JuranBoldenRules

Is there any source on the 25 year old age limit? My understanding is that players with NI status are automatically eligible for the draft following their 25th birthday if they haven't already been eligible for a CFL Draft, but I don't see anything that would limit someone from petitioning for NI status past 25 and being entered into a regular or supplemental draft, but it's never happened.

When the alternative is someone who is going to cut 100,000 jobs to create 1,000,000 jobs. The Ontario PC's are as incompetent as the PC's here in terms of putting together a legitimate platform and election strategy. You'd think some of these provincial parties would see Harper and the Federal Conservatives strategies and take some advice. Be the wolf, but at least put on sheep's clothing until you get power.

I thought Tillman had pretty much scouted Laurent on his own - no one seemed to have heard of him before the Supplemental...? The Laurent situation is a very unique one. Bruce Feldman (who was at ESPN at the time) came across a Duane Forde article ranking the top defensive linemen available in the CFL draft. He contacted me asking if those 10 guys were all better than Ted Laurent or at least why there was no mention of Ted. Bruce had written the fantastic book "Meat Market" and got to know that recruiting class very well at Ole Miss and Ted was part of that class. After a couple of emails it was confirmed that Ted would qualify for the draft but it was beyond the date to get onto the official draft list so he ended up in the supplemental draft in one of the largest supplementals in a long time. These kids that move with family members to the States during their teens are nearly impossible to keep track of especially when they move before high school. The high school kids are a little easier if they've made a name for themselves a bit. Hypothetically, what would happen if they found out a guy who had played in the NFL for a couple years (let's say he's 27 or 28) was actually eligible to be a NI. An established player. Would he suddenly be declared eligible for the next draft? To put a real name in here let's say that Orlando Franklin decided that he wanted to play in the CFL after his time with the Broncos was over. My understanding of it as that he could apply for NI status (and would get it in a heartbeat as he's more than eligible even before the rule changes) and would enter as a free agent. Likely he's already on a neg list somewhere and in his case he'd probably only want to play for Toronto. Worst case scenario he would go through the waiver process so the 9th place team of the year before would have first negotiating rights. Pretty sure any player in that situation would go through a supplemental draft, and they'd go to the highest bidder with waiver priority, or be eligible in the next CFL Draft depending on when their NI status is approved. NI players have to go through a draft, they are only free agents if they are undrafted. I don't think a non-import player can be a free agent without being eligible for a draft.

people should listen to me, I don't make **** up. Hall wasn't bad in that game apart from a few throws, the receivers let him down a hell of a lot. He had a pretty rough outing. Could have made a couple first downs by pulling the ball and rolling out on the zone read instead of leading the back into 3-4 defenders, by my count he made 2 good passes, underthrew one completion that Carter snagged off the turf, and over or under threw everything else. Wasn't bad apart from a few throws is basically a bad night when you're only making a few throws. He looked better to me live than when I watched the game again, but I wasn't paying much attention live. Brohm was equally poor. Only tossed a few catchable balls, a couple of his incompletions were on the money but total rockets that nobody could catch. He's got a gun but he might need to spend some time on the range getting it under control.

Braxton Miller will get a lot of NFL looks. Stephen Morris, we could do better. As for Jordan Lynch, his only problem as a QB is throwing a football, no big deal. I think both Lynch and Morris suffered from being forced to be NFL-style pocket passers. Miller 'might' fall off the radar... I would sign Morris just for his nickname, 'Tin Cup'... but that's just me. I'm guessing you haven't seen Northern Illinois and Jordan Lynch play. He's not a quarterback, he's a running back who throws sometimes. He definitely wasn't "forced to be a NFL-style pocket passer." Doesn't really matter how good of a scrambler or runner a guy is, if he can't consistently make throws from the pocket he can't be an effective pro QB. The easiest thing for a defense to stop is a running QB who can't pass.

