JuranBoldenRules

Gott is not worth that pick...he's one concussion away from retirement...feel bad for any Ottawa fans.

Ottawa just traded 1st overall straight up for Gott?

Hopefully they have more than one team interested in the 2nd pick. Who does BC want? Foucault? They don't need Goossen.

But, most of the guys fans care about are in the upper class of CFL players. For example, if a couple import QB's break from the PA, that could have more influence than 150 other imports striking.

Pruneau and Lue are coming into the CFL at the right time, with teams looking at NI DB/LB's as more than safeties. Hard to know who the Ticats are targeting, but they have a pretty big hole at NI receiver too behind Fantuz and Giguere...they've got Johnny Aprile and Spencer Armstrong.

Sounds like they are on two extremes. The $55,000 minimum with a yearly 10% increase is as crazy as moving the cap up by $100,000. In three years the league minimum salary would be nearly $75,000, in five years almost $90,000. I can't imagine a lot of higher end players would be too happy about that. Even if they got a share of revenue, say revenues drop or level out, but the minimum salary is $100,000...the only place for teams to claw back salary is on higher paid players. Hard to know who holds clout in the union though, they are all repped by 3 agents too which complicates things.

Lots of free parking about 2 KM south in the Richmond neighbourhood.

I tend to agree with this. I hate the idea of heading towards a pick with the mindset of "our biggest hole is centre, let's take the best centre available when we pick." Hamilton might be able to do that, but we don't have the foundation. That's just not how you build a successful CFL team, better to have more NI players who can play and figure it out from there than pick a guy for positional need over actual talent or ability to play as a pro.

2 and 20 for 5 and 12 would be close value IMO. 5 and 12 would allow the Bombers to add a depth player on D and potentially one of the local guys. Hard to know if a team like BC would want to move up though, who would they be targeting a 2 that they won't be able to get at 5? Foucault? I think if I'm Buono I prefer 5 and 12.

Well we hope we do. What harm is there in determining that after training camp? This team is not so stacked in NIs with experience to just cut guys willy nilly. C Muamba is probably the worst player we've had play significant snaps on defense since Jim Daley was the head coach, and that bar isn't too high when you think about the number of games a guy like Brady Browne started at safety. He was bad enough that we went all import in the secondary when we had zero non-import depth last season, and the only good game he had personally was the Banjo Bowl when Burke/Creehan tossed up their arms and just blitzed him 75% of the time.

Normally I wouldn't be too excited about Kuale, but I think he could be a real interesting player in a kooky scheme.

Wonder if Walters might trade for a centre in a package with draft picks. Kyle Koch anyone?

Kuale or McCune....maybe O'Shea comes out of retirement? Is Joe Lobendahn looking to make a comeback? I'm assuming he means a CFL name.

Remaining rounds are on TSN.ca. yeah like always, i just don't understand why they couldn't cover it all on tv, maximum of what 3 hours? Because there's like 90 seconds between picks after the first round. They have very little to say about most of the 1st rounders, you want them to talk about some guy drafted 50th overall who they've never seen play? I'd almost rather them not cover it live on TV at all but have a solid wrap-up show where they can actually analyze, toss in some interviews with draftees and GM's/coaches. I've found the live coverage of the draft by TSN both on TV and online to be generally poor quality. There's been years where they are several picks behind, usually after the first round. They've got the coverage of the first round down pat.

Phaneuf's contract doesn't fit IMO. The Jets need a second pairing LHD, but to give up assets and add a bad long-term contract for it, I don't think so. If they are going to make a move like that I believe it would more likely be on a forward. They've got Clitsome signed, Stuart just signed a 4 year deal, Morrissey on the way. Seems unlikely they'd be interested in Phaneuf at 7 years.

Wonder if McAdoo was because he asked out for NFL opportunities.

does this mean his stock will drop? Could mean he goes back to school since he may not be ready for the start of the season, and so yes, I think it may. I'd give him a second round look. I doubt he drops that far either way. I still think he'll be one of the first few DL/LB/DB's off the board, along with Smith, Briggs, Lue, maybe Chin or Landry. It's always been 50-50 that he'd stay in CIS and see what his options are in 2015, like Kirby Fabien did, and there's not much on the board in terms of guys who will be impactful in 2014 anyways.

He should just go back to the CFL. Walters have should an extra $100k now to top others bid for him. TBieber, any NFL interest for Laurent ? I believe teams can go over the cap in the offseason, as long as they are compliant at the end of the year when calculations are done. So this doesn't necessarily mean we have $100k in new money. The CFL cap is a tally, not ongoing like the NHL. You could be on pace to be $5 million over the cap today as long as you don't spend more than the upper limit on players by the end of the year. It doesn't really matter right now.

Evan Gill isn't automatically eligible for the NFL Draft until 2015, so he can't sign with a NFL team right now. He didn't enter the NFL Draft this year.

