GCn20

Fact: YOU are the one moving the goal posts. No one said that pre-Collaros we were dominant. What was stated is we were better than mediocre. Fact: We were well above mediocre (1st place) until a season ending injury to our starting QB. We struggled, AS ANY TEAM WILL, behind our backup. Once Collaros came we went back to being above average. Fact: Our defence was the main reason we won both the 2019 cup. Collaros just game managed because he had very limited time in our system up to that point. Fact: No one is suggesting we were dominant at any point prior to 2021. The argument was about your use of the term mediocre to describe the pre-Collaros 2019 Bombers. An assessment that NO ONE seems to have but you and one that is most certainly nothing more than opinion on your part. Ours too, but we will man up and at least admit it's our OPINION and it vastly differs from yours. I will take solace in the fact that the overwhelming majority reject your opinion as a clue as to how accurate it might be. Fact: Our pre-Collaros TEAM was well above mediocre even after Nichols went down. I will cede that our QBing after Nichols injury and prior to Collaros left a lot to be desired but that's not the same as thing as calling the entire team mediocre. We were a very good team needing an upgrade at QB after injuries to both our starter and backup. It's that simple really.

Don't sweat it, As long as we are in the ballpark in negotiations he will be back. Unless the Argos go full on crazy and offer him 800k or something dumb like that he will be back. I don't see that happening anywhere in the CFL right now. There has been a market correction happening at the QB position. Everyone is taking shaves. The days of the 700k QB are over for now, CFL teams have learned that success does not follow those contracts.

Unless we low ball him he will be back. He couldn't possibly be dumb enough to leave the situation he's in right now over a little bit of salary. We won't blow our brains out because Walters is smarter than that, but our bid will be competitive. If our bid is competitive and he chooses to leave then I will have to do a re-evaluation of my thoughts on his intelligence level. Not wishing for anything. I strongly want the Zac Attack back. Just not in panic mode about it. I want the best team we can possibly field. QB play is helpful but it is NOT the best determinate on record. The scoreboard is the best determinate and there is more than one way to get that stat in your favor. In the past 6 years the team with the top rated passer in the CFL has won the Grey Cup once. Last year. In that time frame 3 Grey Cups were won by QBs outside the top 3 rating in the league.

As long as our defence continues to hold teams to 12 pts a game we will be just fine if Collaros leaves. I want to go 18-0 next season and that won't happen without Collaros, but if I have to settle for 15-3 without him I can live with it. I love Collaros and what he brings to the table, but I honestly believe that their are a few QBs that can lead our team to the promised land if necessary.

A truth is something that is based on facts. Your opinion is not necessarily the truth because often it is not based in facts. Being consistently wrong does not strengthen your argument or make it any truer. Just because YOU believe something to be true, does not make it so. It's called having an opinion and you're entitled to one but when people don't agree with it they are not necessarily wrong.

Every year is different. At the time Nichols went down and we turned to Streveler we were the best team in the league. We lost a couple games playing with our backup...happens to even really good teams...and then we traded for a veteran when that backup got injured and quickly went back to our best team in the league play. What happened in seasons prior is completely irrelevant no matter how much you would like it to be part of the narrative. Were we mediocre in 2018...not really...we went to the West final. In 2017 and prior...yea maybe a touch better than mediocre but thats year's before and as I stated earlier...COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT. At the time we got Zac we were the best team in the league but needed a QB. The proof is in the pudding. I'm not trying to discredit anything that Zac did, but realistically in 2019 we won because we were the best team...not because we had the best QB. In 2021, it was little bit of both. I agree that this crap on Lapo narrative is getting a little over the top. He did not hold us back from winning and his Grey Cup ring is the proof of that. One can disagree with his style etc, but it doesn't have to be exaggerated to suggest that his offence held anyone back from winning more.

Ottawa is barely solvent. They had Desjardins doing cut throat contracts for the past few years now. They are not getting in a bidding war for anyone. Toronto...maybe...but for significantly cheaper I think they go Masoli.

