Mike

doesn't really work that way though, you're still trying to create competition for camp. If you sign a guy and he's beat out by a drafted player, off he goes. It's not like these bottom half of the roster types are leveraging bonuses.

no kidding

Serious question: who takes Jeffcoat over Orimolade this year?

I’d love to have Bailey, I just don’t know where you play him if you’re putting Demski, Schoen and Lawler in the slot (which they should be)

Referring to last year when we made the mistake of prioritizing Maston over Darby and then pairing him with Kyrie to surround Bighill. Love me some Kyrie … really really underrated and fantastic player … but the guy is a bandaid. He’s played like 33% of our games in the past two years.

If only we had not committed ourselves to surrounding our struggling, aging MLB with players who are very injury prone or coming off major surgeries.

“he’s pretty good” isn’t exactly what I’m going for when we’re talking about the highest paid player in his position, but I wouldn’t even agree with that assessment, personally. He was a step behind a ton of plays and as it was happening, everyone chalked it up to “well he’s just covering for other people so they’re using him differently” and to me, he just looked slow and a step behind. He was probably the most constant offender on our entire D when it came to whiffed arm tackles. He averaged 4 tackles a game and didn’t really contribute a whole lot else, which is not what I’m looking for from a top level MLB. Yes, I get he can drop back in coverage and give different looks, but so can a guy who can fly around a bit more and have a little more impact on the field. Part of me wonders if O’Shea sees a reflection of himself in Bighill, the decline in overall play has been very similar to what O’Shea saw when his time was coming to an end. If you’re looking to set me up for an I told you so, you’ll be looking for a long time. I hope Bighill has an absolutely massive season for us. Why would I want anything less?

Genuinely one of the worst contracts in the CFL, in my opinion. Statistically one of the worst middle linebackers in the CFL and he’s the highest paid American LB? If we’re in the Grey Cup this year, he’ll be 35 at kickoff, has developed a recent trend of being too hurt by the end of the season to be effective when it matters and is visibly slower every single year, but we treat him around here like he’s 28 year old MOP candidate Bighill because FIFO, “he’s covering for other people” and because he’s a SAV4GE. I know Bighill has intangibles and leadership that bring value to the room, but the blind love for his play over the past few years has me really puzzled. He’s not good.

I really like Toronto’s roster construction a lot. If MBT is back, I feel like they have a shot to do big things again and I feel like we could see a Grey Cup rematch, although that could depend on Bo and his arm in Hamilton. Our offense is clearly head and shoulders above Toronto’s (and anyone else’s) but their D was better than ours (imo) last year and you can definitely argue they’ll be even better this year … going from McManis/Henoc/Edwards to McManis/Williams/Pickett is huge, they’ve got a lot of good solid bodies in the secondary … especially if Carnell is as legit as he looked in limited action last year … and a similar ability as our front office to find new ones, plus I really do think between both DL, the most impactful player is Shawn Oakman and we don’t, as of right now, have anyone comparable. Willie and Jeffcoat are still impact players but in my opinion, they need someone around them to take the pressure off, they were often one step late last year and if it’s not age, then it’s likely a lack of support and rotation. I’m not saying we don’t have a very good defence, but on a straight up talent level taking anything and everything else out of the equation, I genuinely would trade our best DL and LB (let’s call it Willie and Kyrie) for theirs (Oakman and McManis) and not really think twice about it. Depth is a different discussion, but I also don’t love how we trot out Gauthier, Briggs, Maruo and Jake Thomas so frequently. Our D depth has taken a big hit over the last year or so everywhere but in the secondary, there’s no Kongbo or Rutledge as of today to fill those rotational reps that we may need to depend on this year.

I’m wondering if Bailey ends up being a guy who comes back here just because it’s that or the XFL/USFL for him. Seems like he may get caught in a situation where other teams don’t want to pay for the intangibles we appreciate from him.

Just to make sure … you know you’re not on the team, right?

“It’s different because it’s me, not them”

I’m not underestimating it, I’m just saying it’s weird that some people here apply it as a blanket to every talking point possible. I think we’re a top two team and I don’t really think it’s close. I don’t agree with the suggestion that we’re clearly the best team on paper. I think there’s certainly an argument, but I have a lot of concern about our linebackers (old, injury prone, recent history of falling off at the end of the season), our DL (we’re managing snap counts on our two impact guys there and nobody else on our roster has shown any ability to help carry the weight), our OL (hasn’t really been AS good as it’s historically been, but truly this concern is more of a “are they going to hit the age wall?”) and our kicking game. I think there’s an argument to be made for Toronto, because they play a very similar style of football to what we played when we used to have Matt Nichols. Athleticism to create big plays on defense, enough game management to overcome a lack of overall talent at the QB spot. Call it a fluke all you want, if that D doesn’t drop a few easy picks in the GC, they beat our brakes off and run us out of the building early. I’d definitely trade their LB and DL for ours in a talent-only vacuum. I’m just hoping (confidently) that our front office can find us some impact guys on D that can provide a bit of youth to that side of the ball, but as of right now, the age stuff makes me hesitant to say we’re easily the best team in the league on paper. Best offense? Absolutely. But I think Toronto has the best D and they’ve added there the same way we have on O. You can point to that mind boggling Prukop call all you want as self-inflicted harm, but the gift wrapped interceptions the Argos dropped were just as much of a fluke on their side, imo

