Mike

I don't believe it's a double standard at all, truthfully. Iso has very strong opinions. There is nothing wrong with that. But those strong opinions are far more likely to generate strong responses. I hate to pull somebody else into this but I'll give you a guy like TBURGESS as an example. He's another very strongly opinionated person who generates a lot of heated debate, arguments and strong responses. But he is also willing to engage in those heated debates and respond back to those strong responses without getting upset. TB and I have had plenty of heated debates over the years due to difference in strong opinions, but I have a ton of respect for the fact that he's always willing to discuss things without getting emotional about it. There are TONS of strongly opinionated folks around this forum. Tons of ongoing heated debates about a number of discussion points. Tons of people being asked to explain their thoughts or rationale behind what they've said. Tons of opinions that are scrutinized and questioned on a daily basis. There are only a handful of people who seem to get upset about it.

Only reasoning I can think of is they're preparing to defend against the "John Cornish Show" and may choose run stopping ability and positional play over pass-rush capability. Then Nate Collins should be playing.

Are all the backup longsnappers and fullbacks for kick coverage? I would assume that's what the plethora of linebackers is for.

Both of them are. Just looked - Cole on the PR, not the IR.

Coordinators don't count against the cap.

This is literally the worst roster I've seen all year. Two backup longsnappers Two fullbacks An inferior returner An inferior defensive line rotation (providing Cole isn't hurt) 480 linebackers One backup receiver who will be playing his first game ever, flanked by a guy who is really not a receiver at all Chevon Walker still in the lineup

He might have to. He's the only backup receiver listed. Well ... technically Stoudermire. But the way I see that shaping up is that Capers and Burnett would sit.

More ridiculous roster management.

Everyone has the right to share their opinions and ideas. Being that this is a forum to generate discussion, I don't feel it is unreasonable that from time to time, people are asked to share the reasoning behind their opinion. Are there people who are a bit more blunt about asking? Absolutely. But everyone has their quirks and again, I reiterate for what seems like the millionth time, if you actually dislike the way you're being treated that much at this site, you always have the option to report someone to Rich, myself or any of the other individuals here who are more than willing to look into it. I won't speak for any of the other members of our team here, but my own personal view is that if you opt into arguing or bickering back and forth, you're essentially waiving your right to complain. The tools are here for you to have us address your issue if you truly want us to, but if you'd rather choose to dive in headfirst and get into these pissing matches, don't backpedal after the fact and complain about "bullying". We are all adults here.

Locked. Nobody wants to talk about Kyle anymore.

Certain folks are just better built for blogging.

There's a large difference between being bullied and just being hyper sensitive to what somebody on the internet says. Either way, we're straying from the matter at hand and I don't want to do that thing where I lock the thread so let's try and get back on track. Although Iso, if you have anything else you'd like to say I encourage you to have the final word.

Ok so yeah I agree with all of that.

This is actually a real kill shot to the sports department for the WFP. Nobody is going to pay anything to read Wiecek columns. You couldn't pay me to read them.

Because I'm slow - help me understand why the PA would not agree to this. The PA has proven in the past that they're fuelled almost exclusively by $$$ and this doesn't really do much damage to someone's earning potential, unless the suggestion is being made that teams would shy away from offer sheets.

Sure does. Sure is. Unfortunately, and I say this with no offense intended, you haven't been around long enough to have gone down the same road a million times before with Iso. When things are going fine, he's more than capable of having a civil conversation. When things are going bad? Heaven forbid you say something that goes against one of his rants. I wasn't kidding before when I said he follows the same schtick over and over again. He gets angry, he goes off on an emotional fueled rant, it gets called out, he plays the victim card, then he apologizes for his out of character behavior. It's an incredibly predictable pattern because many of us have seen it countless times before. Iso is very knowledgeable. Unfortunately, he doesn't tend to draw from his experience and knowledge very often when things aren't going well.

