JuranBoldenRules

That would be insane. We need seven starting Canadians first. Depth is a problem too, but you're not going to solve that in this draft. Other than Lavertu, there is no interior OL prospect in this draft remotely near the quality of Watman. I'd give up #2 in a flash to get Watman, I might ask for a one of Saskatchewan's picks other than their 1st, but if the Bombers really want that type of player coming out of this draft, that would be an easy trade to make. I'm not sure the Riders would make that deal though. Picard is coming to the end of the line, and there's no real need for the Riders to acquire the 2nd overall pick. Watman is probably more valuable to them.

Working directly with operations people and Sam's friends is precisely what got them into trouble over the fire halls. It is much better for them to deal with someone who is in a position to make decisions, and be able to deal with the Managers of the various departments They actually didn't involve the operations people, which caused the problem, just Sheegl and the leadership of the fire department, who had no clue about land development and building and unsurprisingly they got scammed by a land developer.

After 3 seasons of attending half of the Jets home games, all by car, I've seen exactly one bottleneck in my travels to or from, and that was once when we were attempting to get to South Osborne, Osborne through the Village was the bottleneck. The downtown can handle that amount of traffic easily. I've been in a bottleneck either trying to get to Pembina or the Perimeter from the Richmond neighbourhood south of the stadium at every Bomber game I've attended at IGF, easily 45 minutes per game, even after staying until 0:00 and a 20 minute walk to the vehicle. That's not even starting from on campus. It's just not a good location to move 30,000 people to and from at once, and there's not a whole lot they can do to change that, it will be something they will always have to contend with when selling tickets.

The biggest problem is getting people on and off campus. with two good access/exit points and a third on residential roads to the south. They could demolish UC and Frank Kennedy and have 100,000 parking spots on campus and it wouldn't help.

Probably none of those since they severely restrict traffic on-campus, and it wouldn't really be all that safe to have Gator's whizzing around people walking.

That's not even football acumen, that's life acumen. The more information/chances to evaluate before you have to make a decision, the better. Would you rather look at a car, then have to decide to buy it or not, or get to drive it for a day with your friend who is a mechanic and then decide? That's basically the scenario here, Wylie being the mechanic. Friesen has zero redeeming qualities for me. Not sure he's really appreciated by his peers either, how come he's never on the radio, either CJOB or TSN 1290? Penton, Wiebe, Tait, even Wiecek get loads of radio time around the Jets and Bombers, can't say I've even heard Friesen's voice.

Meh, the transitway will only be useful for anyone coming through downtown or from the north (west of the river), probably far less than half of people taking transit to the game. Not necessarily. Anyone could park anywhere along its path and have quicker egress from that quagmire around the U. Remember - game day tickets allow fans a free ride. In no time people would figure it out and the need for parking and spaces would diminish. Also, most of those game day buses wouldn't be needed, leaving the roadway for cars only. Less cars, less buses less hassle. I know its true, I read it on a bus billboard when I was aboard and bored. Just crossing the river to park on the transitway for anyone from the east side of the city would double travel time. Honestly, if I have to cross the river to access reasonable transit to the stadium, I'm driving the whole way, but we park for free about 2 KM's south of the stadium and walk. And there's zero chance I'm wading into the mess that those buses are after the game. I've been to some interesting places and I don't think I've seen anything quite as dangerous as the number of drunk people staggering down University Crescent combined with people whizzing by on bikes and confused bus drivers/riders trying to figure out where to go, all of this in the pitch black dark. I'm surprised at the lack of private shuttles to the stadium. I thought places like BP, Tavern etc would be all over that.

Meh, the transitway will only be useful for anyone coming through downtown or from the north (west of the river), probably far less than half of people taking transit to the game.

See, this is why having a shareholder vote could work. City nominates someone new for their seat, shareholders vote to confirm or deny candidate, rather than a handful of board members filibustering for whatever reason they choose. Their reasoning doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. They will have to work with operations people from a bunch of city departments for special events, don't really think having the CAO or CFO sitting on the Bomber board does a lot to streamline that process.

I thought MPI was sponsoring the charters.

Pull a Mike Ditka and trade all our picks to Ottawa for #1, make sure we get Lavertu. Honestly getting one really good player out of this draft would be a win.

