TBURGESS

I thought our DB's were the strength of our defense last year. Based on the number of new ones being brought in though, I'd say that Hall is looking for something different than Etch in his DB's.

Giants minicamp May 8-9. Hopefully we'll all know more about signings before the CFL draft May 12. Demski not getting an NFL shot? Better for us so we take him #2 or does he drop because he didn't get the NFL shot that a dozen other top NI's got?

He was also on Montreal in 2012 and the Patriots let him go in Aug 2013. He's a big guy with 7 CFL receptions hoping the 3rd teams the charm in the CFL.

Most of the top talent is getting their NFL shots. Used to push guys down a lot, but is is better to pick a guy high that you really want assuming he won't stick this year? For the first time this year Demski seems like a good choice to me.

According to Drew Edwards, Burris is making $450K per year. The others look about right to me.

With the limited knowledge we have at the moment. My wild ass guess is: West: 1. Calgary - Still the best team in the league 2. Edmonton - Close to Calgary 3. Saskatchewan - Durant makes a huge difference, but that O line ain't the same anymore. 4. BC - I trust Wally, but don't think Lulay will play enough games to move them up the standings. 5. Winnipeg - Better O line won't make enough difference to our standings. (1 and 2 are the class of the league. 3 through 5 could go in any order) East: 1. Hamilton - Looked great in the second half of '14 but will miss some of the already injured players. 2. Montreal - Great D, O does just enough to get the wins. Could flipflop with Hamilton 3. Toronto - Ray doesn't look to be ready at the beginning of the year will put them behind the eight ball. 4. Ottawa - Burris + Receivers = Offensive prowess. Could easily leapfrog Toronto for the last play off spot.

Is that $150K bonus part of the 250K he's going to make this year or in addition to? Big difference to the cap hit.

I hope this one's true. Gives Willy a chance to prove it or get cut if he's not worth the $400K.Which is, sort of... exactly what we were trying to tell you earlier. So are you now going to argue with yourself? That would be fun to watch!He's getting a bonus this year in addition to his base salary, as part of the extension.My guess is this is how the contract works: 2015: $250k base + $100k bonus (new money as part of extension 2016: $400k base 2017: $400k base Give or take 2016 & 2017 with some performance bonuses tied in there. Not sure that makes sense. $100K signing bonus is all cap hit and Walters said that the cap hit this year wouldn't be all that different. I'd guess they converted a lot of bonuses into base salary and gave him a smaller signing bonus than $100K, but it's all conjecture at this point.

I hope this one's true. Gives Willy a chance to prove it or get cut if he's not worth the $400K. Which is, sort of... exactly what we were trying to tell you earlier. So are you now going to argue with yourself? That would be fun to watch! Actually you were telling me that it was worthwhile to pay Willie 400K this year, but don't let the facts get in the way.

I hope this one's true. Gives Willy a chance to prove it or get cut if he's not worth the $400K.

I think that in all fairness, you should probably write a strongly worded letter the the Chair of the Winnipeg Football Club. In it, you can outline your concerns and include your extensive CV which will demonstrate just how informed your opinion is. I'm confident that once they read the letter, they will give it the attention it deserves Lots of folks think whatever the Bombers do is right. I disagree with something the Bombers did. Not the first time. Won't be the last time. I still hope it works out. That being said, do you think that Willy's worth more than the rest of the young QB's in the league? To this franchise he is. I wasn't asking if the franchise thinks he is. I was asking what people's own opinions are. Two very different questions.

What I've learned posting here is you think everything the bombers do is the wrong move so just saying, but since you seem to always think they are doing wrong, your shtick is getting/gotten old. I've agreed with most of the Bombers changes this year. Only 2 that I disagree with so far... Willy getting north of $400K and keeping MB as OC. Your shtick seems to be remembering things that didn't happen then complaining about them.

I think that in all fairness, you should probably write a strongly worded letter the the Chair of the Winnipeg Football Club. In it, you can outline your concerns and include your extensive CV which will demonstrate just how informed your opinion is. I'm confident that once they read the letter, they will give it the attention it deserves Lots of folks think whatever the Bombers do is right. I disagree with something the Bombers did. Not the first time. Won't be the last time. I still hope it works out. That being said, do you think that Willy's worth more than the rest of the young QB's in the league?

