GCn20

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.

I can see where the Argos would love to have him. He is the only guy who was able to keep Murphy in check and that will be huge for the Argos.

That's my thinking as well. Things are going to slow down a bit because holidays do that. But we need our guy by 2nd week of January and that is a likely timeline unless we do something within the next 10 days.

An extremely valid point. We can't let high calibre NATs walk out the door without spending those savings on other high quality NATs. Walters did an abysmal job of this over the past 3 years and needs to wake up in that regard. We have seen a mass exodus in overall talent without replacement at NAT, and really all positions. I don't want BO back on a boat anchor of a contract, but I don't want his savings not used properly either.

If you give a CFL calibre 20+ touches a game they are going to rack up big yardage. I love Brady ball, but I don't think Brady is our only option to do it with. This last contract my heart was happy but my head said it's a terrible contract. This time both my heart and my head say it's a bad idea. Sorry Brady, but your attitude over the last year was not to my liking.

I agree. Highly doubtful, January is prime time for most coaching hires outside of HC. I will be semi concerned if we don't have anyone in place by Jan. 9.

A 250k+ contract to a running back, ANY running back, is going to hinder any team unless they put up MOP calibre numbers and clutch performance. We got hosed on his contract last year.

What mistakes are being repeated? We are fans, getting angry on a forum isn't going to do anything. If we don't have an OC in place by your timeline then for sure we can be worried. I agree. However, we cannot know what will happen until it happens.

Emilus will be 250k+ BO is the beneficiary of an offensive system that is far too run heavy. There I said it. 250k+ for BO. Price over replacement is the formula I like to use and BOs salary makes no sense at that equation whereas Philpott's is closer to an accurate amount but still a slight overpay.

You are correct on his usage, I just likened it to a LBer type role because it is probably closer to that than DE and it doesn't really have a term associated with it because it is unusual. Definitely not true LBer for sure, but definitely not DE either. Just weird usage. Not sure why. Could be declining skills but he rarely gets to straight rush anymore at all. Perhaps, they should get back to giving him those opps.

Great...let's wait until then to declare he is doing the same thing. More importantly what we were asking him to do. We are all blaming WJ for playing the defensive role his DC asked of him. We were using WJ as a DE/LBer hybrid in pretty much every 4 man front we ran and then asking him to take on every double team in a 3 man front. There was little chance he was going to do the things a DE gets recognition for. It's fine to drop him out on occasion to keep the offence off balance but we were doing it almost every play and then he just becomes an oversized and slow (by LBer standards) glorified LBer.

Funny how we ran a primarily 4 man front that game too. Coincidence I think not.

I am not impressed at all with Younger after this year either, Didn't like his zero pressure approach at all. The first year QBs couldn't adjust to everyone dropping out into coverage but now they just carve us up. These 3 man fronts just don't work if they are done excessively. Better to disguise it like Richie used to do.