Mike

But is it worth that just for the chance to talk to him? 'Cause there's no guarantees that he'd sign. It was JUST the rights to talk to him... Can't argue with that. I guess you would need to make sure you've done your due dilegence (tampering) so that you knew he would be willing to sign with you. Now, somebody is going to jump in and say no way he was signing here no matter what. Which I don't believe but I'm not going to argue anymore because it's been argued to death and it's hypothetical anyway. Just out of curiosity ... In your opinion, how much diligence is due? I mean, to me, it's an obvious red flag when Wally says "Edmonton is allowed to talk to him, but Winnipeg isn't" Why isn't Winnipeg? The obvious answer to me is that Wally knew we wouldn't like what Reilly's agent had to say. See I don't see it quite that way. I think Edmonton said we want to trade for Reily and Wally said "ok but you can't talk to him" and Edmonton said, "Well then get stuffed" and then they negotiated and something got worked out. I think Winnipeg said we want to trade for Reily and Wally said ok but you can't talk to him and Winnipeg said "We can't get Reilly which is ok because we can find someone better ourselves anyway." It never made sense to me that Wally said Edmonton can talk to him and Winnipeg can't. And that Edmonton has to give us a 2nd and 3rd and Winnipeg has to give us a 1st and 3rd. I believe Wally opened negotiations with both teams at the same place and Winnipeg walked away and told everyone they couldn't get him and Edmonton kept at it and got him. For better or worse. Okay. Please explain why Wally would not let ANYBODY talk to him. All it could do is increase the return he could get in a trade.

But is it worth that just for the chance to talk to him? 'Cause there's no guarantees that he'd sign. It was JUST the rights to talk to him... Can't argue with that. I guess you would need to make sure you've done your due dilegence (tampering) so that you knew he would be willing to sign with you. Now, somebody is going to jump in and say no way he was signing here no matter what. Which I don't believe but I'm not going to argue anymore because it's been argued to death and it's hypothetical anyway. Just out of curiosity ... In your opinion, how much diligence is due? I mean, to me, it's an obvious red flag when Wally says "Edmonton is allowed to talk to him, but Winnipeg isn't" Why isn't Winnipeg? The obvious answer to me is that Wally knew we wouldn't like what Reilly's agent had to say.

I think it's pretty clear cut why Reilly would take the deal and run... he was only ever going to have an opportunity to start here or in EDM. That's exactly the point...Reilly wasn't going anywhere but Edmonton. He had made up his mind. Way to cherry pick my posts to make your point. If Reilly got to free agency, he was going to the highest bidder with the best starting opportunity. Wally Buono is not in the business of making sweetheart deals... he could give a f*** less where Reilly wanted to go. Wally's only interested in getting a return for something that 2 days later would bring him nothing... and if WPG and EDM were equal, he was dealing the negotiating rights to WPG, because he'd be dealing Reilly out of his division. He just got the best deal from EDM. There's nothing more to it than that. Supply and command, Ricky. If Reilly got to Free Agency, I would agree with your point. But he didn't, and Buono made the best deal for Buono... you can guarantee that Reilly's preference played exactly 0% into where Buono would have dealt him. I don't agree.

Must be nice comparing one half against two.

well except that PIerce wasn't good enough... They won the east final on the strength of the defense and running game. What did Pierce do in the Grey Cup game other than suck balls until garbage time? The thing that no one backing Pierce seems to want to address is that his struggles are not a new thing, he's been going downhill every since 2010 at the earliest and partway through 2011 at the latest. Good lord, he was good enough to beat Glenn that day 19 - 3, now you're just looking foolish. Who exactly looks foolish? Glenn was 13-18 in that game, much better than Buck's 16-28 with 1 INT. Or I suppose we should blame Glenn for having his ankle rolled on the first play of the second half.

Oh and just so everyone is aware ... we were never giving up a first rounder to get Reilly. We were swapping firsts and giving up a third.