Depends on how you're judging, but we've had 5 first rounders since 2011 and the only one on our roster is Goossen. That's relatively awful IMO. We just cut a 2nd rounder from 2013 who couldn't even stay on our roster past one pre-season game, when we aren't exactly brimming with talent. There was the analysis of the numbers of drafted players on CFL rosters and the Bombers were on the high side of average, but a lot of those players aren't Blue Bombers, and they didn't bring back quality NI's, so does it matter?

This regime could be the one to turn things around with NI's. Goveia has put together several stellar drafts for the Argos, and as stupid as it sounds, having several Canadians in the front office probably makes the non-imports more of a priority and less of a "oh, we have to play how many Canadians" type of issue. Taman kind of goes against that, but he views draft picks more as currency to spend than investments.

We got Doug Brown's rights from Calgary for a third round pick in 2003. The Stamps weren't complaining too much (though I'm sure they'd have preferred to have Doug playing for them) as that pick turned out to be Mike Labinjo. I looked back at the years 2001-2007 and what is even more amazing to me is from the years 2001 - 2006 we not only didn't have any first round picks, we had no seconds either. We ended up getting our first pick in the third round almost every year, and some years we didn't even have a third rounder (like in 2003). In 2007, we had a second rounder, and we took Corey Mace, who never played a down for us. And 2002 1st rounder, who ended up being Oosterhuis, cut by Calgary and ended up playing 9 years for the Bombers.

Imagine what our NI crew would look like if we just drafted Calgary Dinos in the first round instead of who Mack picked... Coehoorn, Fabien, Edem. 3 starters instead of 3 guys who aren't on our roster.

I feel like Lawless got a lot of this info direct from the Bombers. Grigsby might be great in practice, but he was horrible in the game. He showed no ability to read zone blocking and find the gaps, make a quick cut, hit the gap and get yards. Other than one big run where he got around the edge, he did squat. Cotton was consistently grabbing 6 yards, finding the gaps and fighting through contact behind the same OL in the 2nd quarter. Cotton showed the ability to grind out yards, as well as hit big runs.

For the most part, I don't think Etcheverry thinks in those terms, what the defense is willing to give or bend but not break. IMO, his scheme is all about throwing the offence off-balance and making them guess, basically having few tendencies that a QB can read pre-snap. That's basically the opposite of Burke's D, which relies heavily on players to win 1 on 1 battles and really doesn't break tendency or engage in psychological warfare too much. Etcheverry also has a lot of reads built into his scheme, so he's relying on his players to see certain things and react properly according to what he wants, anyone anywhere can basically end up doing anything, blitzing, dropping into coverage. If Etcheverry was a hitter in baseball, he's looking to slug an extra base hit or a home run every pitch, whereas a guy like Burke is going to take a couple pitches and just try to make contact or get on base. He has some other core beliefs too, smaller and faster is better than bigger, slower and stronger being a huge one, and he applies that to every position on the field.

The expectation that athletes in their early 20's are supposed to behave like Mother Teresa just because they happen to be athletes is bound to disappoint. More often than not they will behave just like any other 21 year old male. Unless they have more disposable income, then they may behave worse. Nothing on his rap sheet raises my eyebrows. Been there, done that. The 3 knee surgeries might be a concern if I hadn't seen him running at practise. Powerful, smooth strides, quite an effortless runner actually. It's a concern because he's never lasted a full season. The knees are ticking time bombs. He's healthy now, but for how long?

I know it's preseason and I know Etch doesn't want to tip his hand .. but honestly .. watching the Argos run on us (at will) on Monday night made me cringe .. Thing that bothers me is all the "everyone rally to the ball" stuff, but then you watch them on Monday and most runs right up the gut became 1 on 1 in open field, when you should have more guys in the middle of the field when the offense attacks there. If Wild misses one tackle, it's an easy TD. They rallied pretty well when the ball was outside the tackles, but the middle of the field was gaping. I guess we can take solace in the fact that no one will step out of bounds without being hit, but they can just take 10 yards right up the middle if they wish. The scheme was likely very vanilla, but that core principle of everyone rallying to the ball was missing for the most part.