Especially when most teams are using 4-5 imports on the DL and rotating edge rushers in and out. The quality of pass rushers on the whole hasn't been better in my lifetime.

I'd take one import in the Medlock mold ideally, and I think Mike O'Shea would too this season, even with the ratio issues. There isn't a NI available who can reliably do both, and special teams is extremely important. Not worth having a guy who's going to net 30 yards on punts, even if he can hit 80% of his field goals to save a roster spot. Better off playing a NI backup at dime or LB and having a good kicking game. I think if we really want Johnny Mark, we'll have to pick him 20th overall, cause I think one of the teams between 21 and 26 probably will take him. Ottawa and Montreal both need kickers or want competition at the very least, that's also where the quality of players drops sharply. Mark won't be a candidate to do both jobs unless his punting improves drastically, and he's weak on kickoffs, he's very much like Palardy, probably more accurate inside 35-40. Don't think this is the import to be that guy though, just based purely on his numbers.

Hope we can find that Corey Holmes, Marcus Thigpen type that Bellefeuille has been able to use successfully in the past.

And CFL cheerleaders don't get paid at all! 900 NCAA carries probably has something to do with injury-proneness. I'd hope we could find about 100 RB's who would be a better fit for us.

The rankings are meaningless. The CFL personnel guys don't get any solid film on the CIS prospects until the season is over, they start really scouting hard and prepping in the new year. If you are going to rely on any of the CFL Scouting Bureau rankings, the final one is best. Otherwise, 90% of what they are basing it on is eye test from the spotters booth if they have anyone scout games (even if they do they might see a guy once or twice, and they are usually looking specifically at 1-2 guys), and the East-West game/testing from the year previous. The information on the NCAA guys is even more spotty before they really bear down and watch the film. Chances are a lot of teams didn't really take a serious look (as they would a 1st round pick) at Smith's film until he dominated the combine. You need to draft the best CFL players available, and you need to do that over years to build a solid NI base. If the best CFL player at 2nd overall isn't a OL, I'd rather the Bombers take that guy than an OL who is a question mark and several years from being a good CFL player. We have holes in the roster at pretty much every spot but receiver, and even there we seriously need depth.

The amount of money guaranteed high MLB picks is about half of what 1st round NFL picks get, plus you're looking at 2-3 years riding buses down I-15, through California, or the midwest and some time riding the bus through one entire half of the continent once you get to AAA. The signing bonus would be good, but the pay and lifestyle is probably worse than what's he's already used to as a top NCAA athlete. I'd do NFL first and fall back on baseball if necessary in his position. If I was a RB or LB going to get picked in the middle of the NFL Draft vs being a 1st round MLB pick, I'd take MLB.

Unless Goossen really drops it would be hard to make a trade and end up drafting both of them. I'd consider something like 4 and 13 from Montreal (or 5 and 12 from BC )for 2nd overall...but they'd really have to like someone at 2 who they don't think they'd have a shot at with the 4th pick. Then we'd probably end up with a Gill, Smith, Landry, Lue, Chin or Briggs depending on how Walters et al have them ranked at 4th overall and if one of them is picked. Then we could take a run at one of the interior OL at 13. That said, if they are convinced that Foucault can and will play for us in 2014, take him. But if it's a pick for a starting tackle/guard in 2 years, and then the guy is going to look to sign down east after we've developed him, don't bother. I just don't think we have that luxury, when the only one of our last 5 1st rounders (since 2011) playing for us is Pencer, and we traded two of them away for imports.