Right, because I guess we just never really wanted Reilly, we just negotiated with BC and then leaked the story that Buono didn't give us a fair shake at negotiating with Reilly in order to save face. What is that? Conspiracy theory #800 on this board? I don't recall Mack ever saying we would be aggressively pursuing Reilly, perhaps you can show me that? By negotiate, what do you mean, what was actually negotiated, what did Mack offer to talk to him or did he, again please show me those 'negotiations'. Please show me proof of anything you speculate on under the guise of an insider around here.

The Lions didn't offer Reilly to anyone. They offered the rights to Reilly with the ability to negotiate prior to a deal to Edmonton. They offered the rights to Reilly with no ability to negotiate prior to a deal to Winnipeg. There is a HUGE difference.

Close but by acquiring Reilly he could have turned around and traded him to Hervey for Nichols and his pick back or depending on how bad Hervey wanted him, made Reilly an offer he couldn't refuse to stay. In either case, the situation looks more like a half hearted attempt. Right, because that makes sense. Two horse race, one horse can't sign a deal and the other horse is just going to give up assets to get him.

Again, we really don't know that to be true. An offer was made by Wally to get Reilly to Joe Mack. Mack refused. So Reilly was traded to Edmonton. If he would have been traded to Winnipeg then he could have done the deal as Reilly wasn't a free agent yet & still under contract to the Bombers. Was it a risk? Yes, surely. A HUGE risk & making that trade would have been ballsy because of it but considering where our first round pick is now, I'd have done it. And made bloody sure I signed him. We absolutely do not know if Reilly preferred Edmonton over Winnipeg. They traded for him & got the deal done. We weren't privy & never will be to the discussions in Mack's office, so all total speculation about that. We don't know what was said. Bottom line, that Reilly was the best opportunity to try & fix the mess at qb we have now. Not doing anything has resulted in a losing team as well as a scorcehed Earth battlefield with Bomber managemnt & coaching.... So, maybe the risk Mack took was really standing pat. In the end, doing the deal or not doing the deal cost people their jobs. The repercussions are still going on. I'd like to believe that it was out of Joe's hands but c'mon.... Looking at how he's done business in the past, I find that hard to believe. So then please explain why the following two things occurred ... a ) Wally refused to let Winnipeg talk shop with Reilly prior to a trade, but allowed Edmonton to b ) Reilly did not opt to wait until free agency before signing a deal in order to maximize his earnings According to what we know it came down to two things... One, the Lions wanted a first rounder from us but a second rounder from Edmonton. And he signed with the Esks virtually minutes after he was obtained in a trade from the Lions. To me, it came down to Mack not believing that fixing the qb mess was worth a first rounder which I find unbelievable. He overvalued Buck & Goltz & undervalued Elliott & Brink which was a mistake. He also dod not want to pay & therefore take a risk on Reilly. According to the way it supposedly went down, Wally offered Mack Reilly & he said no. His choice. Look what has happened since. Are you turning a blind eye to the facts in this story on purpose or are you just doing it to frustrate me? The single biggest thing about the difference in negotiations between BC/WPG and BC/EDM is that Edmonton had permission to talk to Reilly and we didn't. But you keep ignoring that every single time. Why?

Right, because I guess we just never really wanted Reilly, we just negotiated with BC and then leaked the story that Buono didn't give us a fair shake at negotiating with Reilly in order to save face. What is that? Conspiracy theory #800 on this board?

Again, we really don't know that to be true. An offer was made by Wally to get Reilly to Joe Mack. Mack refused. So Reilly was traded to Edmonton. If he would have been traded to Winnipeg then he could have done the deal as Reilly wasn't a free agent yet & still under contract to the Bombers. Was it a risk? Yes, surely. A HUGE risk & making that trade would have been ballsy because of it but considering where our first round pick is now, I'd have done it. And made bloody sure I signed him. We absolutely do not know if Reilly preferred Edmonton over Winnipeg. They traded for him & got the deal done. We weren't privy & never will be to the discussions in Mack's office, so all total speculation about that. We don't know what was said. Bottom line, that Reilly was the best opportunity to try & fix the mess at qb we have now. Not doing anything has resulted in a losing team as well as a scorcehed Earth battlefield with Bomber managemnt & coaching.... So, maybe the risk Mack took was really standing pat. In the end, doing the deal or not doing the deal cost people their jobs. The repercussions are still going on. I'd like to believe that it was out of Joe's hands but c'mon.... Looking at how he's done business in the past, I find that hard to believe. So then please explain why the following two things occurred ... a ) Wally refused to let Winnipeg talk shop with Reilly prior to a trade, but allowed Edmonton to b ) Reilly did not opt to wait until free agency before signing a deal in order to maximize his earnings

