TBURGESS

No, I think he should focus on what's important right now over what may be important somewhere in the future. I disagree. Media attention isn't worth anything unless it increases viewership or revenue. Mexican and European eyes on the CFL doesn't do either.

CFL 2.0 is a dumb thing to waste time on when Montreal might have to be taken over by the league, Toronto can't get enough folks out for the team to make money. and the new deal hasn't been signed with the CFLPA yet. Those should be the Commish's priorities.

I forgot about Rose, so it's 7 down and 2 up. Gray is a rookie who has never started a pro game in his life.

Calgary and Winnipeg look like front runners ATM. Neither look to be as good as they were last year due to losing bunch of good players We lost 7 starters for various reasons (Chungh, Dressler, Fogg, Goosen, JSK, Loffler, Randle, including 3 NI's who were all stars of some type) and brought in 1 upgrade, Jefferson. BC's got to be better with Reilly, Grymes, Chungh and the guy folks love to hate Carter. I don't see anyone on the list that they'll worry too much about replacing unless they lose Elimimian to SMS issues. BC was the same as Edmonton last year and they took the Esks QB. It will be interesting to see if they can play with the top 2 teams or if they are fighting it out for a playoff spot. Edmonton did the best they could after losing Reilly. I like the receivers they brought in. They weren't losing because of offence, it was their defence that stank, so guys like Dean, JSK and Orange should help. If the defence can drop the points against by 7-10 from last year, they got a chance for a western playoff spot. If not, it's 4th or 5th. Riders won on defence last year and it won't be as good this year. They needed to upgrade their receivers (Watson and Arceneaux are over the hill) and O line and I don't see that they did that. I see them dropping way down in the standings, maybe out of the playoffs.

I didn't find it that cold. Even opened my jacket up in the 3rd Q. Everyone was crammed in so tight, we were all sharing body heat and keeping each other out of the wind. That and the 'Hot Chocolate' we were passing around kept us very warm indeed.

Too bad for the players. Some will get CFL jobs, some will get XFL jobs, some will get Arena league jobs, but most will be out of pro football completely. Any good OC's available for the Ottawa job?

It's not assuming anything of the sort. PLAP likely didn't even get a chance to interview or get an offer so we'll never know if he'd have taken the job. Truthfully tho, I'd say he'd seriously look at a taking a job that paid more money in US$ and gave him a 2 year contract. More US college sports eyes on his work might be a stepping stone to even more money and free education for his kids. Worse case scenario is that he could come back to the CFL and interview for HC jobs.

Ottawa wouldn't let Elizondo interview for the Riders HC job. He took the first opportunity to get out of town. Good thing that Trestman wanted him instead of PLAP or else we'd be the team looking for a new OC today.

How many folks in Winnipeg would be willing to pay to watch an NFL preseason game? Would the Bombers be able to even half fill the stadium? I kinda doubt it.

Agree with most of what's been written. I liked DB Lee too.

They sign a contract saying they will participate in all drills before they get their plane ticket. Don't want to participate... don't sign and don't go. Simple as that. Frankly, not participating after you've said you would is a huge red flag for me. I wouldn't draft them until the 3rd round or later, and yes, I know that means I wouldn't get to draft them at all.

Challenges shouldn't be used for 50/50 calls! They should only be for obvious mistakes. In which case, they could all be handled by the eye in the sky. (That would have fixed the Saints problem for sure) Coaches will use as many challenges as they have. Just look at the mess we were in before the league took 'extra' challenges away.

Don't like refs calling intent. I doubt they will get it right most of the time. More challenges = more fishing attempts late in games. Don't like that at all. I like the 'Eye In The Sky' getting more involved, but I worry that it will slow the game down. 25 yard penalties? 2 majors and you're out? Yellow and Red cards for the soccer fans too? Absolutely no need for QB giving themselves up whistle, just slide feet first. No need for any of the new kicking rules. Just unnecessary changes that make it more difficult for the refs and the average fan.

An average of Canadian Starters vs American Starters, by position, would make the most sense. Even NI starters vs Imp starters makes more sense than average NI vs average Imp without QB's.

I couldn't care less if there are any NI QB's in the league, but if there are, then they should be considered NI's. If that means teams roster one, just to have an extra DI, so be it. They'll pay dearly if they ever need to use the NI QB and he isn't good enough. As for having a 4th QB spot designated just for a NI... That's a hard no from me.