I think it does. I believe Lawless may have touched on this recently (wouldn't know, all I can read are news headlines, not paying for WFP) but either way ... it's about time the CFL considered it. Let me present a situation here. 2011 CFL Draft - Winnipeg spends the 1st overall pick on Henoc Muamba, Montreal spends the 22nd overall pick on Philip Blake. Henoc signs a two year contract, Philip Blake ends up signing with an NFL team. Fast forward to 2015 ... both were on the market - one in a free agency scenario, one in a scenario where Montreal held his rights infinitely until they chose otherwise. Why is this? For Winnipeg's investment, they got a year and a half of a player who contributed to their roster. They developed him into a player who was able to go to the NFL and earn a NFL sized paycheque. They actually invested FAR more than Montreal did on Philip Blake and now 5 years later, Montreal is able to reap the benefits of having held onto those rights at a cost of zero to them. There are other examples ... Ben Heenan and Brett Jones will be free market players when they come back to the CFL (if) just the same as Matt O'Donnell was. Will they come back to their original teams? Maybe. Should they be forced to under terms that aren't beneficial to them? No. But I truly believe that Saskatchewan and Calgary should have the right to match any offers made to Heenan and Jones. They invested in the player. They should get a return or at least have the right to receive one if they want it. Here's why it makes sense - it's far more beneficial for teams to currently draft guys who are beyond CFL development at this point and wait on them to return to the CFL (Cory Greenwood, Philip Blake, etc) than it is to draft guys who you essentially have to risk losing after their first contract is spent on the entire time required for them to mature into a contributing player. My suggestion? Your RFA rights are owned by the team that drafted you (or signed you as a UDFA) until your 5th year in the CFL or the end of your second contract (whichever is longer) Is there any reason to NOT do this at this point?

I'm not sure if you understand the term competitive anymore. You own this site so you have the last word on everything. Yep, you're right. I'm wrong. That's the way it is as you're always right anyway. Let's just end this. You win. Step 1: Something upsets Iso. Step 2: Iso starts ranting and raving. Step 3: Iso gets called on it by another MBB member. Step 4: Iso whines and makes a big stink about how the person who called him on his anger is making it personal. **WE ARE HERE** Step 5: Iso apologizes about making a big deal out of it, says sorry for letting his emotions get the best of him. Rinse, wash, repeat. Let me know when we get to step 1 again, step 5 is worthless at this point.

I'm not sure if you understand the term competitive anymore.

Haha wow, talk about arguing semantics! Okay then you explain... if you can't tell the difference. Let's say we lose to Calgary 28-27 this week... Person 1: well we were at least competitive in that game Person 2: we held up with the class of the league, this team is incredibly competitive... It's all perspective... that's all I'm saying i don't look upon it like that. Incredibly Competitive WERE the Ti Cats before Collaros got hurt coasting to the playoffs at full speed dismantling teams at home. Or the Stamps cruising along, maybe in close games but finding ways to win at the end. Competitive teams are those that win 1 lose 2 or win 2, lose 3 but are 8-10 or 9-9 at seasons end. We were 3-3 when Willy got hurt so we were competive. On any given day we could beat the best or lose to the worst. Willy gave us a chance to win every game but if people think we were good enough to hang with Hamilton or Calgary with Drew Willy before he was injured then they were wrong. ... we DID hang with Calgary. What part of that are you missing?

Actually, going into the game Willy got hurt .. we were in first place .. Weren't we 3-4 or 3-5 when Willy got hurt? 3-3 going into the game. So 2nd place, I believe.

Haha wow, talk about arguing semantics! Okay then you explain... if you can't tell the difference. When Drew Willy finished the game this year, the only game we lost, we lost by 1 point to the defending Grey Cup champs and it came down to the final possession of the game to be decided. If that's not "incredibly competitive", what is?