Burke wants to win so if he plays Buck, that's why. You can thank Joe Mack for this mess. He never brought a qb in.A first rounder whomay never see the field here was too much of a price to pay to get Mike Reilly. For you Reilly haters, the guy is beginning to round into a pretty good qb for the Eskimos on a team with an OC (Samms) & HC (Reed) almost as clueless as Crowton was & Burke is. I put this garbage at the qb position right straight on Mack. The first round pick never guaranteed they would get Reilly though! Why in gods name do some of you pretend like it was as simple as trade the pick and sign Reilly? The guy was obviously more interested in going to Edmonton than anywhere else to start with. Gosh, actually giving the guy some money to make him think of coming here would never have occurred to Mack. Maybe meeting or surpassing what Edmonton would give him... Considering Mack's track record & his disdain for any other teams free agent starters I'm of the opinion he could have had the guy but just didn't want him. Ah, water under the bridge now. Reilly's gone. And thank God Mack is too. I'm just going to point out something that seems completely logical to me, but it seems to get missed a lot when discussing the whole Reilly thing. Reilly was a pending free agent who was known to have two teams interested in him (Winnipeg and Edmonton) If Reilly had waited to hit free agency, his earning potential would have increased because of the potential for a bidding war. Wally Buono opted to open trade discussions with both teams that were interested in Reilly, but only allowed Edmonton the luxury of being allowed to talk to Reilly BEFORE a trade was made. Reilly opted to sign a contract prior to free agency and chose not to capitalize on the ability to earn more money on the open market. Am I the only person here who sees how ******* obvious it is that Reilly did not want to come to Winnipeg? Wally knew it. He didn't let Winnipeg talk to Reilly because Reilly would have told them he wasn't interested. Which in turn hampers his ability to use them as a negotiating tool in trade talks with Hervey. He let Edmonton talk to Reilly because getting them to ink a deal prior increases the return he could get from Hervey. It's not rocket surgery here folks.

You keep reiterating it like you're trying to prove a point. I don't think there's anyone that doesn't understand what you're saying. I think what you're failing to understand is that nobody cares about the semantics, this FRANCHISE has 10 Grey Cups. If the Bombers changed their name tomorrow to the Winnipeg Donkeys, the Donkeys franchise would be 10 time Grey Cup champions. I'm just saying that the actual name Blue Bombers was given to them after 1935. People are saying the HOF is 'lazy"... That they didn't do their research. I'm not proving a poiunt more than trying to correct a mistake. In reality, I really don't give a ****. One person said the HOF was lazy and it was well after you'd already tried to make your point several times, so that's not going to fly with me. You're just playing silly bugger. We all know what you're saying, we just don't care because it's pure semantics. Don't get me wrong, you're right. It just doesn't really matter.

