Fred C Dobbs

Yes and no. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Taman I've got a copy of the Bombers 2009 Media Guide and you're right that no one is listed as a GM that year. (Wiki is in error on this point, they put Kelly as the 2009 GM.) Bauer was the President and CEO. John Murphy was the Director of Player Personnel. Ross Hodgkinson was the Director of Football Operations. (He handled the day-to-day stuff, like booking hotels.) Kelly, in the media guide, is just listed as the Head Coach. But in his Wiki autobiography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Kelly_(Canadian_football) "someone other than myself is libellously making edits on this page. I have taken off negativity and updated content in the initial summary, revised my career highlights, and eliminated personal life. Please do not allow anyone telse to edit this page") Kelly lists himself as HC/OC/QB coach. I also agree with you that Taman left because he didn't want to work with Kelly but AFAIK this was never made clear in the media.

Our offense totally stinks this year. It will probaby turn out to be the worst offense in the club's history. We have 8 passing TD's all year. Ernie Pitts once caught 5 TD passes in one frickin game. You can't judge Jade's performance based on this year's offense. (But even with limited playing time he's got 2 of those 8 TD's.) He's still very young. If we get a decent QB and a smart OC, I expect he'll do a lot better.

In brief, yes. But when the trade was made, many Rider fans claimed it was a real steal because Neufeld was just a back-up who they would have lost to Ottawa anyway. So I went to Riderfans.com to see what they were saying about Neufeld at the end of the 2012 season. Recall that Taman had made a big splash in free agency that year and brought in Labatte and Picard. At the end of the season though, the fans were disappointed; their O-line hadn't performed as well as had been expected. And, indeed, Neufreld was viewed as it's weak link. What he's got going for him though is that he's very young and hopefully will improve. He may have lost his job to Ben Heenan (a #1 overall pick) but that doesn't mean he's not better than anything we've got.

Willy plus a pick - 2nd round - and this is done and done. I don't know why you'd assume Hall has that much value. Willy is also a potential free agent. The second round pick should be conditional on him signing here.

If you read his tweets, it looks like he was trying to get Washington interested. But he may be here next year:

Not a chance. Season ticket sales would go south like geese in Autumn. Kelly is available for both the HC and GM positions but he doesn't stand a chance of even being interviewed. And, IMO, rightly so.

Pretty sure the source of that rumour is a certain Riderfans.com poster who is rather short on credibilty. According to a CBC report: http://www.cbc.ca/sports/story/2013/09/13/sk-third-person-charged-in-nightclub-incident-1309.html

I think this is great. When I was a kid there was a game where Bud Grant refused to shake hands with Bobby Dobbs at the end, because Calgary had run up the score against us. Because of that I stopped buying Popsicles when I noticed that they were made in Calgary. I've never hated an Eastern team that much.

See it for yourself. Nothing is safe from the internet nowadays: (Wish I knew how to embed these videos.) edit: Thanks, Jpan85. Actually, I didn't know that BBCode has 'youtube' tags.

Just relistened to this on the CJOB audio vault. Irving asked Labatte "Did you leave Winnipeg because Paul Lapolice said you might have to play center, because you wanted to come home, or because Saskatchewan offered you more money?" The gist of Labatte's reply was "It was a bit of all three to be honest with you." It's a pity we lost him and I think that wanting him to switch positions was a dumb move.

Evidently he's done a good job. The Bisons put up 65 points last night ! http://www.winnipegsun.com/2013/08/31/bisons-win-big

Possibly but I find it easier to believe that it was just a case of incompetent management. There's an informal logical principle that goes "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

Okay, here's something to think about. Apparently, when a player goes in to his option year his contract expires by default unless his club informs him that they are extending that contact in terms that satisfy the CBA. The judge ruled that the letter that the TiCats sent to Williams failed to do this. So, If the letter that Hamilton sent to Williams is their standard form letter that they use to tell players that they want to extend their contract then it would seem that all the Hamilton players who received that letter last Feb (including Hage and Dyakowski) are now playing without a contract and are actually free agents. You think we should point this out to Marcel?

