17to85

You do have the luxury of doing both! You can absolutely dress backups who can play special teams but are primarily on the roster for their defensive or offensive ability. Ayers last offseason was kept because he was the best special teams player but there were other linebackers showed better at linebacker in preseason. We dress linebackers at DE for special teams reasons rather than an actual DE who can take reps on D and help that position. We have 0 for depth at receiver because they'd rather linebackers or dbs for special teams. No one builds a roster like oshea does.

Bighill would still be starting if he didn't get hurt, we failed to have guys in place to groom. I know you like to say it's all on walters but I don't buy it because we've seen this team have an ability to replace players with rookies in the past. The problems are that we don't use the roster for depth, it's used for special teams players or situational players (like a 7th OL).

He was also pretty short lived as head coach... but yeah Tim Burke had some truly lifeless performances.

Osh coaches like he would have wanted to be coached, and I have this big suspicion that osh wouldn't have appreciated a coach playing a young guy ahead of him. So if you're being an osh type player you're bullet proof. Osh never retired, that says it all. He's got blinders when it comes to long in the tooth veterans who made up the core of the teams best years. Guys like Wally Buono erred on the side of replacing guys too soon as opposed to too late. Osh is the opposite.

Yeah Jim Daley was a real low point which is why despite O'Shea's flaws I've still got time for him because he won't get down to that level.

Defensive line, linebacker was only done due to signifcant injury to Bighill last year, offensive line... and it's not that development time was wasted on specific people, it was a lack of future planning in those areas.

Yeah Maas had stupid completions in a row twice! Sad thing is Marcus Howell was probably one of the better dbs dressed in those days.

Part of maintaining a good roster is knowing when to turn over certain roles, and this team is bad at it. They did too little too late and wasted a couple development years clinging to rapidly aging stars while not having appropriate backups seasoning behind them.

Then why did we draft those two guys if we can't play them in place of career special teams players? We're not going to win or lose games this year based on a handful of snaps for Gauthier vs. Rookies, but it might help rookies develop for the future which could help the teams ratio and overall talent level.

So i wonder if our stats nerd radio play by play dude can answer... has Gauthier taken any defensive snaps this year? Cadwallader? Because if they have that's egregious. Those dudes are teamers for life and any snap they get should be going to potential future starters.

So I think with guys like our rookie lb draftees... is that we are also using a bunch of American linebackers as special teams depth and the first in line backups. It's just too many linebackers and if we drafted these guys with a mind to having them become starters then what purpose does blocking them with Americans do? They should be the primary backups.

I dunno, they exhausted every option before they even gave Mitchell a chance despite him being a quick grab when he became available.

They started the season with 3 American OL... And again we go round and round... does the depth suck because of the GM or does the depth suck because of the way the coach uses the roster and practise roster? We have a brazzillion linebackers and dbs every game just to chase punts... why? We have 0 for receiver depth on an already weak group... why?

BUt iT"s teh gMs fAuLt11111!!!

What if he whiffs on blocks! What if the pocket collapses with him in there, what if the back gets stuffed! Of course how would we tell the difference because that **** is already happening. Guaranteed though that if Eli was in at centre he would be able to now and then move a ***** out of the way and help a play happen. Best we hope for with kolankowski is that he doesn't get flat out embarrassed. And if it is worse then we stop wasting time on 2 players who shouldn't be there. What I actually think it is, because they so regularly use 6 OL Eli isn't seen as a real option at centee because he's good as the extra OL whereas Kolankowski is useless at everything except snapping the ball.

That didn't stop them before.

We already have a sub par player in the position so what's the difference? Also, we drafted some big upside players this offseason who get 0 snaps.... gm or coach?

The entire point is that we don't know if it is inferior or not because Osh won't give anyone a chance unless forced to. Kolankowski if he's not the worst starter on the team is damned close to it and should be replaced. And if Eli isn't the guy to do it then he should be replaced too. We've seen Kyle Walters bring in players who can step in and play before. Based on each guys respective history I say Walters is fine at finding players, it's the coach who is bad at giving them chances and building a roster properly.

I watched kolankowski **** up a snap not 2 games ago... and I watched him do nothing of value on many other plays, and I watched his slow ass limit a run by Brady because he couldn't either get a block or get out of the backs way. Maybe he's better at snapping, but at this point maybe we need someone better at not being a guy who can snap and nothing else.

Bighill was useless in pass coverage too. Bighill got injured and it improved the D so how can you sit there and sat it was the best use of roster? It's a bright flashing sign showing how O'Shea's loyalty to certain veterans blinds him from making the best roster moves... so if we know it happens based on this one example we can ******* easily extrapolate that it happens to varying degrees at other positions. It's pretty ******* telling when we can sit here on this message board in the offseason and basically nail the depth chart before camp even opens.

This is less about how good Eli is and more about Kolankowski sucks, try someone else and if it's not Eli find someone else.

And it took an injury for him to get the more substantial playing time which led to improved team performance.... and opportunity that wouldn't have been given without injury... and that's not the only position this sort of thing happens with. We're just not always lucky enough to have injuries at positions where they need to happen.

This is a terrible argument... teams in the cfl barely scout practise rosters of each other any more. Fact is their own American scouting is just as efficient. Hamilton is a great example. They hired a gm from the Bombers and he found a use.for tons of guys who didn't get as many opportunities here. Mostly with Americans you're looking at potential and it's the combination of opportunity and development that turn them into impactful starters. The crux of the issue here is that we never give guys those opportunities when there's an established vet in their way on the depth chart. It leads to stagnation.

Tony Jones? Cause you and I know damned well that without injury bighill would still be starting for us despite a scrap heap pick up like Jones instantly improved play at the position.

Neufeld was ass to start last season because he was hurt all camp. And how can Eli earn a spot when he never gets a chance there? See you're still clinging to this false idea that you have that guys are starting because they are the best option and no one has pushed past them. That's demonstatively flase with this team...