TBURGESS

Big A. Small numbers. Still way better than Regina's watermelon jerseys.

This games no gimmi. Toronto's coming off of a bye week and are probably still plenty pissed at the embarrassment we laid on them in the first game of the season. We're coming off a very short week and the last game was extremely physical and we're on the road. That being said, looking at the depth charts, who the heck is Ricky Ray going to throw the ball to? Their RB's don't scare me at all. I doubt they will get a lot of pressure, so Willy could have a field day against them. The only way I see them beating us is to run the ball and complete a lot of short passes to stay on the field. Our D could run out of steam in the 4th if they own the time of possession and I don't see them doing that. Stay away from penalties and turnovers, and this one should be ours.

I'll be shocked if Brink makes any difference to the Al's O. Smiths still a better QB than Brink even with his accuracy issues. I gotta admit I heard circus music when I read the title.

They are overly emotional. Reflection of the HC or reflection of the players they hired? Probably a bit of both. Everyone knows that Stewart is a hot head and is going to take some penalties and it doesn't matter if the HC is PLAP, Burke or Austin.

Do they really? I want you to actually justify that comment because I see a team that lost because they turned the ball over when they got it and that isn't affected by the Riders picking up meaningless rushing yards (and yes they were meaningless because they didn't result in a hell of a lot of points) Cuz you asked so nicely.... Rider's offense was almost non-existent before they started running Messam. Continue with that and our offense gets more chances with the ball, their defense gets tired due to lopsided TOP, they lose the field position battle and the game. The yards weren't meaningless, although your posts are getting more and more so. As I thought, you're going with the "just because" reasoning. The Bombers got the ball back plenty of times with plenty of time left and they utterly failed to move the ball. Now in your world apparently more chances would have made it better? I dunno about that, we've seen this offense bog down before against certain defenses and it doesn't matter how many times they get the ball back. Willy wasn't feeling it clearly, he was throwing dangerous passes, they couldn't get the run game going... More opportunities with the ball I don't think would have helped, and to be quite honest, I think without Messam the Riders were a more dangerous team because they would have actually tried passing the ball rather than settling into the conservative 6 yards a carry game they did and they might have broken a big play or two and scored more points. I'll give up 100+ yards in a half if the qb barely cracks 100 passing. As I thought, you don't know reasoning when you see it. You want it to be about 1 thing and you've decided that's turnovers. Anything else is illogical to you. You can't just take away our bad plays and say if we didn't have them we would have won. It's true, but it's simplistic and unrealistic. Playing your game, Regina would take away the first 'Illegal contact' penalty on our only drive and we wouldn't have scored a TD or a FG in that drive. They'd take away the 13 men in the huddle penalty and have scored FG at the end of the half. They'd take away the trip in the endzone that cost them the second TD and possibly another INT. 2 penalties and 1 bad play and all of a sudden, we've lost 14 points and they've gained 3. OMG, we weren't even close! LOL. Football games are won and lost on many plays by many players. Close games come down to a handful of plays which if they went the other way would change the winner and loser. My last point, although I suspect you've stopped reading already... If we'd have signed Messam instead of Regina we'd have won the last game even if he didn't touch the ball because he couldn't hurt us.

Botched hold on a FG cost them the win against Calgary. Bad gun snap on the 2 yard line cost them a TD last night. Costly penalties & turnovers. The Cats have a suicide tendency to do stupid things at critical times. Is that just bad luck or do some players have character issues that Austin has to weed out? This is happening too much for it just to be a coincidence or an isolated event. Some players choke under pressure. I don't think it's luck as much as it's being 'almost' good enough to win coupled with losing their first string QB and 3 starting O lineman plus others. LeFevour is getting better each game out, but that O line is still a big stinking pile. Hamilton is taking a bunch of dumb penalties. Some of that's on the coaching staff. Some on the players. Some on trying to do a little too much like getting one extra hit in. Some on backups getting beat and having to grab to survive. As the games are really close these mistakes are magnified much like the last couple of years in Bomberland.

Do they really? I want you to actually justify that comment because I see a team that lost because they turned the ball over when they got it and that isn't affected by the Riders picking up meaningless rushing yards (and yes they were meaningless because they didn't result in a hell of a lot of points) Cuz you asked so nicely.... Rider's offense was almost non-existent before they started running Messam. Continue with that and our offense gets more chances with the ball, their defense gets tired due to lopsided TOP, they lose the field position battle and the game. The yards weren't meaningless, although your posts are getting more and more so.

