GCn20

Bighill yea....Woli was making 20k over league minimum so no real big savings there. His salary was not preventing us from going after anyone. They simply wanted to go another direction at receiver. Far more likely than salary dump is that the Bombers are looking at going with a crap load more 1 NAT receiver sets this year. If your hometown team throws big bucks at you then yea some players will leave to go home. However, the key part of that IF is the big bucks. We have the same SMS as they do.

No. Still makes no sense because it was never a choice between them. Even if we don't re-sign Thomas it has zero bearing on keeping/releasing Woli. Releasing Woli was not a SMS move.

I will wait and see on why Woli was released. However, the Jake or Woli argument makes no sense.

Clercius showed that he looked ready to step into a starting role. Question then becomes is Woli's price fit into our SMS for 3rd NAT receiver. The answer was no I guess. Loved Woli, mad respect for the guy, but his lack of health last year gave a guy a chance to steal his job and the guy took advantage. Sucks to see him go, but I am looking forward to seeing more KC. Think we need a steady hand on the rudder as well. JJ brings that.

Yea...thus the need for our OC to adjust. I don`t believe that Buck did that well. I`m not defending Zac, but Buck needed to adjust to Zac`s aging and he did not. If you are going to roster a 35+ year old QB then you gotta adjust as he ages and change the dynamics of what you are asking him to do. Perfect example is Harris in Saskatchewan. Guy can`t be touched without breaking so they changed how he is to QB based on that and developed a system that allows him outlets to get rid of the ball quicker while still moving the chains. If we are going to try roll out 2019 Zac every game we are not really being fair to him or the team at this point. Zac can be very productive still, but he needs an offence that evolves with him.

You don't want to stifle Zac's game too much because what makes Zac great is that he can extend a play like no other. However, he does need to settle in sometimes and take the 5 yards. It's a balancing act for sure but a lot of Zac's "bullheadedness' in holding the ball so long the last couple years was a direct result of Buck's game plan and have no outlet for him to go to.

I really felt like Buck's offence didn't do a particularly good job of spreading the field laterally. I would like to see more commitment to that. He loved to stretch the field vertically with his play calling and that was good, but we really went away from the sweeps in the run game and passes into the flats in the last couple years and that keeps the DE's and OLBs honest. I get that we ran a ton of rookies last year but backfield motion was really at a low point too.

Yep, it is really weird how they do it over there. Might be because of the immense size of their roster/PRs. Most teams already have 1-3rd string already in the system or will be drafting to get them. CFL guys are brought in as camp bodies and legit surprise if they stick. They bring in guys like Ajou who is about a 1% chance of making it but they see some tiny glimmer of upside they hope will surprise them while ignoring a guy like Schoen who can likely push hard for a ST/backup spot but that's where he tops out.

I wouldn't go that far but he's not in the top half for sure.

He did have a couple highlight reel plays on film. I didn't mean to suggest he could stick in the NFL, just offering my 2 cents on why they would look at him over say a guy like Clercius. Age being a big factor and he demonstrated some big play ability.

With Eli I think the 2 seasons away from the game really hurt his development in a big way and now kind of has hurt his confidence. His commitment to football has always been questionable, and we should know this year if he applied himself in the offseason and is coming in hungry or not. From what I saw of his play last year I have concerns whether he was 100% all in last year. I could be way out to lunch on that, and have nothing to back that up for full disclosure, just seemed off last year. We have seen him play at a much higher level than what he displayed last year for sure.

I think with Eli it has more to do with between his ears than his physical toolbox. His problem has never been athleticism or ability. He sometimes doesn't show the drive or commitment necessary to grab the job away. If he comes to camp this year in the proper mind set he could give the coaches something to think about for sure.

He's 23 years old and is considered very raw. He's an NFL project with a great deal of youth to roll the dice on. If he's 26 he doesn't get a sniff. He's tall, lanky, has flashed good hands and most importantly, and I can't stress this enough, he is only 23 with an excellent development curve so far.

I think DE is something we will definitely be looking at. I'm not sure about C, not because we couldn't improve but I'm just not sure what will be left on the market come FA. I would like to see an upgrade at C for sure. Not sure what will be there come opening day of FA tho. Last year, and it should be expected, our OL was brutal to start the year then rounded out to decent as the year went on. Games against premiere DLs we really got exposed though. Some of that was hubris on Buck's part tho. Even in the Grey Cup his game plan was not designed to counter act what was very clearly Toronto's strength on D. We played right into their strength and that was dumb.

I'm saying that at this point and time he does top out as our 6th OL because he simply is not good enough at OG to displace anyone. I do not know if he is better than Kola, and would like to see what he can do there. I can't say definitively if he is better than Kola, but he is a natural Centre. It could be he is no better there than at OG, and if so then 6th or even 7th OL is his top out.

Yea...I proposed 160 as a very top end if he gives us term for it.

200k? No way,..let him walk if someone offers him that. That would be a gross overpay for his position. 160 would be fair value imo.

I think Tui tops out at 6th OL unfortunately. Love to see him get a shot at C but at guard he struggled last year in the reps he got.

At the end of the day, I don't blame the O struggles on usage. In the past 3 GCs their DL dominated our OL. That's not usage, that's just the sad reality that we no longer have the 2019 OL anymore and that teams like TO and MTL have juggernaut DLs. We needed a different type of O usage all 3 of those years and we were playing boom or bust down the field in the entirety of our passing game instead of working the flats. We had to take their DLs out of the game and we didn't.

I agree with you on BOLO, but Ambles wasn't just a matter of chemistry there was a high probability that given his short amount of time that he hadn't caught onto the play book. Our offensive playbook is not an easy uptake, as was demonstrated early this season with our rookies.

No denying that. Thanks for the clarification. Although, I would say our coordinators were the ones outclassed.

Funny that those same guys who fought Harris are long gone out of the league, and Harris is now their coach. The O'Day/Dickie years were a gong show.

In some spots I agree. Out classed? That;s ridiculous. Out coached...for sure...at times. That being said all signs point to the Bombers recognizing the need for some roster makeover, so let's see what happens.

Retaining Stan Bryant, Adam Bighill in his prime, Andrew Harris in his prime, BO in his prime, Schoen and Lawler last year, etc. etc. etc. were part of our failure? I get that you don't like how long we hang onto some guys. but my point is that we have attracted a lot of stud players, and retained almost all the studs we developed. To suggest we are some also-ran in the FA game is a gross exaggeration. We are a team that is able to attract FA's if we decide to go that route. This year, we should go that route. No doubt about it. Walters has said we will be active, I expect we will be. Is Walters crying poor right now? Yep...as is every other GM because they are all trying to get the best deals on retaining their own pending FAs. I think Walters makes some big splashes in the pool this year. We haven't done it in a few years, but over his tenure he has made some big moves when we needed it. Not sure if McManis is a guy they are targeting, but if he is, I think we will definitely be in the mix.

It's January 20th, relax. For all we know he's got his guy already and it just isn't announced yet. As for the CFLPA gradings, I think we did pretty good. No red flags there. Where we scored high on them are in the areas of importance, and where we scored lower was on the nit-picky issues. You got your poop tied in a knot about OC, but it could very well be that our new guy has asked for time first before the announcement. CFL staffs do not regularly report for work until the end of February. I understand the trepidation about not knowing who will command our offence as a fan, but realistically we don't need to rush this process.