BigBlue

We've had some fine discussions over several threads about free agency. I have enjoyed flipping back and forth between the various discussions. But in the next few days the news and rumours are going to be coming fast and furious, particularly on Monday night and Tuesday. What I don't want to have to do is to keep searching several threads to make sure I don't miss any of this juicy stuff. So I thought it would be cool if we could have a central place to keep up to the latest. I'm not saying this thread would be the only place to post and I'm not saying that some news might deserve a whole thread for itself. I'm just saying it would be nice to post the latest tidbits, speculations and announcements over the next 3 days to a week in this one spot - - so none of us miss anything because we are not looking in the right thread. So do you want to try this spot as the central posting place for this week? Meanwhile as we are waiting for announcements tomorrow and beyond, I have a question. With sports salaries being so widely published everywhere else, why is it that we keep CFL salaries so closely guarded?

This is the most boring thread .... a big nothing burger that won't go away

NFL makes changes every year and it does make the game better & safer .... I want to see more refinement

So the rules committee meets in March What is your best recommendation for improving our game this season ..... personally I am going with contacting a receiver away from the play ... mot as a rule and how the reffs call it but as a challengeable play ... if the reffs miss it , too bad

Its no secret what the weakest position on the team is ... how far is Kyle Walters willing to go to acquire a top notch middle linebacker? What strategies might he use to get the job done?

We saw the league Commissioner change the challenge rule midseason 2017. I believe his change put an end to the horse hockey where the head coaches were trying to leverage the delicate rules on pass interference and defensive back obstruction on receivers. It took control of the game out of the referees hands in using fine judgement or in evening up the calls. Still, the zebras make multiple mistakes per game, often more than one critical call. Increasing the tempo of the game needs to be balanced with eliminating egregious referee decisions. Personally, I would like to see more timeouts per half (perhaps two or even three). I think it would prove the quality of the game and increase scoring. To that end what I would prefer to see changed is an increase the number of challenges available to the coach BUT that an unsuccessful challenge would have a severe penalty: for instance, an unsuccessful challenge would cost the challenger a 10 yard penalty for delay of game plus the loss of a timeout. The end of frivolous "it won't hurt to try" challenges might prove to provide better balance and tone to the game. Challenges would only be made when the coach was sure the referees had made a serious blunder. Another rule change I would like to see is making the safety touch more onerous. Often football is a game of field position and the coaches know that giving up 2 points is better than giving up 3 or 7 when having to punt from deep in your own end. What can be done on the safety? One solution would be to kick off from deeper in your own end than the 25 yard line. Another would be to have to punt instead of kick off from the 25 (as we see in the NFL). A third possibility would be to increase the scoring of a safety from 2 points to 3 points. The goal is to get teams to punt instead of taking the safety. Then all the hard work of a good defence would not go so severely unrewarded. I would also like to see an increase in the number of players that can dress for a game and also to increase the roster size to include players that have typically been hidden on the injury list; the goal would be to get some who are on the practice roster onto the main roster. There is an economic challenge here but I believe it can be worked out without too much damage to profitability. I would also like to see more designated imports dressed to improve the quality and flexibility of each team. The last suggestion I have right now is the next time there is a negotiation with the CFL PLAYERS ASSOCIATION I hope that instead of just increasing the salary cap we would see an increase in the number of Canadians on the roster, perhaps by a factor of 4 to 6 players. There is a shortage of quality players coming out of the Canadian college system and the junior teams. Having more Canadian players (who might not even dress game day) would allow for a higher level of learning and instruction thus increasing the size of the Canadian talent pool that all teams could draw upon.. In the NFL, not that we need to clone them, their rules committee makes changes every year to lower the number of potential injuries and also to improve the flow and quality of the game. I believe the CFL also needs to continue to amend their rules to make the game safer and more entertaining. The changes I have proposed here have been on my mind for a long long time. Some proposals made in the past on the site by me and other members have been adopted by the league. I don't know whether we were originators of the ideas but in the very least we provided the league's rule committee with some confirmation of what the fans thought would improve the game. What do you have in terms of ideas to improve the CFL?

Does anybody know about QB Bo Levi Mitchell's injury status? Anybody can see he played most of the season hurt .... wondering if he had any off season corrective surgery or if he is just resting his bo-bo ...

No this is my comment on it .... Stubler is a prize duck

Are the Bombers actually going to scout for and bring in real choices to compete for MLB .... over the years they bring in 1 or 2 to try but I can't remember when we brought in 3 or 4 or 5 to tryout for the position .... we don't seem to have any trouble bringing in that many tailbacks, do we? Is it some kind of brain cramp or undue optimism/pessimism ?

Was/Is Stubler too old at age 68 to be a viable OC?

I would like that .... dollars in proportion to draft level, scaling up each year for each of three year deal ... take it or leave it ... good players can re-up after their first year

I also don't have a problem with a short space between the CFL draft and rookie camp opening. The drafted youngsters need to make up their minds quickly instead of stretching out their time to consider their alternatives. You get an attractive rookie contract, then you take it or don;t. Negotiations always compress to the time available... there is no advantage to delaying & stringing it out. Most of the better college players look forward all winter to playing in the pros.

