TBURGESS

Loffler and JSK were the only 2 players on the list who were on their first contract IIRC. I doubt either guy was getting league minimum. We may still get some SMS relief depending on who we replace them with. It's not a 1 to 1 correspondence. If we replace them with someone already on the team, then we can replace those guys with rookies to get an SMS benefit.

I doubt we offered Walker the same as Toronto did or else he'd have signed with us.

It's not about how much each player makes. It's about how much SMS relief we got in total. Another reason we have SMS room is the QB situation. When Team A pays their QB 750K and we pay our QB 450K, then we have 300K more to spend on the rest of the team than team A. Team A shouldn't be able to outbid us on players we want.

SMS is an excuse. We have as much money to spend as everyone else. As it currently stands, Randle, Leggett, Wild, Dressler, Durant (70K), Fogg, Lankford, Loffler, Chungh, Goosen, Nevis, Okpaulogo, and JSK's, salaries are all off the books. Bighill got a raise, and we signed Jefferson who took Oko's salary plus more, Rose is likely cheaper than Fogg. Unless we were over last year, we should have a ton of bucks available to spend.

We've shown that we can lose good players like Calgary does. The key to winning though, is to replace those players with as good if not better players like Calgary does.

Loffler to Montreal. 2 years.

Hope it's a FA or Loffler. Jones and Hecht don't impress me at all. Big time drop from Loffler IMO.

Whose the 1st NI on D?

$250K is Chungh's market rate, assuming that's what BC paid him.

Sure it comes at a price. Blowing through the entire cap space to get the best players is the goal, not a bad thing.

Asked and answered. You'd rather start a rookie or an extra import OL and find yet another starting NI somewhere else? Think that's any cheaper or easier?

BC's been signing impact players all day. They've got less cap space than we do.

I'm telling you, without knowing what the real numbers are and the rest of the SMS for both teams, no one can possibly answer that question with any degree of accuracy. Lets say twitter is right. BC offered $250K and we offered $200K. I'd have at least matched the Lions number, maybe 5K more. I'd rather have Chungh than Jefferson at $200+K.

As it sits, I'd say we've got the fourth best QB in the West. Reilly, BLM and Harris are all better. Luckily, it takes more than just a good QB to win championships.

It's a specific question without a specific answer because neither of us know what the two offers were. We don't know if BC offered more or less than we did although I assume it was more. We don't know how much was up front. We don't even know if money was the deciding factor. I'm on record as saying I'd have 'overpaid' a young NI all star to keep him and I stick by that assessment. As for Demski... I'm happy we don't have to replace another NI starter but I hope we didn't give him much of a salary bump as he was already being over paid for his contributions IMO.

That would be a good signing, but I think it would cost more than $150K.

They are looking like today's Biggest Losers.

We need a couple of new NI starters, not Willie Jefferson.

Loffler... Not over paying him, but I'd rather have JSK @ $145K than Jefferson @ $200+K and use the extra to 'overpay' Chungh.

and let them go when they want to get paid.

Jeff Hamilton Hearing LB Jovan Santos-Knox found a contract for around $145,000, plus bonuses. Not sure the team yet, but maybe Sask? Good for him, he's a heck of a player and deserves that deal. High character guy that any locker room would want. Doesn't sound like a huge number to me.

Looks like we're losing a ton of NI talent. No... last years backups, who weren't good enough to get a starting job, aren't going to seamlessly step in and play as well. 3 of the NI's we're likely losing were all stars of some sort last year. I hate losing young difference makers like JSK. They are the kind of players you build your team on going forward.

1. Arbitrary - Not the 'whim' definition, the 'autocratic in the use of authority' definition. In other words, we have a number that we've decided on. 2. If some other team makes a higher offer than we do, we could lose Chungh for a few (Yes, I changed from a couple to a few) thousand dollars. Nothing to say that we will match or beat any other offers or even that Chungh will give us the chance.

No, I'm not suggesting we pay him whatever he wants. I'm suggesting that we pay him whatever he's worth on the open market plus a bit to make sure we keep him. Losing him for a couple of thousand dollars to stay within the number we arbitrarily choose for him doesn't help us at all. It helps another team get better and stronger in their NI starters. The idea that we can't afford him is dumb. We can afford him if we choose to.

Jan 15th was the day we paid Nichols half of this years salary in the form of a bonus. It was also the day that it became fiscally impossible to replace Nichols either by bringing in another starting QB or trading him.