the 2 best American DTs with Lawson rotating in. Just daydreaming, but that would be my ideal ratio on D.

100% agree. They were at their best when rotating 7 DL. They started goofing around with the DIs mid-2022 actually iirc and it carried on through last year.

Schmekel was just terrible in his chances last year, and was rightfully knocked on the forum by most (myself included) I’m not sure the quality of the OL he was against but you’re right, he looked much improved. I said it earlier too, he stood out on a few plays for sure. I’d like to see him get more reps next game.

The nationalized American rule is the one that sticks with me. Zero excuse not to use it. There’s only benefits. I have to add the caveat every single time that I love MOS, so nobody thinks I’m insulting the guy personally. The roster management has in fact been an issue since 2014. Kuale, Hurl, Carmichael, Sticking with Willy until almost being fired, Kelvin McKnight, Chris Matthews when he was crippled and couldn’t do anything. Tavarres whatever that was on the roster for 2 years and didn’t see a meaningful snap. Jake Thomas last year. That’s just off the top of my head.

Your post is very black and white thinking. How about “You’ve put together one of the all time great runs in club history. Some fans have a point that it could be even better, given the team has in fact declined to use competitive advantages that were available.”

Skimmed through it. Strev can make all the wide throws. Still trucking guys, even looking much leaner than 2019. Barriere needs some work, that was pretty terrible. Terry Wilson seemed like he knew what he was doing, albeit with a lot of jobbers on the field for both teams. All of this granted Bombers didn’t really throw downfield with any QB. On D, #22 McGhee was with the 1’s, was around the ball a lot for better or worse. He had a rough play early where he let KSB pull down a duck in front of him that he should have made a play on. He got in on another breakup to hold the same drive to a FG. Oulette didn’t look like he enjoyed being tackled by #48 Gemmel, he could be a real thumper. Bombers ran a fairly aggressive D for an exhibition game. Rivers, Garbutt, LB Tre Thomas, and actually Schmeckel all stood out to me on plays. ST basically nothing. Ol’ Garcia seemed to be in fine form and the punter had a nice TD saving tackle. Godawfully boring game with atrocious commentary. We’re so, so lucky with our radio guys here.

From my relative experience around the game, and those who know it at a high level, I can clearly see that @Booch @JuranBoldenRules @wbbfan @SpeedFlex27 @GCn20 have more detailed and nuanced football knowledge to offer than most.

I’m stuck at work, can anyone give a recap?

They’d be just as well off with Jon Arbuckle

That Bomber game was probably 10k displaced Winnipegers

Exactly. My Dad used write for the old Winnipeg Tribune. I grew up hearing about Jack Mathison, Vince Leah and Jim Coleman. My time had hacks like Friesen, Paul Wiececk, Randy Turner. We’ve had great Bomber reporters in my lifetime, but they’ve worked directly for the club (Irving, Tait) I could go off about Postmedia but I’ll keep it relatively on topic. If it were a full-time job, I think Doug Brown could be the investigative/thorough type of reporter we all want.