Costs and revenue increasing at the same rate would be lucky, more likely costs rise at a rate higher than revenue, than the other way around. As the stadium ages, the cost of maintaining it will rise, and should rise if it is going to have a long, useful lifespan. That $4.5 million payment is impossible without a bump from a significant special event, Grey Cup, NHL game. If the Bombers are left to pay off the loan from their operating revenue as the deal was originally conceived (as to our public knowledge), they won't be able to pay for the stadium before they need another one, especially if they can't meet the payment schedule. It's fairly obvious that at some point the provincial government will have to deal with the issue, guess we'll have to see how far the can will be kicked down the road.

Yet another example that illustrates the difference (business competence) between Bomber management (the BBB) and Jets management. Bomber management -agreeing to pay the $4.5 million debt obligation annually in the first year only to renegotiate to delay first $4.5 million payment by several years...and on top of that adding $10 million in extras late in stadium construction to exacerbate their debt repayments. -Unable to forecast the additional costs associated with transit due to the stadium location which results in the organization negotiating a subsidy with the city after the fact to mitigate costs. Meanwhile Jets' management (owners) - negotiated to privately finance 2/3 of the MTS Centre before construction began. Originally they were going to privately finance 100% of the arena across from the Convention Centre. Would have been a 12,000 seater and 90 miliion or so. Province and city convinced them to build 15,000 seater on site of the Eaton's building and chipped in the rest. - Negotiated subsidies with the province (VLT revenue and reimbursement of entertainment tax) prior to the puck dropping for the first Jets game in 2011. -Spending millions (private money by the way) to enhance customer experience at the MTS Centre...latest being the expansion of the upper deck concourse with expanded washrooms facilities and concessions. Now you could argue against the subsidies the jets receive, that's certainly fair. However the Jets' owners drew up a business plan that determined what they needed to make the operation a viable one and negotiated these subsidies with the province and the city..all that prior to the first game of the Jets' inaugural season. And they have done this with the intention to spend millions each year until 2020 to update the MTS Centre as outlined in their email to season ticketholders - expanded concourse, expanded concessions, expanded washrooms, new scoreboard, improved restaurant facilities at event level plus a few more added benefits. No coming back to the province hat in hand stating we did not foresee these _____ costs years later. In contrast the Bombers' management, in their infinite wisdom, did not have a very good business plan in place otherwise they would have negotiated beforehand with the city or province to account for the additional transportation costs given the location of the stadium...not come hat in hand asking for subsidies nearly one year after completion of the stadium. To do so now, show a lack of competence and due diligence on their part. Further, I doubt any improvements and major repairs to the stadium over the coming decades will be funded by the Bombers at least in any substantial way..most likely the province will take care of that. Good points. I don't even care that the government subsidizes pro sports teams (they subsidize damn near every other industry, many times with no mechanism to recover the subsidy). I care that they try to lie about it, and that some people just accept it. I'd have no problem with the government saying we're going to finance $200 million to build a stadium, without the illusion of the Bombers making any significant payments on that debt.

So basically...the Bombers won't be paying for the stadium, as anyone with a working calculator knew when the financing was announced. Guess the NDP thought it would be political suicide to fund a stadium publicly, but they basically just kicked the can down the road as long as they could, at some point it's going to be trouble for them, blatantly lying to make a stadium more politically palatable. I don't understand why Lawless thinks that the current Bomber board and administration shouldn't be accountable for the Bombers debt. If life worked that way, it would be a lot easier, just imagine, "I'm not responsible for these car payments, my wife and some car dealer who doesn't even work at the dealership anymore negotiated the financing."

LDT not picked through 5 rounds of the NFL Draft. Wonder if the fact that he's a medical doctor scares teams off. John Urschel picked by Baltimore, TJ Jones by the Lions.

I don't believe that's a cliche... There's a reason the guy can't keep a job for long. Trying to re-invent the wheel is a giant red flag. If those ideas were so good other teams would copy them, the CFL is a copy cat league. If something works everyone does it, I don't see anyone copying Etchevary Is any CFL DC keeping a job? Hall is the longest tenured one heading into his 4th season back in Regina, after that you're looking at Steinhauer and Thorpe who joined their teams in 2013. Not sure if that's a good barometer, although I suspect Etcheverry's somewhat pompous attitude has contributed to a few mid-season firings on his resume. In terms of copycatting, just look at Chris Jones. He's a genius, apparently he invented the zone blitz. If you watched his D and Etcheverry's without knowing who is who, there is a lot of similarity. Noel Thorpe's D too is quite similar, with guys lining up all over the place and giving multiple looks in terms of who's dropping into coverage and who is blitzing.

Etcheverry's defense won't be built to handle the inside run, let alone stop it. But even when teams can't stop the run, nobody runs except Calgary recently and Saskatchewan in 2013 with Sheets. Suber could end up as MLB for all we know. It's all zone blitzes, not much gap control, so that will be a big difference from Burke, Muamba would just sit in an inside gap most of the time, and then attack the ball through his gap. Doubt any LB spot in Etchverry's D will be anywhere near the LOS pre-snap as often as Muamba was.