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There is absolutely no way I would live stream the combine if I was the CFL. No chance I would give XFL/USFL/NFL scouts free and easy access to see the players measurables that we are hoping to recruit. For the price of zero they get to take a look at our best prospects and see how they stack up? No thanks.

I've been lucky enough to spend enough time in the Sub-Arctic that I have seen some truly amazing northern lights displays. The early fall is the best time. Nightly shows that can be quite epic.

KSB is a top 3 NAT receiver in the CFL but is not top 15 overall. Him being the Riders best receiver is a testament to how weak they are at receiver. He is a fringe 2 or strong 3 receiver in this league. He's better than Woli and not nearly as good as Demski. Beating out a 5 receiver isn't exactly proving anything tho, especially at what he would cost. On a few other teams he might be a number 3 receiver.

There is no such thing as irrational knee-jerk Rider hate talking. It is all very well thought out and deserved hate talking. Good God man..

Crisis was an overstatement. Just a snafu really for the next couple years.

Not really a lie. If he is on the PR he likely gets less than CFL. If he dresses than he could potentially earn a lot more. More of an omission than a lie. Terry has been scarce around here lately. Must still be busy eating crow on that one.

The CFL is about to face a crisis on high end NAT talent. Almost 150 draft eligible players have deferred their draft year to next year including 8 out of the top 20 prospects. No one is really sure why? The NCAA guys I can understand, they can now make more playing college football than CFL but the rest makes no sense. GMs are at a loss to explain it. This year's draft is about to become complete bunk and next year, unless we see mass deferral again, is going to see way too many players and not enough rounds to draft them all making them FA's outright.

Exactly. Fajardo threw anyone, and everyone, under the bus for his poor play VERY publically, Evans put the blame squarely on himself, and discussed how he needed to get better mentally as he was struggling with that. Big difference. At no point and time did I ever hear Fajardo speak with humility, or come out and state the obvious that he was struggling with the emotions and mental health aspects of the game. Quite the opposite really....hence the ridicule. One guy knows what the problem is and is trying to fix it, the other guy thinks the problem is everyone else. Makes it pretty easy to determine the difference in attitude towards them.

Every draft sees a boat load of freshly drafted CFLers working out for NFL teams. The difference between Judge and Gray is that at the time of the draft Gray had already signed in the NFL. Judge had a workout with an NFL team. Big difference.

Yes, when measuring the trade one should look solely at the value of the pick and the advantage it gives. The long term value of it is not really in any team's control. Blue chippers can bust, and players can move on after their first contract. That is why keeping and compiling as many as these top draft picks as possible is how winning teams are created. With the benefit of hindsight, Cam Judge followed by Geoff Gray are probably the two best picks to make. Cam is who I probably would have chosen. Hard to say if he would have stuck around or left. We have a few players who moved around before coming to the Bombers and committing to us long term. Also, and not to be diminished, is the fact that at the time we chose Gray he was an NFL player. We were lucky he came back to the CFL. OL from Canada have a fairly good rate of hanging around the NFL.

It gave us an all star DB that was one of the best defensive players in the league that year. Petey gave us a few really good years as backup NAT receiver depth and was great on teams, Ekakitie gave us the luxury of taking a futures pick with Gray. These were all important to our climb up the hill. For sure. Not placing blame on Walters for that one. There was not a lot to choose from.

Wish we would have done more with the 1st overall, but who we drafted does not diminish the worth of that pick. I am in disbelief that anyone would not see the intrinsic value of having the 1st overall pick in any draft year. Draft picks can be busts, but I still place a ton of value on having a top 3 CFL draft pick. Who we got with that pick is irrelevant. It doesn't make the trade better for Toronto, it just means we squandered a golden opportunity. Just having the opportunity of dibs on all draft eligible players is very valuable. For all we know, if Toronto retains that pick maybe they take Cam Judge, or Geoff Gray....

