Mike

Thank you for your opinion.

That is a great point ... Bowman was a very similar type of personality. It's definitely worth remembering that Simonise was viewed as a top 3 prospect for a very large part of the year.

Wolitarsky and Simonise aren’t raw. Simonise not as pro ready as Chapman but he is at least worthy of a camp before we discuss whether or not he’s prepared to take regular season snaps. As for LaFrance taking Flanders’ spot ... that’s already what Demski is going to be doing ... so I guess prepare to be shocked. Dressler/Bowman/Demski are the guys we’re playing in the slot.

Love how you’re always trying to get creative here but I really doubt we’re going to be seeing LaFrance as a receiver. Sometimes the simple solution is the right one. We’ll be starting one of Wolitarsky, Simonise or Petermann.

Yeah ... not so much that as he liked what he saw enough to sign here. This wasn’t a guy that had no options. Very easily could’ve held out for a NFL opportunity.

Streveler is a guy they’ve wanted a look at for a while. I think he’s got a good shot. Very CFL style QB.

That is the guy I was thinking about whoopsie daisy. Haven’t quite caught up on the draft yet - did he get picked?

Well our management drafted them so I’d say the answer is yes.

Pierre is the H-back

I noticed you (as usual) avoided the question about what you would’ve preferred they do.

Imagine TBURGESS being negative, I for one am shocked

I could see us going David Mackie at 12. I don't know if he'd be my first choice and I don't honestly think he makes it there but ... those guys are tough to project. I wouldn't be upset if we got a Declan Cross style player.

Haven't heard much about Cibasu lately ... he kind of fell off and I admit I kind of forgot about him too. I do agree he could do a lot in the style of offence we run. That being said, I've read a lot about him not having much of an eye towards the CFL, so he's also a guy I could see us getting in the mid-20s.

Trying to envision who will be there at 12 for us is interesting ... Obviously Rutherford/Chapman are likely to go top 2 and then 9 picks between them and us ... Shepley/Hunter/Knevel/Godber are there as the futures guys ... then you have Korte/Sceviour/Pickett on the offensive line as today guys. I feel like Hamilton is pretty likely to use one of their three picks before us to draft David Mackie, if he makes it to them. Could see it going Rutherford to HAM, Chapman to MTL, Korte to BC in the top three. I don't see BC using 3 on a futures guy, because they have two picks in the first now and I feel like they'll want max value on the first one. After that, it really all depends on Ottawa. I don't think Onyeka is making it past 5, but if he goes to Ottawa at 4 then I could see Laurent going to SSK at 5. I don't think Ottawa to Laurent makes much sense personally, but you never know how they view him. Either way, any team picking Laurent before us is a good pick for us, since he's likely not a guy who has much stock in our war room. There are five I would be happy with at 12 that I think are realistic ... Bennett, Simonise, Shepley, Hunter, Petermann ... I don't think we are likely to take Simonise as he is a lot like a Lemar Durant, but maybe we think we have the right room for a personality like that this time around.

Landscape of the draft as it relates to salary could change entirely this off-season. Cap could take another jump beyond the 50k that has been typical recently as well. Tough to say what's going to happen. Makes it difficult to speculate on affordability next year. If they go to a slotted system, it's a lot easier to try and fit a fixed number into your cap.

I honestly don't see how anyone could look at this realistically and say it's not a win for us. Essentially, unless you believe BC is making the Grey Cup next year, we delayed our first rounder by a year in order to move up in the first (2019) and second (2018) rounds of the draft. That's easily stated without even really digging too deep into the issue and looks like a win. Then we go deeper. This year's draft is dominated by offensive linemen and while you truly can never have enough, we certainly don't have a roster spot for one this year meaning one of a few things - we don't maximize the value of our first rounder, we risk losing them by putting them on the PR or we have to make a move to fit them on the team. You could argue we were going to go for another positional player like a Bennett, Petermann, Onyeka, etc but the reality is that if we're not too in love with one specific guy, the odds of one of those names being there 5 spots later are pretty good. If not, we can look towards a futures guy like a Shepley or a Hunter which (if the speculation is true) might be where we were looking at number 7 anyways in order to avoid a salary at this very moment. All of that could potentially benefit us this year without even considering the fact that it's very likely we could end up with a top 3 pick next year (in a much better draft year) thanks to this trade.

I love the trade for the Bombers. We're still gonna get a player at 12 because I'm sure Shepley or Hunter will fall down the board if we want them there. If not, could always look to Simonise or Bennett or somebody like that. Moving out of a weak first round to get what is likely a higher first next year. Well done Walters.

Mini camp invite to the Giants is basically extended to every Canadian draft prospect with a pulse around this time of year.

Zero interest on either guy.

God am I happy I don't have enough free time to spend reading Riderfans.com anymore I don't see on what planet they think they're going to field a contending team this year. Will they be better? Probably. On paper, they have a ton of solid players. And I'm not going to say they can't be a winner just because they have Sam Hurl starting - we did, and we went 12-6. But contender? With that OL? Who is playing tackle? No thanks.

Nice work everyone, especially TrueBlue.

My god is Henoc an idiot and personally, I'm glad he's not a Bomber.

I really like the guys we have brought in this offseason ... the quality of prospect seems a bit higher than in years past. Haven't seen a lot of guys who are skating by on measurements or test numbers and a not-so-prolific arena football career. Homer, Howard and Prewitt as DBs ... Gause and Jones at MLB ... Stevens, Lane and Reed at REC ... I'm liking it so far. Curious to see who surprises and who performs well at mini camp.

Winnipeg picks a million receivers and not a single OL ... makes sense

And now apparently he's with the U of New Mexico.