O2L

Haha amazing. Definitely been an entertaining game. If Edmonton wins by a small margin that TD drop we just saw for BC will be all anyone talks about.

Anyone else watching this game? I'm really glad we played BC when we did and don't have another reg season game against them.

Yep and BC put up similar stats and points against Calgary as they did on us in their second game, and Toronto put up gaudy numbers with their third string QB in a comeback effort against the best D in the east. We need to grade our D against the rest of the league, and in that regard, we are in the top four for sure.

I watch nearly every game across the CFL each week and while I get just as frustrated with our defence as the rest of you, I would say the only defences that are better in the league are Calgary and Saskatchewan, and probably Ottawa although their latest showing is disconcerting. So that puts us above league average. Frankly, most of the defences in the league are being exploited like crazy and I think that has a lot to do with the modern PI and illegal contact rules. For several weeks our secondary has had some first year guys due to injury and we’ve still shown well, including sitting near the top in takeaways. I believe that we’ve been making mental errors where someone is out of position on a play. When guys are in position, they tend to win their battles (with the exception of the Edmonton season opener). The only thing that drives me nuts are how successful other teams are with five to ten yard outs on the wide side, but when you consider that that is rarely, if ever, a first read, it means we’re taking away what the QB actually wants. Hall over the last few weeks has let his front four do their jobs more often and been smarter about when to blitz and who is blitzing. Maybe just maybe we’ll see some progress. For those of you that don’t watch every game and complain when Reilly or Masoli puts up 300+ yards on us, try to remember that they do that against virtually everyone they play. It becomes very easy to complain about what we’ve got when we’re not comparing it to the rest of the league, the same way we sometimes see our guys as all stars and forget that other teams have good players too. Our defence is also very disciplined in terms of penalties, rarely being the team that hands over free first downs (with a few exceptions). That’s worth something. I still have the bitter taste of last season’s western final (and season as a whole) in my mouth, as I’m sure we all do, so that definitely creates a bias, but so far this season, this defence has been pretty decent. Let’s see if that remains true on Friday or not.

Sorry if this was mentioned elsewhere, but I’m curious, did Bowman see the field in Montreal’s loss the other day? Also a funny coincidence that in the two games that Adams hasn’t had a ton of catches this season he has thrown completions.

How about against Edmonton? 😉

So I’ve been following all the drama over the last few days in the MTL/HAM trade. Montréal has announced that Vernon Adams will be starting on Thursday, which makes sense, but everyone and their dog knows that the Als picked up Manziel to be their starter. Hell, they mortgaged their future on that fact. So, wise MBB prognosticators, I ask you: what do the Als do if Vernon Adams lights it up on Thursday? Do they keep starting him until he falters? Or is he one and done as soon as Manziel is ready no matter how well he plays? I know that none of this will likely matter since the Als will probably lose again on Thursday, but humour me. If you were Reed and Sherman, what would you do in my theoretical scenario? I kind of feel like they should’ve waited one more week to see what they had in Adams before making this move..

And Heath gave us two solid years.

Also noteworthy if Van Zyl can’t play after yesterday’s late injury, Franklin will have it even tougher than he did yesterday with our D line.

Remember when Nichols was our backup and Willy was our starter? Crazy to think about, and crazy how little we got Nichols for.

I was just thinking this. It feels like a lose-lose for the Als. If Manziel does well then he’s gone in a year and a half, so they get a couple seasons of possible competitiveness and are right back where they started. If he doesn’t do well, then they haven’t improved. Even worse, can you imagine if he gets injured? Yikes.

I’ve done every stadium but Edmonton, Hamilton, and Ottawa! Hoping to get lucky with an Ottawa/Hamilton back to back Bomber road trip if the scheduling gods help me out next year.

O’Shea spoke to the challenge in the post game interview (you can watch it on the Bombers website or in the app). He was trying to challenge illegal contact on the guy covering Dressler (which is why Dressler was so active in the conversation), he forgot that it had been removed. He said he would’ve rather taken the delay of game penalty but he was basically stuck having to challenge, so he challenged PI (Adams was the target, so presumably he was just hoping that they’d watch the review and see the IC on Dressler and call it anyway). He said he just made a mistake, plain and simple. I’m sure he knows IC is no longer challengable, but in the heat of the moment had a brain fart. He’s human.

And if the turf monster hadn’t grabbed Goosen we would’ve had another game without Nichols being sacked.

Oh yeah I forgot about the one that Nichols skipped to him, so in that case he was targeted three times last night, and all three times he was wide open.

Yeah and I definitely was happy with our defence last night, but it also didn’t hurt that our offence was on the field far more than Toronto’s.

The same Argo defence that kept the Eskimos offence in check two games in a row. This debate is silly. LaPolice is one of the top two offensive coordinators in the league, no idea how anyone could argue that judging by the whole scoring the most points, great red zone to TD ratio, highest second down conversion in the league things...

Targeted twice by my count. First one he dropped an easy catch for a first down. Second one we ran play action, Nichols threw to him but TO linebacker made a great play and knocked the ball down at the last second. Bowman was wide open on both, for the record. So he’s definitely able to get open...

1. Andrew Harris with more yards than the Argonauts 2. Nichols: great ball placement, high completion percentage, three TDs (two passes, one sneak). Great bounce back game. 3. The entire defence: the Argos scored three points on them (and even if Pfeiffer doesn’t miss twice, still only nine points). D line, LBs, secondary all looked great even the one drive with all the illegal contacts amounted to nothing for TO. HH: Sayles! This kid looks like a great young find, he’s around the ball a lot and is only getting better since his first game against Hamilton where he got burned a bit. He’s specifically the HH for attempting to take a knee and promptly getting pummeled by a monster of an O lineman.

And for everyone complaining about our defence, we’re number two in points against among the five teams that have played four games, and still middle of the pack in the entire league despite four teams only having played three games. Obviously our defence needs a lot of work, but it’s not the only one that does.

You guys have got Chris Jones alllllll wrong. He’s on the Bombers’ payroll, he does all this crazy shizz to give us not one, but two games worth watching every week. I for one think he’s does a great job and hope he stays in Sask for many years to come!

Yeah I definitely agree that something should have been done about Hall already. Hopefully those here that believe his replacement was already brought in and is waiting in the wings are correct.

Getting beat by the same team that took it to Edmonton last week and went toe to toe without Calgary the week before doesn’t change us having a solid team. I acknowledged earlier that our weakness is likely Richie Hall and that was on display tonight. If we lose this way to BC, Sask, TO, or Montreal, then maybe there are bigger problems, but tonight the issues were our defensive play calling, penalties, and game mismanagement (not taking the ball to start the third quarter, declining penalties that would push them out of field goal range). I think we’re smack dab in the middle of the league right now at #5 with a rookie QB, and can easily move up or down a spot depending how things shake out. Hamilton is one of the top two teams in the league and Masoli put up the same passing yards against Calgary and Edmonton (and in the last five games of 2017), so yes, our defence wasn’t good enough tonight, but it’s not like we gave up those yards to Drew Willy or Brandon Bridge. It’s a long season and we’ve lost to two of the top three teams so far, and easily could’ve won one of those games. Let’s see where this thing goes.

Richie Hall.

I believe both have two years on their contract including this year (someone please correct me if I’m wrong). At that point, assuming he’s still showing the promise we’ve seen thus far, you gotta roll with Streveler for his age alone. He’s young enough that he could be our QB for 15 years. Then again knowing this team, maybe Nichols takes a pay cut in a couple years and wants to take on a mentor role. Crazier things have happened and these guys all seem to play for eachother.