I’m not. 🍻

Is that really what I said? Because I don’t think that’s really what I said. This is the exact kind of dumb **** I’m talking about. For some reason, a handful of people here have started to drink this weird kool-aid that the Bombers can do no wrong. Any loss is a fluke. Any Bomber is better than literally any other football player. Any guy we don’t want isn’t “FIFO” enough. Any guy we do want has a high enough FIFO score for us to allow him the highly esteemed privilege of wearing our team colours. Any critical thought directed at the front office or players is grounds for being publicly berated. The part I don’t like about it is not that we’re winning or that we’re become a confident fanbase with high expectations. That part is awesome and I’m glad we’re all getting to experience it, especially knowing what we all have gone through in those dark years. The part I don’t like is that the way some of you are acting about it now is literally textbook Rider fan behaviour and it’s gross. This is the stuff that made everyone hate them. Not because they were good for a brief period of time, but because they were oblivious, borderline delusional weirdos about it.

Amen to this lol this golden age of Bomber football has created some weird complexes up in here

The crazy thing is suggesting they fluked out a GC win Does that mean we fluked out the win in 2021? They beat us and we’re a year older in a sport where older isn’t always better. That’s a legit concern. Maybe it’s unwarranted and they’ll have another amazing season, I hope that ends up being the case. But for now, it’s a concern for me.

Baloney why? The only thing we've done this offseason is add someone we subtracted a year ago and then lost a whole bunch of other players (none of which I'm too torn up about) but it's not as if there's been an overall improvement to this roster. We're not better than we were when we won our last Grey Cup, but we're a whole lot older. Bryant and Jeffcoat can barely practice, Bighill falls off a cliff in October ... we're going to have to get younger in a few spots for sure and I have no doubt that our front office can scout some difference makers, I just don't like the approach that we've taken of essentially just hoping and praying that our older guys keep it together for one more year. Somebody posted up above that they think we have a better DL than Toronto, which is laughable to me. Their entire defence as a whole is stronger than ours and it starts right up front. Willie and Jeffcoat are still impact players but if the answer to take some of the pressure off them is to trot out Jake Thomas and Ricky Walker up the middle, we're in trouble. Bighill/Darby/Kyrie doesn't strike me as a unit that can play 18 games or more. Do I think we're a contender? Absolutely. Top two team in the CFL and it's not particularly close at this point but I don't think we're #1. And people can talk about the difference in QB talent all they want, it's valid and certainly evident but let's not forget - Collaros has been pretty bad in November each of the last two seasons. He's the MOP that has brought us to the show but he certainly hasn't been a game changer when we get there. What's he at in the last two West Finals / Grey Cups? 4 TD / 7 INT? Something like that? It hasn't been great. Mark me down as optimistic yet slightly worried. Yes.

I mean, is this really much different than us? We’ve invested every ounce of cap space in aging talent and we can afford to sign exactly one free agent, it seems like. I’m not thrilled with our off-season at all, at this point. Seems like we’re banking on a lot of “please still be in your prime” from key guys. Look at Toronto - they beat us in the Grey Cup and are making massive additions. They’re a better team than us *today* on paper.

Yes, agreed. After all, teams in pro football always honour the contracts and don’t historically just use guys up like they are assets and nothing more.

Didn’t realize the price tag for receivers was so high all of a sudden I don’t like 300k but I wouldn’t have liked 140k for Bailey last year either

Lawler at 250k is about what I’d like to see, any more than that would be unnecessary to me. We still have Schoen to re-up next year.

DT seems thin as hell for free agents, he’ll genuinely don’t see a single one I would love

Would like to see us dip our toes in the FA pool. Pickett or Kam Kelly would be interesting for sure, but I imagine we think we’re set there with Darby. That is an old-ass group of LBs though. Don’t love that If Bailey doesn’t come back (sad) then I’d love to see Dunbar replace him.

Jeez lol the undercutting of a guy just because he’s a Rider lmao to that stupid contract but Lanier is a force out there. FWIW to all you “he’s not a FIFO guy, he’s a selfish player, he’s worthless” people in the building, the Bombers were one of the teams that inquired about him yesterday.