Yep...Heath was an all star for us, Petermann made a lot of clutch plays and was great on the teams, Faith was a bust but his draft position directly led to us selecting Geoff Gray, even though he had signed in the NFL already. Having the freedom to take a futures pick was huge to our build. Gray is a solid starter, and was easily the league's best 6th OL before that. If we don't have one, we gotta pick more conservatively at 8 and that entire draft was a bust really. Only 3-4 really good players out of it.

1st overall draft pick, 3rd round pick, and TJ Heath is what we got for Willy. Doesn't matter how those draft picks turned out. The fact we had 1st overall allowed us to take a flyer at 8 and get Gray who is now part of our league best OL. Petey gave us excellent depth, and played some good football for us. Heath was an all star. Compared to what we gave up.....yea...a king's ransom in return for a broken QB.

What did you think of Willy when we traded him to you for the king's ransom that started paving the way towards our dynasty?

Maybe...but he panicked and completely lost composure at even the sight of a DL even when they were protecting him. I never saw that from Evans. He just made some awful decisions under pressure. Willy was a hot mess and never rebounded.

The difference between Evans and Willy is that Evans actually played some decent football last year. Once Willy got rattled it was a complete disaster. Both men got shell-shocked but Evans hasn't rolled as far down the hill as Willy did. I think Evans behind a good OL can save his career. I never thought that about Willy.

Nope. However, Cody Fajardo is Drew Willy.

It depends. If the new guy is equally as good as Prukop in SY, then yea they will stay with the new guy. If not, I can see the Bombers bringing back Dakota. That was the point of my post. The new guy, or guys, need to leave no doubt by the middle of June. I don't think that at all. It was about money. We offered him 3rd string money, and Prukop was looking at ways of making more.

The ALs had a very dominant all NAT OL. They aged out eventually but man they were good for a number of years. Similar to our OL now, but all NAT. They started showing cracks in their last couple years because AC wasn't in his prime anymore, and neither were they, but sure can't take away from what they did for many years before that. Not even remotely close. Evans led his team to back 2 back Grey Cup appearances. I still believe Evans will be a starter in this league again before long....more than likely this year at some point. He got a bad rap last year imo. He put up some pretty decent numbers really except turnovers, and that was more a function of having to push the ball downfield playing from behind. Don't care what kind of QB you are if you are perpetually forced to abandon the run, push down the field because the clock is the enemy, you are going to rack up yardage and turn over the ball at a much higher pace. Jennings just threw 50/50 balls up all over like Fajardo and hoped his receivers would come down with it. Worked for a while until teams took everything underneath away and dared him to put balls down field. Then he was exposed. Evans has every throw in the book. Guys like Fajardo and Jennings were one trick ponies.

Short term Evans would be far better in a backup role for us at that price point, however, chances are Evans only plays for that price for one year. His experience and any kind of positive play this year will have some team looking at him with either bigger bucks or maybe even a starting role. If he played for us, guaranteed he would play well with our weapons and OL. He would be a hot commodity come next offseason and we would effectively have lost Brown for one year of Evans. That being said, I still might have made that trade if it was there. Very tempting. I think Evans could do well with our OL and receivers if we needed him.

The QB is going to have to impress because I am almost certain Prukop's plan is to come back to the CFL immediately after the USFL season.

I just feel like the % of draft picks retained is such a red herring overall. Take us, who had home town guys we didn't draft want to come home that kept us from retaining our own picks because they were too good to be unseated. Or the loss of 3 high picks to the NFL, or having such overwhelming depth that we can allow a couple OL draft picks to go elsewhere because we have cheaper excellent options.... it creates a skewed stat. One would have to be taking a few blows to the head to not see that Winnipeg has been drafting and retaining players, not just NATS, at a very high level....probably the best out of all teams in the CFL over the past 4-5 years.

For sure. Every team drafts 7 rounds, some team need that many some teams don't.

Can't say I blame him. He really didn't have any other option that could lead to a starting job any quicker except Montreal, which was a big unknown at the time.