As for getting rid of O'Shea or keeping him ... I think O'Shea takes a lot of heat for all of the wrong reasons. Which, to me, is funny because there's a very obvious reason he SHOULD be taking a lot of heat that anyone rarely questions him on. His roster management is absolutely atrocious. The makeup of our 44 man gameday roster has been awful all year and a lot of it seems to be because MOS isn't able to make roster moves on his own - his hand has to be forced by injury to do anything. In the 2 years that he has been head coach, I'd like to see anyone name one player that has been benched because of their performance. There hasn't been. The little things that he's failed to do all year have been atrocious. Brendan Morgan, in the earlier part of the year, was taking ST penalty after ST penalty and not once did he find his way off the gameday roster because of it. The revolving door of defensive ends has been incredibly frustrating as well - only once we found Justin Cole did they sort that out and that was only because Thad Gibson got nicked. Tim Cronk having any role on our roster boggles my mind. The fact that he's a backup long snapper pales in comparison to the fact that we have him out there taking a considerable amount of snaps on offense despite being useless as anything other than a minor speedbump. With the return of Ian Wild, there's absolutely no reason you couldn't have Chris Normand fill that role and actually be versatile enough to provide some offensive upside as well. If Cronk stays on this week? Horrible decision. Letting Bryant Turner play while Nate Collins wastes away on the sidelines is a total shame too. Turner has been better of late but him and Anderson have taken turns this year doing absolutely nothing but Collins for some reason stays stapled to the bench unless there's an injury. Chevon Walker. Enough said. Dominic Picard. You can't tell me it's to keep continuity with the QB handling the same snaps, so what's the deal? Give Goossen a chance already, Picard has been atrocious all year. Justin Veltung is the best returner on our team but Troy Stoudermire is allowed to keep fumbling his way through games because he's the defacto man at that position. Nevermind the ball security issues. He was our guy last year, he's our guy this year. Why? Because loyalty I suppose. The roster management MOS employs is downright insulting. The fact that nobody gets benched for ANY level of poor performance is unacceptable, in my opinion. It's the same **** we went through with Kuale last year. Realistically ... with the personnel we have right now available to us, this should be our roster QB - Nichols, Davis, Brohm RB - Marshall, Normand FB - Pontbriand REC - Moore, Adams, Denmark, Veltung, Willie, Bastien, Kohlert OL - Bryant, Neufeld, Picard, Goossen, Chungh, Capers DL - Westerman, Cole, Peach, Turner, Collins, Thomas, Brown LB - Wild, Bass, Hurl, Leggett, Briggs, Waggoner, Newman DB - Bucknor, Johnson, Washington, Adams, Jones, Morgan S - Shell, Sherman K - Hajrullahu P - Castillo LS - Rempel

The reality is that the injury that took Willy out of the lineup for multiple games was going to happen sooner or later. So the idea of Willy staying healthy and keeping the Bombers competitive for an entire year is just a fantasy. This, I agree with. With the protection we were providing him? No way was a full year in the cards. Sadly. And I agree with you both there. It is sad. As much as I'd like to agree with you Mike as we all want the Bombers to win, we just have too many holes on our roster to be really competitive. ... then why were we incredibly competitive while Drew Willy was healthy? I mean really ... name these holes on our roster. Running back? I'll give you that one. Receiver? Debatable ... we could use another game breaker but Adams/Moore/Denmark seemed just fine while Drew was healthy. OL? Yeah ... probably why Willy is on the sidelines to begin with. But the talent itself is nowhere near as bad as it's made out to be. Scheme wise? Terrible. Defense? I don't see a lot of personnel holes. Especially as the year has gone on. I see one glaring issue with our team - the offensive game plan. Our talent isn't elite level but it's easily sufficient to maintain a competitive level of football with the proper gameplan. There aren't a LOT of holes on this team. There is one major one. And it's killing us.

The reality is that the injury that took Willy out of the lineup for multiple games was going to happen sooner or later. So the idea of Willy staying healthy and keeping the Bombers competitive for an entire year is just a fantasy. This, I agree with. With the protection we were providing him? No way was a full year in the cards. Sadly.