JuranBoldenRules

i'd agree with that... ...if the CFL had a salary cap. however, it does not. Exactly. I hate that they can spend more than us & it helps them win, but there's nothing wrong with going over the luxury tax threshold if you can afford it. I'd prefer the CFL to have a hard cap than the current system. The only league with a hard cap is the NCAA. Unless the penalty is forfeiting games, it's not a "hard cap" IMO.

Burris will probably get us 4th out of 5 in the West and in no better position in 2015 and beyond. Also will convince me to not renew my tickets. The only way Burris works as a Bomber is as a backup insurance policy.

Poison pills could also work. Do in the NFL and hold up to legal challenges. Give a guy a $10,000 bonus for every game he plays in Ottawa.

Personally, I feel that Stubler has been done for awhile, back to his last couple years in Toronto (07-08). I'm not a huge fan of the avoid the deep ball but give up most of the rest of the field (including the run) approach, that's how we ended up killing Stubler's defence on route to the 07 Grey Cup game. CFL offences have evolved (call it the Trestman Revolution), and the deep ball is the lowest percentage throw, the shorter the pass the higher the completion rate. Offences are all about high percentage plays. Top OC's will run the ball when they are getting 8-9 YPC. Defences need to challenge QB's and hold gaps. The best approach for a defence is more of a hybrid and showing a million different looks so the offence can't safely decide where the ball is going before the snap. Nobody is having success because of this style of defence in recent CFL history, basically since Stubler and Marshall were the top DC's in the mid-00's. The only way this defence works is if you have an offence that is going to stay on the field for long stretches. You could see it's downfall when BC lost Lulay. It isn't going to create turnovers or 2 and outs. Toss in Stubler's rumoured health concerns and I'm not that enthused about this rumoured hire, unless Stubler is going to be a consultant or something.

Nobody? Other than Pasztor's agent and Pencer's tattoo artist.

Shocking

Noel isn't from North Bay. Kirkland Lake.

Who did Friesen want? The available people with head coaching experience are terrible and as much as Trestman wanted to leave Chicago for Winnipeg, they are in the middle of a season.

Hopefully those teachers don't need to have connections to New Hampshire like Lapo's crew.

Wow. As a passer he's pretty crude in the CFL, hard to believe any NFL teams are interested.

Barron Miles is a guy I'd love on the staff. Not sure if it would have to be at DC this season, but he's a guy who will be a DC and head coach candidate in the next few years. He also has experience in BC's personnel department. A guy like Mike Gibson is interesting. Could be a fit with a younger OC like Khari, as Gibson has OC experience and has worked with Khari before. Gibson as a OL coach would be a good fit in that scenario.

I like a strong head coach who wants to manage and lead a team, empower his assistants and players and only micromanage when absolutely necessary. I think O'Shea fits that mold. Obviously he is inexperienced, but I'd rather an inexperienced guy who can lead that a guy like Bellefeuille with head coaching experience.

That's not exactly what he said...I caught it on the way home and he said, and stay with me here guys because I know this sounds loony, but O'Shea essentially be the actual HC but bypass on the HC gig and just 'accept' a DC position here, thus allowing Cortez to be promoted from Sask OC to our HC as more of a figurehead title. O'Shea would be the HC but actually hold the DC title, and Cortez would be the OC but have the HC title. Ya... Then we can remix "Blurred Lines" as our theme song. "3 and 1, should we go, who makes the call, no one knows"

Every team is running targeted camps where they make contact with agents and invite players or agents suggest players to them. Some teams allow guys they haven't invited to show up too, but nobody is running purely free-for-all free agent camps. I think you'd have a tough time naming more than a couple players who just wandered into a free agent camp completely unknown and unsolicited and ended up making a CFL team recently.

Completely disregarding the specifics of this case, and just speaking generally. Small town Southeast Manitoba is a terrible market for a start-up, non-chain, step above greasy-spoon type place to make a go of it. Not a big market to draw from to start, and close enough to Winnipeg, Steinbach and WInkler that you're competing with businesses there for the locals. I worked for a couple years in a nearby town and a lot of my co-workers lived in Morris, Emerson, Arnaud, Altona, Rosenfeld, Lowe Farm etc. When they decided to go out for dinner or have a night out, they mostly went to Winnipeg. Another factor is that people from the country aren't phased by a 45 minute drive like people in the city are. Most places you want to go is a long drive! You don't see a lot of places in those larger towns like Morris and Altona outside of long-standing breakfast and lunch spots or chains like Subway, McD's and Chicken Chef. The only restaurant I'd want to operate in any of those towns is a Tim Horton's.

Cortez as a head coach is a playcaller who gets to make the big decisions, basically an OC with expanded duties. I'm not a fan of that setup. It takes a very special coach to pull that off, and while Cortez is one of the best OC's in this league over the last couple decades, I don't believe he can run a team successfully that way. I want a head coach who will manage a football team, not spend 90% of his energy on one-third of the team.

They essentially are the scouts. They work their contacts and use scouting services/freelancers, target players for workouts and neg list. We do need someone in football operations.

It's a name hire, so immediately everyone will react. We have the least experienced front office in pro football. That's not slagging ability, but there are a lot of lessons that will likely be learned the hard way, at least they are being handed a team that was more conservative with player contracts so they have loads of flexibility. We are sorely lacking anyone who has experience operating a pro football team at every level other than CFO. I guess we can still hope for another hire at director of football operations to support. Impossible for any of us to know if McManus is a good, bad or great scout, his experience is limited, similar to Walters and whoever we hire as head coach. Just have to wait and see.

Yes, there are only candidates with experience and candidates without experience. Good observation. All humans too. Our recent coaches from that species have been awful.

Mack drafted enough useless players with high picks to offset Muamba's impact on the ratio.

yea cuz that henoc guy and greaves have just been such busts.. When the ratio goes down to 2 NI's we'll be golden.

Kohlert, Watson, Muamba and Greaves are the only NI's that are worth protecting at this point. Hard to see a reason why we wouldn't protect any of them, regardless of their contract status.

Rouse fulfills the Ottawa Dexter Manley requirement for the illiterate ex-con roster spot. It will be harder to fulfill the NI ratio.

I'm pretty confident that getting a good piece or 2 on the o-line will do more to improve the Bombers than an 'impact' import receiver. Those pieces don't hit the market. Name one starting NI OL in the whole league who moved during free agency last off-season. In the last 3 off-seasons, Labatte, Picard, Rottier and O'Neill are the only guys who could be even loosely called starters that moved in free agency. Last NI safety to move in free agency, JR Larose, a guy coming back from a tib-fib fracture who almost had his leg amputated. Free agency is useless when you are building a team. Draft and develop. The Saskatchewan Roughriders, 2013 Grey Cup Champions*, disagree. *barf The core of that team was not built through free agency.

Does Edmonton even have a president right now? Scary that Hervey has total autonomy there. That is a guy who is clearly overwhelmed.