mbrg

Bombers released him last week. I see that now on CFL transactions. I guess five QB's was a lot to carry. Hope he catches on with Montreal. Probably just wasn't what we were looking for. Brought him in, took a look, shipped him out. At least he was here when the weather was nice; now he can help increase our tourism.

Interesting. Also interesting - all 4 of the remaining QBs are on the active roster according to the Bombers' site.

I'm not disagreeing with your conclusion, but how you arrived at it, that's the part that isn't holding the proverbial water. You might have chosen your words poorly. I said we were a well-coached 3-3 team... and that our QB has the 'it' factor. There's your two main differences. This is all true and not nearly as 'negative' as some posters want to make it out to be. Look at the roster - our talent level is very similar to last year... exception being the DBs and our kicker. and our receivers. and our offensive line. They're both making a world of difference. I always welcome the discussion but your opinion this time around ... Seems like you're outsmarting yourself a little. If in the off-season, if someone predicted that Steve Morely would be one of the better centres in the league? What would your reaction have been... Or that our starting receivers would be Kelly-Moore-JFG-Denmark-Kohlert... this lineup strikes fear into exactly no defence in the league. (And we didn't last year either...) Would you have agreed that we wouldn't miss a beat replacing Alex Hall with Greg Peach...? That Ejiro Kuale could step in for Muamba? Coaching and having a real QB... that's the difference right now. We will find out in our last four games of the season either way. Offseason speculation isn't needed anymore. The season is a third done. This really is our team. Our Oline isn't fantastic but they are definitely improved. Dline and LB are probably a saw-off compared to last year, largely due to advantages in scheme. Huge improvement in the secondary. Huge improvement at QB. Improvement at RB. Receivers, I'd say slight improvement. Easy to say huge improvement, but lots of that is on Willy. So across the board, improvements to weak areas and status quo or better to areas that were not weak. And huge improvement at the most important position of all. But you're arguing that it's a mirage because it's mostly the result of coaching and QB-ing. Yes, it is. What is your point? Are you expecting OShea to spend the rest of the season on IR? That he's having "beginner's luck"? I agree we could be .500. Easily. But other teams playing poorly isn't our problem. Us beating the teams we were scheduled to play isn't our problem. We beat the only teams we could beat on any given weekend, which is the team we were scheduled to play. OShea has this team playing to the best of their abilities. Is there any reason to think he can't continue to do that? I don't think so. Will other teams with arguably more talent start getting their acts together? Probably. Will wins be harder to come by when that happens? Certainly. Does any of that mean we're overachieving? Absolutely not. Several teams are underachieving right now. We've been there, we've done that. Sucks to be them. Ha ha. Would you rather be losing to them? I doubt it.

plenty of people have said exactly that when they try and justify it by saying that if you look at it as Neufeld for a 2nd round pick it's good value. Their perception of value is just as subjective as yours or mine, it also depends on how good you think a player actually is, but that deal does not happen as Neufeld for a 2nd round pick. Just as Hall for a 4th round pick doesn't happen either.

I doubt anyone is saying Hall didn't have value. We're not getting Neufeld and that 4th for a 2nd round pick. Given his contract was set to expire and he wasn't going to re-sign and there were only a few games left in the season and we had pretty much locked up last place, his value to our team was minimal. His value to a team pushing for a cup? Much higher, but they were in contention without him. A 2nd rounder is too much if we get nothing from Neufeld going forward, and if we thought we'd get nothing out of Neufeld going forward then we never should have made the trade at all. Arguing over entirely subjective things is pretty pointless, so...yeah. I'd also prefer we got Neufeld for less, that was not to be.

Ahhh, You're one of those "looks at stats to base an argument from " kind of guy Call 1-800 -DOCTORB. The B is for bargain!

Bilukidi seems like he could shake loose. The potential problem there is he's been at NFL weight for quite some time and you need to be athletic and mobile to play in our current defense. Hang on to him and send him to Jenny Craig in the offseason? Move him to a team that will actually use him and get a more athletic Dlineman in return? Wait and see. Some players don't have enough football passion that they want to continue playing in the CFL, or they've accumulated enough injuries and money that it isn't worth it. He could just retire. Matthews chances of landing with the Seahawks increased with the retirement of Sidney Rice. I don't think they've brought in any more receivers since, so if they have planned for a set number of receivers on their roster then he's probably going to stick. Mulamba probably stays with Green Bay for at least one more year. He only got positional reps because of injuries to the guys in front of him, but he did well in those and has been great on special teams. I'm not sure what positions they addressed in the draft though. If they went early on guys at his position, he may be wearing another team's jersey this season. But it's unlikely to be a Bomber jersey. No idea what's happening with Muamba. Sure would love to have him back here.

I'm not sure why the league should make any changes or accommodations just to increase the chances that the 5th place team in the West can make the playoffs. Especially since keeping some level of interest in eastern teams has importance to the overall health and stability of the CFL.

