GCn20

Biggest offseason in a decade was last offseason and they screwed it up pretty badly, this is the most urgent offseason in a decade though, and I really hope they understand that.

I used to love the Thursday games too.

I am in agreement on Walters performance. He has overseen a massive talent decline since 2021. I wanted him gone this offseason as well and am not particlularly happy he is back. That being said, he's who we got, and from 2013-2020 he did a pretty decent job. He needs to get back to that and I will be happy. If he repeats the same failures as the past few years we are in trouble. I am hoping the Canadian mafia got a big dose of reality this season and enter this offseason understanding that the work needs to be put in, and that we must utilize all potential advantages in order to win. Walters can't sit back and not be active this offseason, must make tough decisions on players even if it pisses MOS off, and MOS must be willing to utilize the naturalized import rule, and say goodbye to some of the guys he has favored for too long. If we do that we can start climbing up the hill again....maybe even rapidly. It seems to me that they got too comfortable and forgot that winning is more than running it back.

Agreed, but at some of the other positions we will have guys pencilled in, not every guy. but certainly we will have guys that are unlikely to be beat out in camp.

I would say no one playing in the trenches, or at IMP receiver should feel like they are pencilled in this year. What we saw from those groups was abysmal and if we don't pull out all stops to have our best camp competition in years at these positions we are not going to improve.

It's going to take a boat load of cash. I'd rather spend that boat load on a generational NAT DL than BO though. Hutchings could be the Doug Brown of our DL for many years to come.

I have my doubts he makes it to FA BUT IF HE DOES Kyle Walters needs to be on it and not acting like Sleepy Joe Mack.

It's not who we lose, it's how we adjust to losing them. Over the past several years we have bled NAT talent and replaced them with no one. We can sustain the loss of top NAT FA's if we go out and bring in other top NAT FA's. What we can't do is let top notch talent of any ilk go and not be aggressively pursuing talent back in return. Last year I really feel our offseason was one of the worst I can remember from a GM of the Bombers. It was really, really bad. We lost 2 NAT all stars in FA, probably the league's top receiver, and a bunch of decent depth guys and brought back ham and eggers to try make up for it. I was optimistic before the season because I'm a Bomber fan, but my gut was telling me that KW did not really give us much of a chance to succeed last year. This year, even if we lose a BO/Demski or both, we can still come out as a better team if KW does his job properly.

All depends on what Kyle Walters we get, The 2013-2020 KW that hoovered up top FA's with consistency OR the 2021 -2025 KW that swung and missed on just about every FA signing even though they were few and far between.

Not much of one. 509k is what he is worth. Not a discount. At the end of the day he's a 40+ year old QB. That comes with considerable risk to his team despite performance. I can agree with that. If we see a massive increase to actual SMS for player salaries then numbers change accordingly

There will be several. Always is.

I guess we differ in our belief of how important BO is to us winning.

They won't lose a substantial amount of season tix. We didn't when Harris left town and we won't if BO does. Losing games does that, not losing players. If we use that money to sign players that excite and help us dominate again we will be standing room only again

Not how it works at all. I agree you take Jake's money and reassign it. What you don't do is grossly overpay at any position. We could spend gobs of money on 12 guys and have 40 others on rookie contracts and win exactly zero games. The most successful teams since SMS started have been vigilant about not overpaying. If letting BO go allows us to sign 2 other premium NATs thats just smart GMing

Not a dinosaur at all...just good at math. It's an SMS world and it doesn't matter if the cap goes up. When a player is overpaid significantly it weakens the team.

He got a bump for sure. Unless his agent is the worst in the world he would have to have gotten one.

Agreed. Which is why I have stated as a caveat to what I am saying that if we are not signing him that money must go directly to upgrading our starting NATs at skill positions or on the OL. The number for BO being bandied about right now is 300k. If we do that we are blowing our brains out on SMS.

Cost over replacement. That is what makes his cost astronomical. Other RBs at 150k put up very similar numbers to BO last year. I agree Zach is currently overpaid as many QBs in a QB driven league are. Apples and oranges. What makes Lawler, Hatcher, and Philpott different? Cost over replacement. You can't replace the impact those 3 have for any cheaper. BO you can. That's not a slight on BO, just the historical fact when it comes to RBs both in Canada and the NFL. They play a position that there are more good RBs than there are teams to play for. You are trying to employ the same supply and demand across all position groups to justify BO's money and that just is not reality.

Im not willing to go a dollar over 250k for BO, and that is stupid money, but he's a home town guy. Honestly, I don't like mega contracts for RBs in the CFL. It's not a running league. The ONLY time a RB should be compensated like that is if you have a young QB just starting out, or you have a QB like Chris Streveler that is weak in the passing game. My objection to BO's contract with us is that it makes the two men standing behind centre too expensive. If we had a 350-400k QB....great let's do it.....but with a 600k QB you just can't make your behind centre tandem 900k of your cap.

Last year he had the Kevin Glenn label to shake off. This year no such luck for the Riders methinks.

Not true. Our OL graded out very well in run blocking, it was pass pro they sucked. Look at the PFF numbers for run blocking for our OL. It sucks but BO just wasn't up to form for a lot of last year. I think part of that was the injury he sustained early in the season but he was definitely not the usual BO last year. Scheme was too predictable for sure. I am NOT advocating for a return of Kola. Just not sure Eli is the answer either. Vibert? maybe.

I don't mind him thinking pass knock down because he's so good at it, what I don't like is that it seems to have become his default.

Not sure what you have seen in Eli to have such faith in him. He has been a matador whenever inserted into the starting group.

When playing from behind BO loses touches. However, in the games where we got behind early part of it was because he didn't run well. Is he the best back in the CFL? Could be, but not by much and he's paid as if he is almost twice as good as everyone else. He isn't and that's the problem. This isn't about BO's ability, it's about whether he is worth his astronomical salary.

I think a lot of our 2nd year guys should be ready to step up into more active roles for sure. Agreed. Spend the wad on a tier one NAT OL, preferable a centre (not sure if there any available) and add QUALITY NAT depth. Draft well, develop better. These are going to be some key areas for us this offseason and season in general. Not a great idea to get rid of Kramdi right now. His contract isn't prohibitive and even if we platoon him we can get our money's worth. We gotta get away from our current DL NAT usage and keeping Kramdi is going to be a necessity in that. We can platoon our young NATs at WIL, and platoon Kramdi at SAM and this will allow us the flex we need to not pay BO the outrageous numbers we are hearing. We need to keep as much NAT roster flex as we can because if Neuf is back it's a roll of the dice, and Lawson/Thomas/Schmek hurt us if we gotta go there again. If another young NAT steps up into a viable starter/platoon guy then we revisit it next season. This, of course, predicates on us getting Kramdi back at a reasonable contract again.