bearpants

Hmmm.... Wonder if anyone has called Messam a steal other than you? (I'd guess no one, but I'm not about to go through 7 pages of comments to find out) I wonder if any team has worse NI depth than the Bombers? Haaaaaaaaave you met Edmonton? Ottawa is questionable. Hell, even BC is questionable. Luckily for them, they have Harris but their Canadian depth is bad bad bad. Such is the reality of trying to find 189 NI football players and 63 NIs good enough to start... if the league ever wants to go to 10 teams (which I hope it does soon) without severely watering down the talent, and adjustment to the ratio is absolutely necessary...

Kerwin Bell is the NFL's historical QB Rating leader. 5 for 5, 75 yards, 1 TD, 158.3 QB Rating. In the CFL, Kerwin's claim to fame is spiking the ball and sacking himself. Small sample sizes from the NFL mean little in the CFL. I don't know what the final was in that game but giving up a TD was worth it for the years of entertainment value that spike has provide and knowing Bell got a penalty for it to boot. I remember being mad at the time that we allowed that TD but I do laugh pretty much every time I see that replay.... years of entertainment is understating how great that was!

This has been an interesting debate... personally I'd be indifferent to this signing.... neither Messam nor Volny would add a lot to the offense and both would be marginal ST players.... though Messam as a short yardage back is intriguing.... And I agree with James about this "just cuz I've heard of him" business... most people here are avid CFL fans who know a lot more about Messam than just his name... maybe to the casual fan, but I'd give most folks here more credit than that...

Their hand was forced by his passport... though it's discouraging to think Ottawa already has better NI talent than us...

this adds up to a total record of 80-82... shouldn't it be 81-81? We'll bump up the bombers to 6-12 to even it out

Not sure what's with the Aaron Kelly hate... he's no all-star but he fills in nicely as the 3rd/4th receiver, makes a few tough catches here and there.... until someone plays better than him he should have a spot on the team...

He hash-tagged DaBears... Jim Toth is a bears fan, I thought he was running that account

Just going on a hunch here, but I bet you like re-runs too. Try watching re-runs of Seinfeld and tell me they're not still funny!

and for the past 20 years....

Yeah Mark Dell had that nice 40ish yard catch where he ran wide and down the sidelines.... I thought Edm would be keeping him, nice pickup... not too surprised about Blake, he had a few bad snaps against Cgy.... any more info on Cornell?

You gotta think Brohm's ability to move helps him a bit.... Willy and Marve both made nice plays to avoid sacks that Hall likely would've taken.... with a still fairly raw O-line, the ability to avoid that pressure could be the difference...

I just can't get over how stupid 'national' and 'international' players sounds.... I know I'll have to adjust but it's gonna take a while Anyways, good post... pretty hard to disagree with your assessment... especially love the bolded one, nothing drove me more crazy last year than seeing us go down 21-3 by half and come out in the second with zero adjustments to the game plan...

The biggest problem I have with the "strategy" is when we're playing from behind any team will be able to run the clock on us if we can;t stop the run... theoretically it can work, but can be a huge problem in certain situations

Yes, but anyone who is ever cut by the Riders is instantly terrible, right?

IMO I think we should start abbreviating Nationals 'NI' as in Nat-Ionals.... makes sense to me

back to the kicker conversation... Calgary currently has Peredes, Maver, and the rookie Tyler Crapinga.... Sask currently has Bartel, Milo, and the rookie Johnny Mark..... Chances are both rookies will be on the PR unless they get hidden by "injuries".... potential kicker thievery here?

I've seen some rumblings on twitter about him being hurt.... anyone have any more info on this??

2 big things here... if Messam wasn't Canadian, no one would care... if we weren't so desperate for NI talent, no one would care... I find it hard to believe we're not at least looking into him, but I'm not blown away about the thought of not signing him...

Has anyone seen Collaros play for Hammy yet?? I think we've all seen Willy play for us so it could be a little premature to compare the two.... Collaros joins a team that's more ready to win now so that should give him an advantage.... I'm actually looking forward to seeing Ham's first game cuz I'm curious to see how Collaros does...

I can't say I know anything about Woloshyn but any time there's a NI O-lineman available I'd have to think he's discussed...

I'll keep it simple.... encouraging start, lots of things to like about this team.... still lots of work to do, especially on D.... NI situation even more concerning with the loss of Newman for the year.... hope we can find a few FAs or pluck a couple guys off PRs...

re: Errol Brooks, did he really get an opportunity to play in pre-season?... I don't really recall him playing in the games and I thought some said he looked good in practice.. re: Kenny Tate, is he not a natural LB? why was he not given a shot at LB?

Stating the obvious: worst news possible.... feel so bad for the guy....

Run defence was "disturbing" last night... that plus the injury to Newman are the only two major concerns from last night... I'm crossing my fingers we haven't seen the best of our defense can offer... hopefully.... but otherwise I feel a lot better about this team than in previous years... I think we've already matched last year's number of games where we were actually still on it at the end of the game

I watched a bit of the game last night, Kevin Glenn was by far the best of BCs back ups... Pat white looked ordinary at best... although he's not a back up, Reilly looked really good