North of $400K. More than Mitchell, Reilly, Collaros and Crompton. In Ray and Burris territory. Good for Willy, I guess. I hope he earns it this year and going forward. I still think it's the wrong move.

Looks like you guys are getting your wish. It'll be interesting to see what the numbers and the split between base and bonuses are. Oh wait. I almost forgot. Terms of the deal won't be made public.

The risk is that Willy has a breakout year and we have to pay him more than we would if we extend him now. If that happens, we can extend him any time during the season or after the season's over but before Free Agency. If he's doing that well in our system, he'll be a fan fav, the team will make the playoffs and will be headed in the right direction. There won't be any other team who has more to offer than we do other than maybe money and we would definitely match other teams offers. If Mack was still in charge, I'd worry that we'd stick to our number no matter what, but I don't see Walters letting a true franchise QB (Which is what Willy would be) leave.

... are we really going to act like the potential downside of him signing elsewhere doesn't exist? The only way that happens is if we don't re-sign him before he goes to Free Agency AND we don't match or beat other teams offers (Assuming there are any). I don't expect either of those things to happen if we still want him at the end of this season. We don't NEED to extend Willy right now. He's under contract and he's not going anywhere this year. Giving him more money right now isn't going to change the way he plays this year. This years play will tell us and the other teams in the league if he's ready for the big contract or not.

I'm a spend to the cap and maybe a bit over if something terrible happens type of guy. No doubt in my mind that's the right way to go. That being said, I'm not a give em money they haven't earned type of guy or a pay them more than our competition pays for similar/better players type of guy and that's what this discussion is all about IMHO. Overpaying players is no way to get good value for your money and it means you have to to with cheaper players at other positions. 150K could mean signing 6 players at 25K upgrades. By that I mean 6 players who get 25K more than the league average for their position or 6 top tier players. It means being able to outbid other teams for the top players when they come available. Not just in FA, but also at NFL cut time. Beer revenue is a red herring. It will go up when we win, down when we lose. It's not about Willy getting a raise. It's about the wins. If Willy was a top tier QB, then sure, he'd be worth the extra bucks even though it means scrimping elsewhere because QB is the most important position on the field. The only potential downside to not extending Willy now is that we might have to pay him more next year if he has a good to great year. In return, we'd get great value for our money this year and we'd save the 150K that we could use towards his next contract if we have to.

GBill... It's a 150K raise, not $50K. I'd give him a $50K raise to sign him to an extension and I'm sure Walters would too. It's not just amount, it's also about how much is up front money, how much is base and how much is bonuses. Mike... You and I both know that Marve doesn't have a hope of making the NFL next year unless he plays a significant amount of time this year AND plays lights out football. IF those two things were to happen, we wouldn't want to pay Willy 400K to sit on the bench AND we'd want to lock down Marve, not Willy. BTW:Brohm's the #2 guy so he'd have to fail before Marve got playing time too. mbrg.... We aren't talking about last year so Max Hall doesn't have anything to do with this thread. We are talking about this year and we are all hoping (but don't know) that Willy will be better than he was last year. This years Willy isn't a known upgrade over last years Willy. Are folks really worried that if we don't sign Willy to a big contract this year, some other team will want to pay him even more next year and we will lose him or have to pay him even more? Seems to me like a lot of very good things for Willy will have line up to make that scenario work out for him.

That's just a silly game to play. If we played that game 2 months ago, why sign Stanley Bryant, cause he might get hurt. Go with the smart money, start Taormina and save 80 grand. What a silly answer. Bryant is a known upgrade over January and we sorely needed O line upgrades. Well worth the money especially over a guy who shouldn't be starting in the first place. Willy's a sophomore starter who was great for the first 5 games then looked like a rookie for the rest of the season. If he was one of the top 2 QB's in the league, we'd not be having this discussion. BTW: The point I was trying to make, which went over your head, is that we have a lot more on the line if we give Willy his 150K raise, 100K of it as a signing bonus than we do if we simply wait and let him earn his raise.

