GCn20

It was time to move on from Darvin so we did. Just as there are some guys this year that will be facing the same outlook. Taylor, Mike Jones etc all valuable contributors to our cup wins. We moved on. I see no reason to believe that our management team will suddenly not do the same this year. Forgot Andrew Harris as well. The consummate Bomber really, but he lost a step and some reliability and bye bye.

I'm not sure if he's ready or not, but I believe he believes he is ready and it seems he may have convinced the Riders of it. The good news about re-signing our entire managment staff is that it likely leaves us short on dollars for a PLOP return if Buck goes.

If you were a Western team you would have yourself a 250k running back then. Good luck with that. You think that the Riders offering something ridiculous moves us off our SMS? Ask Kenny Lawler if it will.

Why limit it to training camp? In the past 3 years just off the top of my head we have replaced in-season, Tyquan Glass, Des Lawrence, Winston Rose, Alden Darby. In the offseason we moved on from Charles Nelson, Mike Jones, Darvin Adams, Nick Taylor. Michael Couture. But let me ask you. Who did we keep too long in this time frame? Bryant, Biggie, Neuf, Hardrick, Jefferson, Jeffcoat? Nah. They were all good this last year. Jake Thomas is the only one in the past several years that I think an argument could be made that O'Shea may have held onto too long. Surely, you have many more names than that? You must based on your argument that O'Shea is way too loyal to aging vets. Tell me who warranted getting cut and replaced?

He did not say there were none. Not in any way, shape, or form. He flat out said there would be changes because changes are inevitable year to year. I don't mind you guys criticizing MOS, but you are putting words in his mouth that are completely contrary to what he said. He was flat out asked if he thought some guys would be back or not, and he stated that some will retire, some will be back, some will be SMS casualties and that they would be looking at the roster carefully.

What leads you to believe he won't? He has done so pretty much every year he has been here. How many rookies does he have to roster for you guys to believe he is turning over the roster fast enough? Since 2021 beginning we have turned over 30 spots on the team, that's an average of 10 roster spots a year. Not enough? Change for the sake of change is stupid. Guys need to step up and take spots.

I got 23. I must be missing a couple. However, that's 40% of our total players remaining and I can guarantee that number shrinks by at least 5 or 6 again this offseason. We will have turnover where it is needed, not where some fans are going to think it should be, but where the club identifies.

Yup...we can only hope. So far so good. We will evolve and have evolved every year under MOS. This year won't be any different. Look back to the 2019 Cup and count the number of players still on the team. 23 players active and reserve out of 56. That's a 60% of the roster turnover in the best of times our club has seen. It is absolute nonsense that people suggest we have no roster turnover under MOS.

For sure. Our entire organization is first class and a helluva lot better than our neighbor's to the West....and we know the dressing room is light years ahead of their's. If he gets a 3 year contract I think a weak GM would be a great thing for any coach coming in. Hear me out. With the coaching hard cap in place, and O'Day having a team out written into his contract that allows them to tear up his term, it means either O'Day performs well and Buck is given the tools to succeed, or he stay the course and O'Day is the guy in the crosshairs not the new coach. The very worst that can happen in this scenario is that O'Day gets fired and the new guy decides to eat his salary on the coaching cap. Buck gets another 2 years of HC money to come home to Winnipeg in whatever capacity. However, the likelihood is that the coaches are all safe, and Buck gets a big say in O'Day's replacement or perhaps even offered the job himself. There really is no risk in walking into that kind of situation for Buck because the likelihood of him getting fired for performance is very low, as next year's team performance will be squarely on O'Day unless Buck is an absolute tire fire.

He could give coordinator money, but a rookie HC running his own offence will almost certainly end in disaster. Hopefully, Buck is not that foolish for his sake. He could, but that just as risky for BO as it is for the Bombers when you play that game. BO wants to be a Bomber a heckuva lot more than he would want to follow Pierce to Sask. I think the attraction to follow coaches is overstated. Players that love their locker room tend to stay no matter who their coordinators are or where they might go. Double that up with BO being a Winnipeg boy thru and thru...

The pay bump that might move Buck is not really comparable to what Costello might get.

I am guessing he feels his time is now for HC.

For sure. Great teams don't throw the baby out with the bath water if it means losing a good player. I would be far more worried about Zac coming back to haunt us in the next couple years than Brown. Anyone who thinks that 7 other teams wouldn't be all over Zac are crazy. We have 3 and maybe 4 in our division right now that would likely take him in a heartbeat if they could fit him in their SMS. Imagine BC with Zac, they would be a juggernaut.

What has Brown done more than Arbuckle did in his first couple seasons? Arbuckle took over from BLM and went 7-0 or something like that in his first appearances. You are right, it is a discussion to be had for sure, nothing wrong with it. If we want to discuss Zac's age and whether he continues to be top level of for how long he remains top level, those are very debateable conversations worth having. Saying that Brown is better than Zac right now and that's why we should move on isn't really conversation worthy imo, it's just wishful thinking. Nope. Mgmt all coming back.

You honestly think that Dru Brown processes the game faster than Zac Collaros? You think he looks like a deer in the headlights? I'm not sure we are watching the same games. Brown is a good looking PROSPECTIVE starting QB. There is absolutely no way of knowing how he will respond to the next level of being a starter. None. Anyone who says that Dru Brown is better than Zac Collaros right now is just caught up in some kind of weird frenzy that happens with backup QBs sometimes. I don't think some people are appreciating the difference between being a starter and being a back up. Brown is a great back up, but is completely unproven as a starter. That's when DCs comb over film on you, and find your tendencies and weaknesses and close off your strengths and a QB must be able to counter that. We have seen one game where the opposition had time to prepare for Brown as the starter, and that was against Calgary. We won...but it was not a great performance by Brown and that gives me pause.

Costello loves it in Winnipeg. He is not going anywhere.

It's Rider fan speculation and wet dreaming. Hell, we gave Ottawa permission to talk to Buck last year and he flat out told them he wasn't interested. We have no idea if he is even interested in the Rider job. It would not shock me to see Richie retire this offseason and Younger is our man here. Would Younger leave Winnipeg for the Riders for the same job, I very much doubt it.

It would be interesting for sure. I just have a sneaking suspicion that Strev may come home at a discount for us unless someone throws legit starter money at him.

Yea that's a possibility for sure. However do you think Brown overtakes Collaros next year? I don't. Do you think he over takes ZC by year end 2025? Possible but I'd be willing to bet against it. Therefore, we keep our best QB right now....everytime and always. One year contracts make it a necessity in this league. We could keep Brown and end up taking him through his growing pains as a starter and he leaves anyway for all we know. Agreed. If we get this year's Zac Collaros next year we will have the best QBing in the league still.

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.