You can never have enough non import tackle prospects. If Lavertu is off the board, Foucault should be the guy. If Foucault is for sure going to be that starting tackle, make the pick. If he's going to be an interior convert, we're just burning a hole in the rest of our roster by continuing to pick these types of players, of which we already have 3 (Swiston, Pencer, Neufeld who is essentially our 2nd round pick in this draft) plus Morley, a good football player who took two full seasons to become an average guard. IMO there's a strong bias for the NI tackle body types, and very few of them end up actually playing tackle, and most of them stink at playing inside when they ultimately have to because they can't handle edge rushers who are twice as quick as anything they see in CIS. Everyone, including seasoned football people, are in awe of a 6'8 guy who can move and looks great relative to CIS competition, and dream of the NI tackle, but in reality it isn't happening all that much. Now that's tying a general bias to Foucault, probably unfair to him until he proves otherwise. The best OL in this draft class could very well end up being a guy like Kyle Paterson, who doesn't draw ooohs and ahhhhs because he's 6'2 280, not 6'8 320. From a Bomber perspective, we have too many holes in the roster to just keep cramming guys in the pipeline for a position we end up using an import at anyways. Interesting perspective. So you don't see Pencer or Neufeld having the ability to start at either RG or RT? Morley isn't a long term answer and I could see him gone in the next 1-2 years. If we're lucky, one of Pencer or Swiston become a good CFL guard. I think Pencer has loads of potential but he needs to play and they need to decide right now what position he's going to play and focus his development. 2014 is a huge year for him, we'll know if he's going to be a player or a bust by the end of it IMO. I don't have a lot of hope for Neufeld to be more than stop-gap/ratio desperation at any positon. He's the guy I'd have working on snapping and see if he can be a centre, much like what the Bombers did with Obby Khan in 06, might be a longer process for Neufeld. Morley will be gone in 1-2 years, he's at the end of his career.

You can never have enough non import tackle prospects. If Lavertu is off the board, Foucault should be the guy. If Foucault is for sure going to be that starting tackle, make the pick. If he's going to be an interior convert, we're just burning a hole in the rest of our roster by continuing to pick these types of players, of which we already have 3 (Swiston, Pencer, Neufeld who is essentially our 2nd round pick in this draft) plus Morley, a good football player who took two full seasons to become an average guard. IMO there's a strong bias for the NI tackle body types, and very few of them end up actually playing tackle, and most of them stink at playing inside when they ultimately have to because they can't handle edge rushers who are twice as quick as anything they see in CIS. Everyone, including seasoned football people, is in awe of a 6'8 guy who can move and looks great relative to CIS competition, and dream of the NI tackle, but in reality it isn't happening all that much. Now that's tying a general bias to Foucault, probably unfair to him until he proves otherwise. The best OL in this draft class could very well end up being a guy like Kyle Paterson, who doesn't draw ooohs and ahhhhs because he's 6'2 280, not 6'8 320. From a Bomber perspective, we have too many holes in the roster to just keep cramming guys in the pipeline for a position we end up using an import at anyways.

If I were Saskatchewan, Edmonton or Winnipeg I wouldn't guarantee any of the private teams a dime unless they agreed to open up their books to the scrutiny of the other teams. If Wetenhall, as an example, decides to spend twice as much on football operations than what his revenues dictate, that shouldn't be offset on the back of the franchises that actually have to manage their money.

If he learns how to pass, he could be a good pro QB. If he doesn't, he'll stink at any level. He's a much better prospect than Pat White though IMO.

5 wins. More than that, I'll be pleasantly surprised. We'll be better than Ottawa and close to Edmonton, we should be able to take 3 out of 4 against those teams, and hopefully swipe a couple wins from the rest. I'm looking more for progression from our coaching, QB's and younger players than wins.

It would take a lot to convince me that the camps the Bombers held this off-season weren't the same for the most part, just that they tried to recoup some of the cost with registration fees. They had guys they wanted to see, they were in touch with agents who represent players that they could send to free agent camps for a look. It's all semantics. Based on the NFL resumes of all the guys we're signing, they aren't exactly digging up any Vince Papale's. I'm surprised you're giving Walters and co. a free pass just based on effort. I'm still interested to see the results of all these camps before I go on praising the wonderful job these guys are doing. Sure it looks great in the media but how about on the field? The jury is still out. Agreed. And the ratio of guys with relatively lengthy NFL careers in their late 20s to younger imports, the overlooked coming out of college or guys who were in a mini-camp with the NFL type, is a concern for me. A guy like McRath could be a great MLB for us, but he's at the very end of his football career and coming off serious injury. If they hit on a couple of those guys, they might adapt quicker given their experience in pro football, and that could be what they are going for in terms of putting the best team on the field in 2014. I'd like to see some guys that might have some potential longevity in the CFL in the mix too.

They got a free trip to Florida anyways.