It's not one or the other. Riders lose without Messam's 125 yards of rushing in the second half. They also lose if we don't turn the ball over.

A stat on one of last nights game said that Grigsby's used in more than 25% of our offensive plays. IIRC he was 4th on the list of most used players. The coaches must see something in him to warrant that number of touches.

Hamilton keeps hanging in there with the good teams but can't seem to make that one last play to win. That kind of effort will eventually get them a few wins this year, mostly against eastern competition.

My 2 posts of the 3 pages of this thread really got to you eh?

Grigsby's a great receiver out of the backfield, but that's not the same skill set as running accurate patterns and getting open. As I've said before... I blame the lack of a running game more on the O line than the RB's.

You don't have to be in the huddle to see Willy not look anywhere except at JFG. He didn't go through any reads. He locked in and then threw a soft ball. He admitted in his post game interview that he shouldn't have thrown the ball. If the OC didn't call that play, then Willy changed it at the line. Either way. A 5 yard out to the sidelines is a bad play call in the situation they were in. Add in the fact that Willy locked in and threw a soft ball, and you are almost guaranteed a bad result. Either a knockdown or a pick. As there's no one between the pick and the goal line, you have to expect a big return if it's picked. IMO: Bad call and bad execution.

Messam did more in 1 half of football than Volny's done in his career. Messam is a valid backup for an Import RB, which saves a DI. Volny? Not so much. Messam turned a loss into a win against a Western Division opponent who's above Regina in the standings. Ford didn't crack the Bombers defence open behind the same O line in the same game. Messam did. Messam wasn't getting 7 yards down the field before we touched him. He was breaking first contact then going downfield in a lot of cases. If Messam does nothing else for the rest of the season, he's already earned his paycheck. Messam's size and strength would net him more yards inside the tackles than Grigsby, give us a DI back and give us a change of pace.

I'll say it, if no one else will... it's horrible. FTR: I think there should only be 2 jerseys for each team. Home and away. I don't care if it's tradition that one team is white and the other has colour. Folks with black and white TV's need to get with the times.

Ford was limping when he spelled Messam. I don't think he was close to 100%.

Willy: 3 INT's and a fumble. Washington: 1 fumble and a bad decision to bring it out after the missed FG. Neither guy is going to be on the player of the week list.

Who was it that I was arguing with about Messam? FYI: That's why he was a good choice.

It's more about what Willy would choose than what the Bombers said, but of course, you've made your mind up and I'm not going to change it. yeah except my mind was made up by logical reasoning and facts, yours by the voices in your head. Your 'logical reasoning and facts' amount to 'The Bombers said they wanted him so they'd surely get him'.

I need a new jersey too, but I can't bring myself to buy the current ones. Royal Blue is the right colour for the Bombers IMHO.

I recall reading somewhere that they went after the free agents in the order they were available but that they had no bearing on order of interest You read that on the forums for sure. Right after we managed to sign Willy.

It's more about what Willy would choose than what the Bombers said, but of course, you've made your mind up and I'm not going to change it.

It's not ONLY who pays the most. Our biggest advantage was the open starting QB spot. That would be gone if we'd already signed the top FA in the offseason, Collaros. (Willy's turned out to be the best signing, but it's revisionist history to suggest he was thought of as the best FA in the offseason) I doubt we make the trade to get him before FA season if we'd already signed Collaros, so that advantage would be gone too. Willy would have probably had a choice among Mtl, BC, and Wpg. Mtl had a better O line (It's the offseason) and a fairly stable team that looks like it will be a contender in the East. BC has a stable team, is known as a QB factory, and looks like it will be a contender in the West. Wpg has 'blown the whole thing up' every year or two, is known as a QB graveyard, isn't thought of as a contender and just signed Collaros. I know we're talking hypothetically and there's no one right answer, but I think there's a very strong case to be made that Willy wouldn't sign in Winnipeg if Austin didn't take the huge risk of letting Burris go and signing Collaros. In fact, I don't think we'd have gotten Willy if we'd signed Burris too.

It was already known that Lulay wouldn't be ready to start the season. Willy would have had a choice of signing with Wpg after we just signed Collaros and compete for the starting job or sign with BC and get some guaranteed starts at the beginning of the season. I don't think his first choice would have been Winnipeg in that case. I also don't think we'd have paid him as much as we did if we already had Collaros, which would further reduce our chances of getting him.

BC's new uni from last year is the best I've seen in a long time. If we get camo instead, I won't buy one.