I guess he could get a pass for being a veteran and dogging it a bit last night, but he's also supposed to be the tone setter, a big reason why he was added. He was either not going 100% or always a step behind, and whiffed on a few tackles that should have been routine.

I've only reviewed the 1st quarter so far, but Wild looks pretty damn good. He made a couple great open field tackles where backs/receivers would have had a lot of space if he didn't get them down, and he didn't get carried for extra yards either. I think you gotta figure out a way to use him, whether it's where he played yesterday or somewhere else. Suber got picked on pretty badly in the 1st quarter by mostly rookie CFL receivers, he couldn't seem to disrupt their routes. To the point I've gone over the game again, Suber and Banks have both looked like crap, Banks covering turf not men and not really involved in any plays positively.

Yes he played. He is number 8. He had his corner on lockdown the whole time, not sure they ever even looked his way. He played contain on kickoffs and punts too while he was in, very well.

I'd expect Willy to play the entire first half and a series or 2 in the second half in the final pre-season game, along with most of the starters on both sides of the ball. It stinks that we play 2 pre-season games in 5 days, with basically a week of practice leading up to the first pre-season game, then have a week off. They likely won't be able to install much more prior to the game on Saturday. We have the crappiest pre-season schedule IMO, hopefully they rotate the short pre-season week through every team and we don't see it again for a few years (assuming Ottawa lasts long enough ).

My initial impression is that Brohm has few redeemable qualities as a CFL QB. But the OL was terrible in front of him. A couple times myself and my buddy looked at each other and wondered why they were blocking like it was a screen pass when Brohm was clearly going downfield, that's how bad it was. Marve has a great arm. That pass he hit on the sideline was a beauty. Every QB tossed that same seam pattern at least once, and Marve was the only one who didn't require the receiver to turn back and fight the DB for the ball, he hit the guy in stride. Willy runs the zone read very well, and that will save him from having to make a bunch of tough throws if we feature it. Hall looks a little more comfortable, but he can't run the zone read if he isn't willing to pull the ball down himself...there was one really bad one where 3 Argos were bearing down on the RB and he didn't take it. Could have run for 20 yards or sucked in a DB and hit a good pass on the rollout.

Well, this sure is showing just how fractured the players are, and how ignorant some like Mo Price are. I can understand the Foley's and Cornish's viewpoints, not so much the Mo Price's who probably won't make it through half of the term of the proposed deal. From a selfish point of view, going to any extreme would not make sense for any import player. The fact that the CFLPA executive is endorsing this mediated deal should be a pretty good indicator to the players that they won't get any better deal.

a. we traded two second rounders to end up with Pencer (our first ratio breaking RT) b. a 2nd round pick (Dylan Ainsworth) would have been rotating/starting this year for the bombers c. Neufeld looked good at RT and very average at RG in Sask d. your post sounds like you're the one who is panicking I'm not in any 'panic' - that's an old ploy on these boards when someone points out a concern on the team. Our team does not look 'great' on paper, panic won't change that. I am hopeful that Pencer or Neufeld will get reps at RT because that's why they were brought here. Why trade our 2nd rounder if we're only starting 3 (or possibly 2) NI on the line. I'd switch that to very average and pretty bad respectively, and call that evaluation fairly generous. For Neufeld it's tackle or nothing IMO.

It will be worse than last year. Really the only spot we added a non-import upgrade for 2014 is DB. It's gonna take a few years of great drafting to really improve. We've got basically nothing out of a lot of high picks recently, and it shows.

Voting to strike doesn't necessarily mean being willing or able to strike. The CFLPA strike vote was like going all-in with a 7-2 off suit. The CFL called the bluff.

I think you forgot "BOOM."

The way we are going through IMP OL and the number of them around makes me think we won't be starting fewer than 2 IMP on the OL.