GCn20

I agree. Zach did an awesome job considering he was thrown straight into the fire with us, and deserves kudos for making up for his lack of time in our system with some clutch throws down the stretch, but Nichols was firing on all cylinders that year and had he not gotten injured, and our defence plays like it did in the playoffs we win the Grey Cup...no doubt in my mind. I feel for Nichols in that regard, and that is why I actually wanted us to cut bait on Collaros and bring back Nichols. (I had no idea is shoulder was mush). Was going to say that he wasn't the game manager people thought. We led the league in explosion plays both of his last two seasons with us. This notion that he was a game manager stems directly from him having Andrew Freaking Harris balling out and getting 25 touches a game. If that is "game management" or Lapo small ball sign me up for more. Maybe our biggest flaw last year was that we went away from feeding our stud running back the rock 20 times a game (altho in fairness BO was obviously not playing 100% healthy all season).

It did turn the QBing around for sure. Look at Nichols record and stats in 2019 before going down, he was in MOP discussion at that point.

Nothing wrong with being a game manager at all. I wish ZC would lean into it at this stage of his career.

Sadly after the past couple years everyone probably has one.

Matty Ice had a couple great showings in the playoffs. Like you said, just wasn't a team that was ready to win yet.

I can't speak for these other guys, but strippers do love me. If these guys can't buy a stripper's love then they need to rethink their banking strategy when going to the peelers.

I agree with both of you guys on the head scratchers of the past. However, I was speaking generally. MOS may have a different take, but as I mentioned earlier he LOVES NATs to a flaw. So, I think it is safe to assume that if a NAT is as good, or represents little drop off, to an IMP he will go with the NAT. We've seen that a zillion times under his coaching. NAT vs NAT, or IMP vs IMP different story. What's keeping Shay and Smith off the field right now is that we have really good IMPs ahead of them on the depth chart. JSK going down may have opened up a crap load of reps for them now though.

I see him as a rotational piece this year that could play his way into more meaningful reps if he performs well. Nuer is about our best shot at 2 IMP DTs on occasion so I think he will get regular rotation and if that drops off it's because of performance, not a love of Schmekel. I see Nuer being used more when opposing offences are more likely to run so that we can clog up the middle with Ceresna, and whichever other IMP DT makes the cut.

Not necessarily formal recognition, heck maybe even just a chance to step on the field as an honored guest and get the ovation from the crowd he deserves. He never got a chance to say goodbye and we at the very least owe him that.

Nuer will definitely change that just because of ratio needs.

100% on Matty Nichols. He gave everything he had every day to our club and got injured doing it. He was not the reason we didn't get over the hump during his tenure. As much as we would all love to credit Zach for our first cup, I strongly believe that team was going to win with either Matty or Zach at the helm. We had all the right pieces.

Reps have to be earned. MOS will play a canuck over an American, we know that, so if he's playing an American while the NAT sits on the bench it's because that NAT ain't ready.

For sure next year!

Probably the standard, you are not good enough but work hard, and keep your nose to the grindstone and we will see next year. Pretty sure that probably every player hears some version of this.