GCn20

Please compare stat lines between the first two Grey Cup wins and the next two losses. Virtually identical. We neither won nor lost cups because of Zac Collaros. He did give us our best chance to win in all 4 tho. We will not be keeping Brown unless no one wants him to compete as their starter. We need to be realistic. We have the league's best QB under contract for the next 2 years with a very significant amount of that contract guaranteed. We couldn't move on from Collaros if we wanted to without severely damaging our SMS. I mean let's be real here people, Brown MIGHT BE a good QB starter someday, and Collaros IS UNQUESTIONABLY a good QB starter right now. The CFL salary structure is not built to be looking long game 2-3 years down the road. This isn't the NHL. Contracts are one year, sometimes 2, very occasionally 3 for a select few. You go with who will give you the best chance to win THIS year. That is Collaros.

I suspect this week we will be hearing noise on that front.

Yea...I agree. There were a couple plays Zac made that cost us, but really nothing that should have put the game in jeopardy on a day where our defence plays up to it's level. Not hearing much about that though. I get the excitement over Brown's potential but painting Zac as an inconsistent has been that we will be sorry to keep is completely over the top.

We will have a GM in the very near future I would think.

How much of Dru Brown's success is just teams not having a ton of tape on him? That is huge. We criticize Zac for inconsistency but in the games he was inconsistent was when his OL was getting bettered by the opposition. Did he try too hard to force some things sometimes this year. I think so. I am super unclear how a guy with a QB rating over the season of around 110 can be labelled as inconsistent though. I just think that as a fan base we tend to have selective memory of the past and we are holding him up to the standard of a QB we have romanticized in our heads. Go the game by game logs of 2021 or 2022 he`s had non descript games in every season he is here and I would argue that most if not all QBs have in the modern era. ALL QBs numbers go noticeably down after Labor Day. Every year. Defences catch up to offences...that`s just football. Fact of the matter is that defences were solid all around the league this year and nobody played better against them than Zac.

Only thing that might be problematic with an East coast team is that half the RIders fan base is Newfies that moved there, and who knows where there allegiance might be if there was an East coast team. Just kidding...sort of. Not at all what I was implying. Unions are great organizers, are very ideologically aligned with community ownership, and have the resources to greatly aid ticket drives etc to save the current ownership model. However, if you are talking about unions owning sports franchises it is a pretty prevalent practice really. Although, that is not what I was referring to at all in this case.

Despite a lot of people thinking we are somehow not attractive anymore and our team is falling apart, basically every marquee guy interviewed stated they want to be back, Exactly. The ones who aren't are the break out guys that are gonna get HUGE raises because they are now top tier players or players we are willing to risk to FA. No team let's their reasonable priced high end talent walk out the door if they can avoid it.

Yep...he was. It's a good thing I am not going to define any QB by one playoff loss like some others on this forum. Any given Sunday and all that. I just don't believe that Collaros, although he played poorly in the Grey Cup, is showing great signs of regression like some others on here. Was he MOP level ZC, no not this year. Was he best QB in the CFL level ZC...imo he was. I just think our Grey Cup loss really has some guys jumping the shark a bit and wildly overthinking things. But yeah...if you want to take playoffs as the only indicator of future QB play then CoFaj would be the gold standard QB right now based off that.....and we all know that it was simply a case of the sun's gotta shine on a dog's ass once in a while.

For sure. That rookie NAT contract is a joke. His max is like 75K? a full season. He might as well take the whole season once he committed to go South.

For sure. A couple years ago we had like 35 FA's after the season and by February we were down to 6.

Please show me the stat lines where Zac turned the ball over 9 times, or passed for 3 yards in the first half of a playoff game? If you are talking about the regular season then don't use playoffs as your metric. Zac hasn't put up hall of fame numbers in the playoffs but he hasn't really played badly either until this year's Grey Cup, and that really wasn't terrible either. He was asked to game manage and he did. It was actually when he tried to open it up that it cost us. Bottom line is Zac was the best QB in the CFL last year. The numbers prove it. If you want to move the goal posts to the playoffs to determine who was the best QB last year.....still Zac....and yes, I firmly and strongly believe he is the least likely to regress next year out of the top 3. Kelly looks to be mentally fragile, I think the book is out on him now and Vernon Adams has been wildly inconsistent his entire career and I don't see that changing. What has Zac done? Nothing but win 2xMOP and then be the league's top QB for a third year in a row. That' s consistency I am willing to bank on. You talk like 36 is ancient for a QB, and it's not. Other football positions sure...but not QB.

Ton of time left to sign pending FAs. Good gravy it's November. Just a matter of a QB trying to do too much sometimes. Easily correctable.

$$

I find it hilarious that you break down Collaros's playoff numbers in isolation while suggesting Kelly is his equal after maybe the worst playoff performance in a generation. You point to playoffs ONLY as an indicator of next year's performance for Collaros but if that is the case the two guys you say may surpass him should be cut this offseason based on beyond horrible playoff performances themselves. That's the danger of cherry picking games to support your argument..it doesn't show the full body of work. Qbs rarely are stellar in the playoffs. That's just a function of defences playing harder and cold weather. Zac was the best QB in the CFL this year and there is more reason to believe VA and CK will regress than ZC.

Not saying I'm in love with the prospect, just that it is what probably happens if Buck leaves.

The job would be his if he wants it imo. Despite what a lot of people think, he and Buck run very similar offensive systems (difference mainly is playcalling) and he has proven success here and familiarity.

Brown has put up awesome numbers off the bench and in a couple starts. Why I wouldn't even consider the notion of releasing/trading Zac and letting Brown takeover comes down to this: 1. We have no idea whether Brown can handle the adversity and pressure of being the main man. Tons of QBs have fallen apart once they go from backup to starter. 2. There is no real need to do so, as Zac was still the best QB in the league last year and there is absolutely no reason to believe he couldn't be again. The safe but also best bet is to roll with Zac. Wish Brown the best and let him know that we might be calling him someday in the future.

Easier said than done unfortunately.

I don't disagree that Brown could be a very good QB. I'm just not willing to eliminate the potential that he fizzles out either. He could be the next Reilly or Zac Collaros, but for every one of those guys we also get the Arbuckle's, Evans, and Franklins. In a perfect world we keep Brown, increase his playing time and see if he sustains success. In an imperfect world he moves on, we wish him the best, and maybe he comes back to us one day in FA after Collaros rides off into the sunset.

I've gone twice already, However, only at my small trout lake.

Not sure the unions want to own, but they will fundraise and ticket drive the crap out of that city. They could help with offering time payments on season tix etc.

For sure. We certainly don't want some assclown getting his hands on the Shmoes just because he is the only guy in Edmonton willing to take it on. That being said, that is a pretty strong union town, I think community ownership will be something that the unions get behind and help fundraise to keep.

We also know that he has led us to 2 GC victories, 4 straight GC appearances, 3 straight West division 1st place finishes, led the league for 3 straight years in QBR winning MOP 2x in that span. Under the gun? That's crazy talk.

I agree. 3 red zone trips for 0 points was not great for our ability to win. My counter point to that is he still led the league in just about every category and that is with his running back getting a ton of touches unlike other QBs who were making 40 pass attempts a game. I love Brown but he has 2 games under his belt. I'm not throwing my league leading 2xMOP QB away because his understudy showed well in a very small sample size.

Not many owners are too interested in the CFL financially, they take it on as more of a philanthropic exercise.