It was a 2nd round draft pick, and given where the Bombers finished the season it was an early 2nd rounder... Here's the problem I still have with the trade: Walters had all the leverage in that trade. Riders wanted Hall, one of if not the best DE in the league for their playoff push, they were likely to lose Neufeld at least to the expansion draft anyway. Walters jumped the gun and paid too much. Hall and an actual late pick would have been one thing, but Hall and a high 2nd? That's an overpayment for a player the Riders were just trying to get some return on. I felt the same way at the time of the trade, but now I look at it like we got a starting OL for a second round pick... which we probably wouldn't have been able to do if we had kept the pick. We also got a fourth-rounder back in the trade. but you can't ignore Hall in the trade, he was a star player, the fact that he's not in the league now is irrelevant, he helped the Riders to win a Grey Cup, he was a huge part of the trade. Walters seems to me to pay whatever the cost to get his player which can be good or bad. At least he knows what he wants, but you can't always be paying sticker price in trades. Sticker price is sucker price. The thing is, nobody gives up starting OL. It took the first overall pick to pry Jon Gott out of Calgary... he is a good OL but definitely not the best in the league or anything. I believe that you are undervaluing Neufeld at this point. But he wasn't a starter in Saskatchewan and with the expansion draft coming up they were going to lose him anyway. It was them trading a depth player, and yes he was a depth player for them,in order to bolster their defensive line for a playoff run. No way should Walters have been adding a 2nd round pick. 4th round pick now we're talking, but not a 2nd. I'm guessing if the roles were reversed you might not be too happy about giving up a Canadian Olineman for a guy who was headed to the NFL in two months. Both teams had something the other team wanted. Not sure were really had them over any barrels. Not a lot of teams lining up to give us a Canadian Olineman. Maybe they had us over a barrel.

Nothing to see here. This is one of these take-a-flyer names that pop up every once in a while. A few years ago it was Duante Culpepper. Montreal did Tebow. I think GM's do this mostly to entertain themselves. He will have to burn thru a lot more chances before we ever see him in the CFL.

Harris. I'm 4 for 20 in pick'ems this year, and the TSN site has recommended I defect to Iceland if I want a higher fantasy ranking - our population is too high here. 3 strikes after 5 weeks? This is a massive success for me.

That's why I've been asking whether the CFL rules allow for 2 Western teams to crossover to the East. No one seems to know for sure. We know for sure, that won't happen. That is not an existing rule. Is it even mathematically possible? The East plays each other so you'll have at least two teams in the East with records that should be better than the worst team in the West. It is mathematically possible to have all 5 western teams with better records than all 4 eastern teams

I wouldn't put the mess in Montreal on Higgins for even a second. That mess goes way beyond his ineffectiveness as a head coach. But I also never wanted him on our sidelines.

Their OL is truly awful. Worst in the league right now. What are the changes on oline from last year? They lost their starting left tackle, Ben Archibald, to retirement, and are really struggling to replace him. I believe they have started 4 different guys there so far, and the latest is a Canadian rookie named Hunter Steward, who has actually looked okay considering the circumstances. They lost Patrick Kabongo, who also retired. Ottawa took their 6th OL, Matt Albright, who is now starting for the RedBlacks. BC acquired Steve Myddelton last season from Calgary but he bolted to Hamilton in free agency. Dean Valli is way past his best-before date and Matt Norman is a decent player but still young and going through some struggles.But this is nothing new. Lions fans have been complaining about their OL for years. Offensive line troubles are definitely not confined to Winnipeg. Valli looking around confused to see what happened behind him is how the timer in BC knows when the play is over (he even does it on the sidelines when the defense is on the field). His name is easy to remember and easy to spell. That is the main reason some people still consider him good.

Need more likes - one is not enough!!! Just say no to Mr Magoo as head coach.

And this is what I mean regarding Mike's excellent post about a possible change in the mentality of CFL GMs regarding NIs. Not going to happen. It probably should happen, but it's not going to happen. No team has taken as much NI knocks to the lineup as us and we're still moving forward. Then again, maybe this quote is from Walters!!

That's probably a big overstatement, but the reality is he's playing a position he never played before and doing it well. He hasn't had a bad game yet, and it's a position that was of great concern going in to the season, and it's a position we haven't been particularly strong at in a long time. And still it was only a few weeks ago that his name was mentioned in a post somewhere on this site as a player we can look forward to being done with once Goossen is ready, or something along those lines. Bizarre. Spite-based personnel decisions. Most underrated is probably over the top, he was a number 1 overall draft pick back in 2003(?), but among his own fan base, most under-appreciated for sure.

Close... Hutter hysteria... You run a ranch? Sell to the public?I don't love to go out for steak either. Pretty easy to make at home. If I remember I'll send you info on a guy who does. I constantly get the name wrong so it's best I find his card.

So this is really all on Montreal's coaching staff for not clarifying their expectations.

Good for him. First of many.

As opposed to what, a one year deal and he's gone after the season anyway? How is a one deal and he's gone after the season worse than a one deal and hes gone after the season? Use some common sense. I don't even get what you're trying to say here. Get your thoughts straight and get back to me. I would have liked to see a deal LONGER than one year. What is so hard to understand about that? What he's saying is that going to arbitration would have had the same result as this one year deal. So why would Frolik have agreed to the deal if that's the case? The arbitrator would most likely have given him more money. My guess is that they are continuing to work on a long term deal and both parties agreed to not leave it in the hands of the arbitrator. The circumstances are so odd that little else makes sense. The amount is low to give them flexibility when the come up with terms for an extension. It's against the CBA to reduce salary when a contract is renegotiated, so $3.3 means they can change the structure pretty easily because they aren't tying their hands right off the hop. Given the pieces of the puzzle that we are aware of, this seems like the most logical answer.

Wasn't he seriously injured Torn acl at the start of last season.

And I cannot argue with logic like this.

Pointed out in the comments section over at TSN was the following tidbit - after 20 games have been played in the season so far, only 6 have been home games for eastern teams. 14 home games for the west. Of those 6 games, 4 were against western opponents and 2 were divisional matchups. Of those 4 games, the west has won 2 (Bombers beat Montreal, Calgary beat Toronto). The point of all those possibly unrelated numbers was that there has been a huge schedule imbalance so far. Drawing any conclusions out of these early results is premature for reasons other than it's early. I agree that a crossover is likely this year, but I found that tidbit interesting.

You forgot to bold your all-caps statement. NEEDS MORE HYPE!!! Duane Slay level hype!!!