Captain Blue

Wild was there initially. Eisho now as they swapped to a new group.

Banks, Wild and Dunn are the backers. Leggett at safety so far.

Bucknor and Randall at corner going against what I'm presuming is the offensive ones.

In today's most important breaking news, Etch always reminds me of a garden gnome.

I think every person on defense should just have the position "Def". There is going to be players shifting all over. Watching some blitzes now as they match up against the offense.

I feel overall camp is louder this year actually. Players and coaches more vocal.

I'm watching Howell teach receivers right now. Pretty energetic. I swear Cory Watson is just perma-hurt. Feel bad for the guy but I really hope we are not counting on him too much this year.

Just heading out to go see camp now, will report back.

Random thoughts: There's just something about O'Shea that'll make players want to run through a wall for the guy. Listening to him I think he could get me to, as well. Season enders in TC (and really, ever) is the absolute worst. Feel bad for Lucas. Managing the ratio is going to be a helluva challenge this year.

Did anyone get lost 2-3 sentences into this? It was like trying to read a tolkien novel for the first time.. Well a lot of effort had to go into the nicknames. I mean, turning "Jim" to "Jimbozo"? Brilliant!

So I showed up for the second camp today and it was exclusively special teams. Wonder there will be a heavy emphasis on that as camp continues too. My guess is yes. The kicking battle is fun to watch. These guys have huge legs. Liram was just booming them today. I wish I had kept track of their attempts and makes but it was hard. I kept getting him and Maher confused since they are numbers 78 and 79. I am hoping Liram sticks somehow on this roster. I didn't see much punting but over the years I've found Renaud always looks like the best punter in camp and then sucks during the season.

So to flip this around a bit... O'Shea is being (wrongfully, in my opinion) blamed for this move but why shouldn't we look at it like the media is at fault for their own mess? He's always honest and open with them and yet it took all of three days for them to turn on him. So maybe the fault should lie with the likes of Friesen and crew, who had the opportunity to start a new relationship with the coach and squandered it already? Maybe, just maybe, they should see that there are consequences to their actions?

I"ll be there a little later in practice.

Why is it that you ALWAYS side with the media? If a coach does something the media doesn't like, he's picking a fight? Why couldn't it just once be that the media is behaving inappropriately? I didn't like it when Kelly tried to control the media. I could see what was coming back then and we all know how that turned out. I don't like it now any more now and I expect the same results. That's called being consistent, not being on the side of the media. O'Shea wasn't in Winnipeg when Kelly made the mistake, but someone who was around then should tell him how it will probably work out. Here's a hint: If you want to control the message, then make sure everyone's on the same page, help the media spread your message and everyone wins. Don't say "I'm going to control the message and everything comes through me". That's not going to help the situation. In fact it's going to hurt it. BTW: It's not inappropriate for the media to want to talk to more than one person on the team. It's done almost everywhere there is a pro team. Or, and I'm just spitballing here, Kelly failed because his actual football schemes were downright awful... and whether or not a coordinator could answer questions from such luminaries as Gary Lawless and Paul Friesen is actually irrelevant to the success of the football team? The only thing I actually liked about Kelly was that he realized Winnipeg's media was comprised mostly of buffoons. He didn't exactly do it the right way, and that's where O'Shea seems to be different. BTW: It's not inappropriate for the team to reduce media availability. It's done almost everywhere there is a pro team. They have mandated CFL media obligations to fulfill - that's it.

I generally dislike most of the TSN and really most of the mainstream media talking heads, but I will miss Randorf. The options to replace him are not likely to be upgrades. I would love to see Lalji there, but really the problem is that he'll just be the set-up man while Schultz tells me "YOU WIN BY SCORING, Farhan, to WIN, you NEED TO SCORE MORE THAN THE OTHER TEAM." *intense stare into camera* I would rather see TSN move to a crew that really can do football and the CFL justice. A full crew that understands the game and can actually analyze things. Maybe this will be a turning point for them.

Paul Friesen is a schmuck. I didn't realize this was a Friesen article at the start but once the ****-throwing really started I knew it was his schtick all over again. Don't care what this idiot has to say. He doesn't watch practice, he doesn't even comprehend the CFL (or really, any league) well and he certainly has no idea how to write articles. What really ticks me off though is that people actually side with this buffoon and now we'll certainly be hearing about this crap all season.

I'd be more concerned if O'Shea wasn't aware of this from the start. I wouldn't want Wylie to start bailing. That they both agreed to this is fine with me. They can plan for it. Now it makes sense why we have him as a "not-OL-coach" and an OL coach.

Countdown before a bunch of people with too much time on their hands complain?

So are we sticking in here or the chat?

Is it just me or is Ottawa stupid?

Wow, things are getting interesting. Who does Calgary want?

Goossen it is then.

I want a starter out of our first pick badly. Trading down definitely intrigues me though.

I HATE HATE HATE HATE Kuale. More so as a dirty player than as what he does at linebacker, but this is underwhelming. I'd rather roll with the guys we have.

Never was on-board with expecting much out of McRath