I would be ok with the Grey Cup being the 2nd Sunday in November. I would also like to see the season open 3 or 4 weeks earlier in early June ... I would expect June attendance to be better than October attendance ..... I would like a league wide bye week between the regular season ending and the playoffs .... and one or two more semi bye weeks for our 9 team awkwardness with its unusual schedule demands (no team should have to play 2 games with less than 5 or 6 days rest in between) ... no week from start to playoffs should have less than two CFL games broadcast during the week .... nothing is better than Thursday night games in June and late May: it's surreal after a long winter.

Sorry but I don't like the total silence coming out of Bomberville, but that's just me; I like action and news like all of you. Yes we've extended a contract or two and we are distributing the year-end money before the 2018 salary cap comes in. But what are the deep thinkers in our organization planning to do? I hope they are not thinking status quo; that never seems to work out well. Unless we are dedicated to making sharp improvements here and there, I believe we atrophy from last year. After the 2017 NFL cuts were made did we bring in any linebackers for a sniff? I saw other prospects up here but maybe I missed something. We have got to fix what's broken and I think somehow management must know more than we do ... we are good prognosticators with our comments on this site but I would like management to show us up. We are not hearing a lot of news out of the Calgary and Edmonton football clubs so maybe our Blue Bombers are an elite club now (as we join those two in their silence). But man I hate twiddling my thumbs as I wait to see what our local gurus are going to do. No news is bad news, say the bored ... Well at least were not coming off seasons like Ottawa Hamilton and Montréal had. So maybe I should be grateful for our club and its management.

Was it because of the game or the party and celebrations? Mine is still the 1880 Cup, I mean the 1990 Grey Cup .... my mind is still trying to recreate that feeling

Bandwidth and CJOB power after 6pm? It's called the internet .... who uses a radio anymore? Hire a programmer

there can not be enough threads about firing hall .... as fans if ever there is a campaign to pursue this is it

The other thing that has to go is this "stand pat" thinking: "we have a good core of players and just need to do a little tinkering here and there" .... Every year I have seen management do Stand Pat Tinkering I watched the club deteriorate. We need to aggressively improve ourselves at every position all year long and even if we have the best players in the league we need to be developing potential all-stars right behind them .... Football is a fluid game and the river don't stand still for long

WE need to bring in a new philosophy about changing player personnel: the roster is not set on July 1 and rigidly adhered to unless a veteran is hurt: what barf! Keep acquiring new people all season long and don't disqualify them because they have a history with another CFL club. Bring in the best of the talent and pay up for them, even if it means we have to adjust some of our schemes and protocols to fit the new player. Let the coach adjust to the personnel's strengths and weaknesses; don't force the players into a predetermined mould for either offence or defence Don't judge their attitudes – – evaluate them on the merits of their play. We are not running a kindergarten that hands out participation ribbons. Reward good play and improvement – – don't suppress emerging talent as if a newbie has to go through some kind of initiation. Set up a player feedback system so communication can go 2 ways - - divining from the board room never seems to work particularly well no matter how smart management is. Let the team develop its own emerging "Espirit du Cours" rather than forcing certain philosophy and loyalties upon them. Remember the crazy nut cases we had the last time we went to the Grey Cup? We played way above our heads because of the way we believed in ourselves… And that belief was self composed.

We advise the Blue Brass: when should he go?

The "Hell" of it all was violating our own most basic philosophy: play conservatively and don't turn the ball over - - breaks will come our way... MOS led us to do the exact opposite, gambling on a turnover and handing them a certain score if he lost. ONCE MOS played the drunken hero the whole team lost not only their modus operandi philosophy they also lost all the discipline that went with it --- everybody was now "permitted" to play with abandon and it showed .... MOS broke our own fundamental mindset and that was the Hell of watching us implode with something far greater than an unforced error!

Keep all 3 of them away from me: They wear out my voice They make me sick They burn me Hall, Hurl & Hell: be gone!

Early in the 3rd quarter the Bombers line up to punt on 3rd and 4. The Blue have a slight psychological edge owing to the way the first half concluded when the defence got to Reilly twice. Edmonton was in shock that they weren't running away with the game. It looks like things are coming the bombers way, then.... As far as I'm concerned MOS mis-assesses the momentum the bombers have and decides on a surprise gamble. We do not execute the gamble well and turn the ball over. Edmonton cannot believe it's good fortune and drives the ball into the end zone for a touchdown. One thing leads to another leads to another and another.... That's how the psychological scales change everything and Mr. O'Shea personally blows our playoff chances. Football is a game of momentum and we reversed ours into the sewer . Michael O'Shea is still learning, still making major mistakes, and still maturing. He has guts and courage and balls and even if he did cost us a chance at a Grey cup this year I like him as our head Coach (because I am looking at the long term, as I have been for the last 27 years). There goes another woulda, coulda, shoulda .... Good year Blue!

slippery means a defender falling down could cost a TD ..... will also affect jump balls as Reilly throws them up for grabs .... throwing on the run won'r be quite as accurate either .... luck will be a bigger factor then usual ..... overcoming bad luck requires real character

will Folketti dress today ?.... battle of trenches at the forefront today