I take this to mean that both sides are now back to where they were before they went into 'binding arbitration.

Well if you say so then it must be true. We'll just forget the fact that both LaPolice, and now Crowton, have both stated that LaPo hired him. I'd forgotten about that. Bomber Diehard is in charge of organizing the Senior's Christmas Lunch at the Assiniboine Curling Club and in Dec 2011 he invited Paul LaPolice to be the guest speaker. This was after Baressi had been released and I think it was during the Q&A that followed LaPolice's speech that someone asked him if he could say anything about who he was interested in as the new OC. I can't remember the exact details but Lapolice said something about how there were some talented guys on the current staff and mentioned two names: Chris Wiesenhan and Pat Delmonaco. Shortly after that Weisenhan left the Bombers to take up a job in Hawaii but that left Delmonico as a person of interest. But then the next month LaPolice bumped into Crowton and, as was reported at the time: http://www.winnipegsun.com/2012/01/30/bombers-new-offensive-boss-charms AFAIK, the source of the claim that Mack forced LaPolice to hire Crowton was a Lawless column. You all know how reliable those are.

I was a Mack fan until last month. Going into this season I figured that unless we make the playoffs and look like we're moving forward, Mack's a gonner. Maybe things will get better but I'm just not very impressed with the team this year. One thing I will miss, though, is Mack's openness with the fans. He was always a guy you could talk to and often learn some interesting stuff from. I remember the 2010 fan forum where Mack was introduced as the new Bombers GM. At the time our two main QB's were Bishop and LeFors and Arch/aka Bomber Diehard cornered Mack and asked him if there were any young quarterbacks in the pipeline. Mack told him straight up: "Yeah there's two guys I'm after, Alex Brink and Joey Elliott." Again, at this years fan forum, Arch and I had a chance to talk to Joe. This was just before the draft and there was a player who was getting a lot of hype but Mack told us why he was a low priority for the Bombers. Then Arch asked him (something like) "Is there anyone out there we should Google?" Mack said "Don't tell anybody but there's a really fast Defensive Tackle, Zack Anderson, who I'm hoping will come up here." Mack didn't have to tell us this stuff but he did. OTOH, when you have a 21-39 record over 3 plus years, there's no way you're going to keep your job.

Miller and Burke should work well together: both straight shooters who don't take any nonsense.

Yeah, I remember hearing that.

Was just reading a rather interesting article by Gary Etcheverry where he previews the CFL East Division: http://www.rodpedersen.com/2013/06/etchs-xs-and-os.html While talking about Montreal he mentions: Apparently, Montreal's offense will be 95% new this year. So does anybody know anything about this 'Fly offense'? The only references to it that I can come across involve small US colleges.

NM, I got the wrong team. The guy I was thinking of was Kenyan Parker, the (Canadian) son of James 'Quick' Parker. He was just released by Montreal.

That's what it looks like. Assuming the rosters on the various team sites are up to date, here's some of the 9-game injured lists totals: Cal 6 Sask 3 Ham 6 Mont 3. Offhand I can't remember what's 'normal' but I would guess 1 or 2.

Actually, there is a precedent for this. Not sure of the exact year, but once upon a time way back when, Bud Grant took the Bombers to Montreal and played all his rookies and back-ups for the whole game. IIRC, the final score was Montreal 53, Winnipeg 0. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see that happen again.

Sorry to see Dexter Davis being cut. I had high hopes for him.

Here's the Toronto depth chart for tomorrow: http://cfl.uploads.mrx.ca/league/pdf/en/depth/2013/2013_PreseasonGame1_WpgJune12065226.pdf Who are these guys?

Thanks. This is the one thing I don't like about IGF. For years and years Bomber fans were allowed to mingle with the players and coaches after practice. But not any more.