Personally, I love it when Suitor pumps their tires in a win and makes excuses for them in a loss. It helps keep the delusions alive in Riderville and it makes it hurt more when we beat them for the umpteenth time in a row in the playoffs. That's when the reality sets in, and I like reality to set in at the same time as the pain for them.

Maybe he was asked what the RIders have to do to get out of the West this year. If so, he was just answering honestly.

I guess we will agree to disagree but I won't be a ****** about it. If you choose to continue to be one all the power to you. Hope whatever is bothering you gets resolved. I think it's absolutely laughable that you think losing Stove represents a giant shift in our defence. He is one guy....you are overselling this to the nth degree. I've played football, coached it for many, many, years and watched it the last 50 years of my life and am yet to see in all my years a team lose a stellar defence because a DT left town.

He probably learned to pee at some point I would think. However, as with all PED users, the question isn't can he pass several tests in a row it's whether he can pass them all, all the time. Maybe AC quit juicing, most guys who get caught probably do, but the impact of doing so will be seen this coming year more than it would have been last year. There is still residual benefit to juicing for a while after you stop and AC had that for the remainder of 2021. Will he be the same guy in 2022? Hard to say. At the risk of getting flamed badly, Harris was not the same guy in 2021 as he was in 2019. That could be age of course, but maybe his lack of supplements was part of the equation too. We didn't see a massive drop off in his ability to play the game but we sure saw him struggle with injury and a lot of guys juice not to build muscle but because it really speeds up healing.

True...but if they are re-signing them it kind of indicates they aren't trying too hard to do so.

I guess the Hall defence must have been horrible in the games that Richardson missed? I think your memory is a little cloudy. Pick one stat and yell it from the roof tops if you want to do so but we weren't involved in any high scoring games where the offence bailed us out. If opponents averaged 7 ypc against us when Stove was down does it matter at all? Not sure why you are banging this drum so loudly? We averaged less than 13pts a game scored against us and less than 5 pts per game in the 2nd half without Stove. He is not a must sign. We did just fine without him. I want Stove back as badly as anyone, but I'm not going to give into the premise that losing him would be problematic. I hope we can get him at a fair salary and that he is here. If we don't then it's on to the next guy and our defence will still be elite providing we don't lose Biggie, BA, and too many from our secondary as well.

Of course it's click bait. That pretty much describes 95% of today's media unfortunately. Oh geez....what now? Can this get any worse at this point. I suppose it could but I wish people would just get jabbed so that we could put this epic fiasco behind us. All this pandemic has shown is just how unprepared the world was for a pandemic.

Hey, I'm sure you've seen the worst of the worst as an addictions counsellor. I would be jaded too if I were you.

Collaros would be a huge loss and it would be tougher to win without him, but it's certainly doable. Heck we just about got there with Nichols.

If you think that getting a 100 yards average on the ground against us with a depleted LBer crew is damaging you are wrong. We gave teams the run so that they couldn't pass or score on us. I mean you say we got gashed on the run but the difference between Stove in the lineup and Stove out of the lineup was 30 yards rushing per game. Insignificant really and even less so when you factor in that the CFL is a PASSING game, and in Stove's absence we were the number one defence defending the pass in just about every category but most importantly a HISTORIC low for points scored against us. I'm not saying Stove is easy to replace, all I am saying is that he is the easiest to replace without hampering our pass defence and that is our bread and butter. Could we find lightning in the bottle and find two all star level DBs again this year....maybe but even with our excellent recruitment I wouldn't take that chance. We've lost Alford already and losing Rose or Alexander would be devastating. What? You are suggesting we go to a 5 man front without Stove? Didn't happen when he was out this year and won't happen now if we lose him. I am unclear where you even get that idea from? I don't want to lose Stove he's a helluva player but you are way overselling him. Our defence would be just fine without him if it comes to that.

I recall being 8-1 before RIchardson came back too. Can't play that card.

Based on your previous comments regarding marijuana, I don't think you would. Seems to me your mind is made up, Exactly. One does not have to go all communist and dictate mandatory vaccinations. A far more effective tool is to make non vaccination so inconvenient and costly that the choice to get vaccinated becomes the obvious one.

