Captain Blue

Nice of the refs to call the game tight all game until the end.

If LaPolice calls a freaking QB sneak we win this game. Offense should be embarrassed and Matt Nichols better get on track. He was awful all night.

Looking back, it is interesting to see how different our defensive philosophy was for BC rather than the Hamilton game. It will be interesting to see if its a trend too now with BC right up again. We brought a ton of pressure consistently against Hamilton and were torched. We relied heavily on a four man DL rush against BC with much better results. Jennings still had time to throw, but struggled much more to find an open receiver.

Buono continues to show what a clown he is. Win or lose, he never fails to show his colours. Glad we smoked them.

As long as whoever takes over doesn't mess with our jerseys, I'm fine. Took too long to get to these nice royal blues. Best uniforms in the league.

I don't think I've been as anti-Hall as some other posters, but this game I was all over him. How embarrassing was it to watch Masoli just play pitch and catch over and over again? Receivers running literally wide open constantly. We kept blitzing constantly too with no success, so we couldn't get to the QB or stop the QB. We have changed the players and I truly believe in most of the defensive unit. There are good and great players on that defense, and we are not using them correctly. Move Loffler to WIL, move Leggett to safety and swap Fogg and Alexander back to CB and HB. Overall, just a poor game from pretty much everyone. LaPolice couldn't get the offensive gameplan in sync, Hall's failures obviously noted above. But O'Shea too had some big mistakes. I thought on the late fourth quarter Streveler first down run he should have challenged for a hit to the head - the ref had thrown a flag for holding and that was a huge momentum killer. Went from 1st down near the red zone to 2nd and 20. Streveler took a couple late shots in my opinion. CFL refs suck and the sky is blue. Even TSN had an atrocious night. Live mic stuff remains mostly useless. I do love how they constantly apologized for all the F-bombs, as if they didn't expect that that would happen. The camera guy was lost on a bunch of plays in the first quarter too. Black and Forde basically didn't comment on the game at all, opting just to point out how cool live mics really are.

I feel like Lankford being moved to the PR is an overlooked roster move of the week. I for one didn't think they would do it. Osh and his staff always have seemed to love Lankford, and he has never fully lived up to their faith in him. His fumble last week probably hasn't gotten enough attention for how it altered the game.

Montreal's offense looked awful yesterday. Our defense should rack up some sacks. I expect a better outing against Willy, or whoever ends up with playing time. Streveler will have his challenges against a Stubler defense. Jennings wound up with a great completion percentage but only 183 yards. Hope we see more pocket movement for Streveler. Make them fear the designed runs and zone reads.

Had to chance to go over the game again and I'm still left with the impression that "the other guys get paid too." Even on their two point convert Gaitor had good position, hand up for the ball between the receiver's.

This game feels like your weekly reminder that the East sucks. Sure seems like the West spends the season beating each other up while the East just figures out who is not the absolute worst.

Where do you usually find these on their website? I can never seem to find their location

Can't challenge PI calls anymore. You can see the DB push the WR slightly which caused him to fall. By the book, probably a flag. I was just skeptical because I think that play at that time very infrequently draws a flag.

Randle had coverage and just made a mistake on the first long TD of the night. I don't think there is anything a coach can do for that. Randle usually makes that play and probably will in the future. Similarly, if it was a quarterback other than Reilly we could have had a few more sacks. Or at least a few holding calls. I'll re-watch the game again later but my sense was that it was just two teams that went back and forth with hot and cold spells. The defense let us down at the end but there was a good chunk of that game where Edmonton couldn't get anything going at all.

We lost by 3 to a good team that needed a stupid PI call and a two point convert to even have a shot. Both sides of the ball really struggled at times but we will be fine.

Does TSN bother to wake Rod Black up for the second half?

Streveler needs to pull one of the read options and take off wide. He has tons of space.

Bombers basically did everything wrong early in an attempt to get blown out. Randle falls down, Streveler throws a pick, Lankford coughs it up. The fact that we are only down 10 right now with this long delay is a miracle. Offensive gameplan needs to be fixed ASAP. Getting Streveler in some really bad spots. Needs more read option.

I honestly just hope we don't get blown out and that Streveler looks half decent. Can't see Edmonton losing to a rookie QB, so I just want to have some hope for the upcoming weeks.

I think the rankings are mostly fair. The West is so good and so close that I don't really think anything is unreasonable. That said, this team has also won the second-most games over the past two years, so I think confidence in the team is also fair.

They really seemed to turn on Alex Ross quickly.

I went back and re-watched his preseason game again. I'm pretty excited, though he is going to have a bunch of mistakes for sure. His running ability against BC was probably overlooked. I think you can craft an offense for him.

I actually prefer more threads rather than less. I find the long, all-encompassing threads difficult to follow, especially if I haven't checked in over a few days. Having a big thread, for example "Bombers News," actually slows discussion, in my opinion. There are various topics to discuss, but they all get smashed together so none really gain traction. Plus, big news such as Streveler being named starter gets pushed a few pages back very quickly. I think any major news should warrant its own thread. Chris Streveler named starter for Week 1, for instance, is a major topic that can carry its own thread. For those of us who want to chat about that news, having it centralized in one spot would be great. That way other news can also get its own attention. There have been times when I've wanted to discuss a topic but by the time I've got to it other CFL/Bomber news has taken over that thread. I don't think there is a need for so many opinion threads - because if you have an opinion about a topic its most likely that the topic itself warrants a thread. Again, your opinion on Streveler would go under that category. We don't need a thread for someone to personally state they are happy or unhappy about it, 'cause then it'll just be 50 different small threads on it.

Finishing up a few more things from camp today (saw almost all of it except the first 3 minutes of drills): Streveler was much more comfortable as practice progressed. They finished the practice with 10 minutes of scrimmage drills. Streveler started and got about the first 3-4 minutes, then gave way to Ross for a few minutes. Bennett got one throw and then Streveler finished the rest of the drill, probably another 4ish minutes. Streveler had a really ugly screen throw to Dressler that went straight to the ground early on. The rest was mostly positive. Had a really nice ball to Bowman on a comeback route that he put low and away from the DB. Another play he went over the middle for Dressler, and he put the ball nicely ahead of Dressler and away from the diving defender. A few check downs and short throws. One play where he scrambled but if the DL was allowed to hit he would have been clobbered. I would expect that we will use him creatively in the run game as well, so that should take some pressure off.

It would be interesting to see how the league has progressed since then. Especially now with most NCAA offenses featuring much more CFL-friendly offenses, that would seem to at least give these new QBs more of a shot at earlier success. I'm not expecting much from Streveler, I just don't think the comparison to Calvillo is relevant. Its a fun footnote though.

If Ross is the starter then this would be one hell of a surprise. Streveler has gotten all of the first team reps and the occasional second team ones. Ross has had all second string work. All I can say is that I'm excited. I don't think Streveler would have been my choice, but this is going to be a wild ride. He is going to have a bunch of splash plays - both positive and negative.