Considering how often he is hurt, he should be a backup QB's wet dream. The backups in Wpg have had every opportunity to take the job away from him and failed, from Jyles to Brink to Elliott and now Goltz and Hall. Lack of reps has not been the problem with Buck here. The lack of practice reps has been though. When you consider how Pierce dominates reps throughout the week in preparation for a game .. only to get hurt .. then the backups are being thrown into the fire without adequate preparation .. how can you expect anyone to excel? As a backup, in that situation, you don't get a chance to develop chemistry with your receiver and you don't get the bulk of the practice reps as packages are implemented for that week - especially when Buck's availability is still in question and he's still sucking down reps in the off chance he can go. Not exactly a recipe for success. That's a coaching blunder. Every QB should be getting some reps with the starting unit in practice, even if it's only a 2 minute drill like MB is doing now. Getting a handful of reps at the end of practice isn't the same thing as getting the starter's reps. The starter is going to dominate reps in practice. He needs them to prepare and to get a grasp on what is being done offensively for that week. That's the nature of the beast. But Buck, being the band aid that he is, can't be relied upon to finish a game let alone be available from week to week. So all that prep time goes to waste. Even if you were to split reps 50 / 50 between Buck and a backup, you're not giving the starter the best chance for success. They NEED those reps and the problem is amplified if the backup is a young, inexperienced quarterback. So Mitchell, Collaros, Willey all get starter reps? How can they look so good in their starts without it? Dickenson, Milanovich and Cortez. Compared to Crowton. You figure it out.

Bert Marples got robbed that year, he deserved an all-star nod.

You keep reiterating it like you're trying to prove a point. I don't think there's anyone that doesn't understand what you're saying. I think what you're failing to understand is that nobody cares about the semantics, this FRANCHISE has 10 Grey Cups. If the Bombers changed their name tomorrow to the Winnipeg Donkeys, the Donkeys franchise would be 10 time Grey Cup champions.

I think if we kept Bishop over Pierce, we'd have been in a much better situation currently. Simply because Bishop's sucking is much more obvious than Pierce's. In a perfect world, we never would have signed Pierce and we would've recruited a different starting QB by now.

The Hall of Fame counts the wins by nicknames, not organization. And if you want to get really picky, there is no CFL HOF. It's the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. Jacquie, the Winnipegs are not the Bombers. They are the Winnipegs. They are listed as the GC winners in 1935. You can say whatever the hell you want. Like I said, call the CANADIAN FOOTBALL Hall of Fame & take it up with them. Quit correcting me. And sorry about the name of the HOF. I screwed up. So sorry. My bad. I should have known better. Jeez, whatever. My god, who pissed in your cheerios? Quit playing silly bugger just for the sake of it.

One of those things where the level of play didn't match the contract. He's still an okay player, just not at the price tag Hamilton had for him.

I don't even know how to react to this. We signed a guy who has played in the CFL before?!

You mean he was along for the ride. I was always very supportive of Buck when he was playing alright. I wanted him to succeed and while he was never an elite level QB for us, he at least did an okay job of managing things for us while he was in the lineup. Unfortunately, since the Banjo Bowl two years ago when he threw 5 picks and got lit up by Craig Butler, he's never been the same. His numbers since that game do not deserve my support. Buck has never been an on-field leader for us on a consistent basis and while he played at a higher level for us a few years ago, his mental and physical game has broken down so much that he's just no longer a viable option. The coaches spent all offseason designing a max protection offense to basically keep him healthy and in the game at the cost of production. It didn't work because it's not an effective scheme for his skillset or what's left of it. They took the reins off and let him play HIS game and it got him injured after one half of football. He's just not durable enough to play the style of football that gives him the best chance at being effective anymore. Keeping him safe comes at the cost of rendering him useless.

Serious question. Are you forgetting that Buck already had his opportunity with a proven CFL OC? He wasn't any good with PLP either.

Goltz lost to Calgary and in BC, games that you could quite likely expect to lose anyway. PIerce lost to Montreal and Hamilton, 2 teams that you should beat this year, Hall lost to Hamilton. So yeah, sticking with Pierce gets a LOT of blame for the season being done. He doesn't go into crap mode in Hamilton then the team still has a chance. He doesn't toss up that many ints in the opener against Montreal they might have started the season strong and not been as down as they are. Take your lips off PIerces ass and actually look at what's happened this season, and last as well, Pierce is not the player he used to be, not even close. Let's not forget that Pierce also lost games where our defense was playing at an elite level, whereas Hall and Goltz have been saddled with a marshmallow soft defense supporting them. Hell, even when Pierce had our special teams scoring points for him, he still lost the game.