When was the last time you remember us having crappy DTs? I can remember very clearly when the last time we had a crappy secondary was. Winston Rose's do not grow on trees. We are only 3 years removed from Kevin Fogg being our shut down corner. Let's not forget that.

No thanks to Judge. Besides being a bit of a wingnut he is overpaid for his production. I wouldn't want him in our locker room. Richardson is an asset for sure. However, we have a TON of assets we need to sign and he quite frankly is probably the most expendable of what will be our big ticket D items. If he wants to stay on the low side of market value I'm all for it, but I don't think we can realistically afford him without potentially losing a player that would be a far greater loss. Can we lose Rose? That would be a much bigger problem...could we lose Biggie? Our defence would take a huge hit. Can we lose BA....our middle would be suspect. Can we lose Richardson? We give up 30 yards a game more in rushing and little to no difference in points against. Just saying. I'm not trying to dump on RIchardson but his loss, IF we have to lose someone, represents the least problems.

Defence is a team game, and a team net sum. I could honestly care less how many rushing yards we gave up in an 8 game span we were surrendering less than 15 points per game and a mind boggling 2nd half defence efficiency of less than a TD surrendered. I guess if you wanna pick a number and blame one guy in a 12 man group for that number being less than stellar than sure....have at it....Sayles sucks. But that is a pretty narrow view that lacks a lot of context imo. I am not suggesting Stove isn't the better DT, he is, but guys are trying to lobby pretty hard that there was something wrong with our defence when he wasn't in the lineup and I think that is some pretty revisionist history. I will take a defence that averages less 13 points per game surrendered, and just over 5 pts average in the 2nd half, and surrenders a 100 yards rushing on average every day, and twice on Sunday. We're really splitting hairs when we are calling any part of probably the most stifling defence in the modern era as being problematic, and it is especially insane to suggest that the fault lies at one players feet over an 8 game span. I really strongly believe that our defence allowed teams a bit of rushing in order to prevent the pass, and to limit scoring. The score sheet I think strongly indicates that whether intentional or not this definitely was the case. People are speculating about the potential impact of losing Stove. My opinion is that for half the season we were without him and our defence was stellar. That's the bottom line imo. There are other guys yet to be signed that I am not as confident we could afford to lose

They gashed us with DJ Foster one game and John White the other. John White was on a couple long runs but through the middle and DJ Foster was consistently going around the tackle and running into the flat. Briggs had a real tough game that day. What is lost in the stats was the first game where White gashed us we were running our LBers a lot in the secondary to shut down MBT which we did with great success. Sometimes you gotta give up something to gain more back. In that first game White gashed us for around 150 yards, with over half that total coming on two long runs. We bet they couldn't beat us by running and the fact we surrendered 6 points that game proves that our allowing them some room to run to shut down the passing game was a smart decision. Sometimes context is important and when people criticize our run stop they need to remember that our defence was amazing overall even without Richardson helping to limit the ground game. Even in the loss to the Argos, they ran about 75% of their offensive runs AND passes to the flat where Briggs was and we just didn't adapt well to it at all., I believe along with missing our WIL we were also short that same side half back that game and it was a disaster.

We weren't dead last but it was an issue. However, this was compounded by two really poor games against Toronto early in the season. They ran the rock at will against us and it really wasn't on Sayles. They were picking heavily on Jessie Briggs who was in at WIL those two games. When Rocquemore came back and replaced Briggs, Gauthier, and Brown at WIL our run defence signficantly improved even though Sayles was still starting. I would say the combination of the loss of Stove AND the rotating door at WIL and SAM early in the season were the factors that led to our run defence being poor over the first 6 games.

I don't think there is as big a difference between Stove and Sayles as you might think. Nevis was head and shoulders better against the run than Stove in his rookie year. Run stopping is usually the last thing a rookie DT becomes good at. There is a very real trajectory of run stopping improvement that Sayles underwent in 2021. His first few starts the Bombers got gashed pretty bad but after that the stats showed significant improvements over his final few starts against some very tough running backs. IF Sayles show improvement from year one to year two like Stove did than I don't expect much drop off at all. However, the best case scenario would be that we re-sign Stove...definitely.