My take: We're talking about not guaranteeing jobs for the 9 or 18 worst NI's in the league. It won't make any difference to the current Canadian stars. It won't make any difference to most of the Canadian starters. 1 or 2 a team may get pushed out of starting spots. If a Canadian is better or equal to the American he's competing against, the Canadian still gets the job. Teams could roster more NI's than they have to. It won't matter to most fans, just the super fans like the folks around here. Average fans likely don't even know how the NI rules work. It doesn't mean that only certain spots will be Canadian. Having a NI RB is the same as having a NI LB or an NI OL. It will reduce the difference between NI and Import salaries for the same positions. It will reduce the salaries of some NI's. It will increase the skill level without additional cost. It will decrease the problems that occur when a NI starter gets hurt. It should make for better football overall.

CFL, CFLPA could lower the number of Canadian starters: sources - https://3downnation.com/2019/03/16/cfl-cflpa-could-lower-the-number-of-canadian-starters-sources/ I'm both happy and surprised at this.

I'm old enough to remember the territorial protection in the CFL. Teams paid for players college and they got very involved at the high school level to find the best prospects early on. There were always home town hero's on every team. It was a great system, especially in the west.

The quality of NI's gets a bit better every year. The best go to the NFL at least for a while. What we need is ENOUGH good NI's to have 7 or more starters on each team. There aren't enough of them to go round, let alone enough good NI's to fill every teams NI needs. That's why Canucks are paid so much more than imports.

1 less NI per team = the 9 worst NI's not getting to play pro football in Canada. The CFL has reduced the number of NI starters in the past, and it didn't stop folks from watching. Reducing the starters by 1 wouldn't stop (m)any folks from watching. I've never heard anyone say... 'If they don't start 7 NI's, I'm not watching any more'. Personally, I think they should have reduced the number of NI starters by 1 when Ottawa came back into the league.

I'd be shocked, but I'd like to see it.

If it's just new contracts, then it wouldn't be a breach. With the number of players being re-signed, it would still effect a large percentage of the league.

I don't understand how this 'don't pay offseason bonuses' is legal. Players have contracts that say they will receive X dollars on Y date. Wouldn't not paying the contractual obligation put the CFL and the teams in breach of contract?

You want to talk Walters? OK, I'll go there, but that's not where I was going before this post. Walters MO in the past revolved around working the FA market big time, bringing in experienced guys and hoping that our scouts could fill in the blanks. This year he's gotten rid of a bunch of experienced guys and hasn't done much in the FA market. I hope the scouts can actually fill in the blanks this year. Walters biggest get this year was Bighill. No problem at all with that. We paid him big. We found him more money outside the SMS. All in all, good work. Goosen is one of our biggest losses, which isn't on Walters. He also extended a couple of good players. So far. So good. Losing Chungh wouldn't have been as big a deal if we hadn't already lost Goosen, but changing out 2 all star, NI OL at the same time is a big deal. Complaining that Chungh's camp knew that his value went up was sour grapes IMO, but Walters stuck to his 'number' and let Chungh walk. He stuck to his 'number' and let JSK walk. He stuck to his 'number' and let Loffler (A good decision IMO) walk. He also let Randle go, which I personally don't agree with. It remains to be seen if the new cheaper starters promoted from with in work out. Jefferson's a great DE. Rose can play although 3 teams in 3 years is a bit of a red flag. I'm on the record saying I'd have used the SMS room differently and I stick to my opinion. Making offers isn't Walters job. Signing players is. Other teams seem to value most of the FA's that we wanted more than we do. Is Walters 'number' the right one to get us the top players? It doesn't look like it is. I don't see us fixing the problems that we knew we had going into FA. I don't see us replacing the guys we lost to FA with FA's. I'd give Walters a C- so far in this year's FA game. That's hardly hating everything he does.

It's about the net, not about any individual players salary. Not surprising that folks around here want to make it about JSK's salary as he's probably the only one on the list where we won't get any SMS relief. No 17. It's not about Walters. I didn't even mention him. It's about the excuse that we don't have SMS money to sign players. We choose not to go over what we decide is enough money for each individual player. If we really spent all our SMS money then we wouldn't be making a big offer to Walker.