A few things to ponder: Pay WIlly a $100K bonus and it's gone from our SMS day 1. If we don't extend Willy there's zero gone from the SMS day 1. If Willy gets hurt early in the year, would you rather he was making 400K or 250K? (Not sure he can even make that if he can't make his bonuses). If Brohm or Marve are outplaying Willy in practice, is it harder to replace him for a game if he has just signed a 400K contract? If Walters thought he was worth what he's asking, wouldn't the deal have been done already?

The crux of the matter is... 'Is Willy a franchise QB'? If you think he is then you want to lock him down for as long as possible no matter the cost. If you think he's a JAQ (Just another QB) then you don't care if he's signed or not. If you're not sure (Me) then you want him to prove it before you give him the big bucks. Your argument would be valid if contracts were guaranteed, but seeing that they are not, the worst thing that happens is that we pay him top dollar for one year and if he doesn't pan out, we cut him. If he is the real deal, then we are getting exactly what we are paying for. So this is, in my opinion, a small gamble, compared to the potential big payoff. Your argument would be valid if it was a binary situation. Either great or bust. The reality is that there's lots of shades of grey in between. We may still want to keep Willy if he's progressing even if he's not great this year. That becomes harder to do the more you pay him. It also forces us to start Willy otherwise it looks like Management doesn't know what they are doing by paying him as the franchise QB It's a huge gamble either way. Put all our eggs in the Willy basket in the hope that he's the QB we've been looking for forever. If it turns out he is, then great, we made the right move. If it turns out he's not, then we've lost time, money and spent our SMS poorly which we could have used to upgrade the team elsewhere. We take on all the risk of any injuries that Willy may have and the risk that he's not the QB we've been looking for. OTOH, if we wait to see if Willy's the guy we run the risk of having to pay him more next year. He takes on the injury risk and the risk of not being the QB we're hoping he is.

The crux of the matter is... 'Is Willy a franchise QB'? If you think he is then you want to lock him down for as long as possible no matter the cost. If you think he's a JAQ (Just another QB) then you don't care if he's signed or not. If you're not sure (Me) then you want him to prove it before you give him the big bucks.

I'm still firmly in the 'Let Willy Prove Himself Worthy' camp. I don't believe in paying big bucks for potential. I don't believe in paying a guy like a top QB until he becomes a top QB. Willy's a mid-level QB right now. In fact not many outside of Winnipeg would pick him as their starter over their current starting QB. I'm all for working out an extension that pays Willy for what he's accomplished to keep our starting QB in the fold. Playing out his contract has both advantages and disadvantages for Willy. Get injured or have another year like last year and he won't get the big raise he wants. Play light out and he'll cost even more than he's currently asking. $150K raise? $100K signing bonus? In your second year? Based on last years play? Doesn't add up for me.

I don't expect our top draft pick to be a starter this year. Best choice for a part time starter this year is Waud as a rotation player. That would give the other two DT's some needed rest and allow us to use a DI to replace either the NI WIL or the NI CB when Waud rotates in. Probably the best long term use of our #2 pick to solidify our O line. Greaves and Picard are starters. Neufeld and Goosen are penciled in as the RG and 6th O lineman and Neuf is a huge injury concern. Everett and Griffiths are complete unknowns. Might be good depth. Might be TC fodder. Using our top draft pick on a OL would make a lot of sense because it's more than likely that our pick would be better than either of our backups and might be needed on the game day roster if Neuf goes down yet again. I'd love to see either Demski or Durant in Bomber blue, but I don't think using the second overall on a receiver gets us good value out of it. Sure, we are razor thin at NI receiver, but that's an easy place to hide a player that's not up to snuff. Just put him wide on the back side and say Rookie go long. Unless there's a run on receivers, there should be at least 1 good one available when we pick in the second round. We don't need an NI receiver to start this year. Pick a youngun in the 2nd round and give them a year to work their way into the lineup.