mbrg

You're in the middle of a debate about it, so that probably means there is. Bazinga?? Bazinga.

I love O'Shea. His players are going to go to absolute war for him. Tap the breaks. Similar things said about Burke before he became HC too. Nope, I don't recall anyone saying that about Burke. There was optimism that as a premier coordinator he would become a great head coach, but in terms of his personality he was more likely to be mistaken for Tom Higgins. Personally I was more annoyed that they gave him the job after a half season as interim coach rather than including him in a full coaching search in the offseason. It was a repeat of the same mistake they made with Jim Daley. Learn from your mistakes. Essentially it's a lazy easy decision.

So basically Ryan Lucas was going to be our MVP this season. They had already started engraving his name on the trophy. Drama club is out for summer. The Bombers will improve their team this year. They will find enough talented import players who will make us better. They will pick up some NI players who will make us better. NI's make up half the team. Upgrading that part to contender status will take more than one season. This was true a month ago, long before Lucas got hurt, long before the draft. We won't be lucky to win 6 games this year, we will be good enough to win 6 games this year in a much tougher division. Maybe 7. Maybe 8.

Have to say the same thought has crossed my head as well. There are certain skills Pav needs to refine and if his positional coach isn't helping him accomplish that... I don't want to take the onus off the player though. I've never gotten the sense the Pavelec is the kind of player who pushes hard to improve in the offseason. Making significant changes isn't easy to do; in the middle of the season it becomes much more difficult. This is something the player needs to be working on right now.

The bidding for Buff would not surprise me at all. Kane has shown he could potentially be a top line NHL forward BUT he has never played above the level of a second line forward in his short career and LATELY he has played below the level of a second line forward. What would I be hoping to get with a top 5 draft pick? A top line forward, at least eventually. Based on how Kane's career has averaged out so far that would mean the team trading a high pick is losing value on the deal. And from the monetary sense they are losing value there as well, as they lose out on the 3 cheapest years of a pro hockey player - the rookie years - and get a guy who is already locked in at 5 million per. The skills Kane has are among the best in the league, he just doesn't have a complete toolkit. If Maurice can school him up and make him a more complete player then he'll reach his potential as a top line player. And if he can do that then I don't want him going anywhere.

Forzani's injured far as I know.

I will admit I had the same thought on a jump ball in the end zone on Monday but brushed it off because I thought the pass should never have been thrown. It was there for the taking though and he didn't take it.

No, that's not it. The place I'm thinking of is a fair ways South down St. Mary's Rd. Two restaurants come to mind. Chianti's and Santa Anna. Santa Anna's has about 12 tables so I'm putting chips down on Chianti's.

I am not anti-Kane. You may be overvaluing Kane.

The ups and downs of training camp. Depends on the times one spectator comes and the other one leaves. Some drills give the advantage to certain positional groups, other drills reverse it.

Next to none...except for two areas. Getting accurate player assessments during training camp, which is not an issue if the HC is staying on top of everything. Tough to do with 80 bodies but not impossible. OShea seems to have a decent handle on it. Not every HC has in the past though. And writing stories about the coaches themselves. I like that stuff. Bellefeuille's wrong-side-of-the-tracks childhood, Wylie's penchant for magic tricks, that's great stuff. And all the reporter has to do is request an interview. I have no doubt it would be granted. What OShea is saying is that if you want to talk to a coach about a player, he and only he is going to be that coach. Want to talk to a coach about that coach? I doubt that would ever be an issue. Of course that's not what this spiteitorial was ever about. Page views by implying controversy. Easier than page views by having quality journalism. Lazy hack.

It's alright.....old age gets to all of us! I blame everyone else here - why didn't someone wake me up from my rocking chair and tell me that the show was on!! We tried - you kept yelling to get off your lawn!!

Edmonton had a glut of NI Dlinemen and carried all those guys last year (year before?, crap I'm getting old) without dropping one. It would be nice if it happens but we can't plan for it.

Why would Maher be affected at all? I would assume NI depth as tenuous as it is right now, at any position, will not allow us an import kicker. 4 DI's this year. There's room for him if he earns it.

I haven't watched a second of him in camp (allergic to shade or something like that) but that was also what I was thinking. The Dline was going to feature Thomas and Lucas rotating with some guys in other positions to get that 7th NI. Can Everett be ready to take on that responsibility by the time camp breaks?

That really sucks for him. Doesn't even get to see a second of game action and his season is over.

Or still in the locker room, fighting the good fight.

When I was there on Monday he had a terrible time trying to get his jersey back on after the break. He might be doing some remedial work dressing himself.

New unique restaurants...mind flashing back to life before kids...cruising around on the motorcycle...doing whatever we wanted... More buggie noodles and chocolate milk please.

When the players are ready to cave the CFL will throw in one last bone - that way the players can take a positive talking point to the press rather than just admit they lost. I'm not getting the whole neurologist thing. If we had catscan machines on the sidelines that would be one thing, but there is nothing a neurologist is going to do that a non-crappy doctor can't also do. Emergency sideline brain surgery? Symptoms present? Don't go back in the game. I know the NFL has it but that isn't anything more than a multi-billion dollar industry protecting it's butt from lawsuits.

Which is exactly the opposite of what I was doing. The exact opposite. Someone please talk about football now.

I wasn't trying to jump over the security sash. Or sit anywhere I didn't sit two days ago. Wasn't wandering around, off exploring. Wanted sunlight. No construction in the area. Just stopping in for 20 minutes on a beautiful summer day, the only 20 minutes I'll spend outside until I get home from work. Didn't want to sit in the cold shadows. Sun on my face, feeling happy for 20 minutes. That's all. I get it, you're posting from 2 provinces away and aren't familiar with the setup at the new stadium. I would have been sitting right by security. If I caused any trouble they wouldn't even have to move to tackle me, just lean forward and let gravity do the work.

Another problem with getting him here thru free agency is that Richards has pride and believes in himself, just like most pro athletes. Selling him on coming here to play 3rd line center? It wasn't that many years ago he was a first line guy. He wants to re-ignite his career and some team will tell him tales about top 2 line glory. A trade is probably the only way he's playing on our (or anyone's) 3rd line - remove the voluntary part from the equation. Burmistrov is one of the best examples of management ruining a player. He had no business playing in the NHL yet. He needed time to mature as a person and to mature his game. He got neither. It's possible that this stuff may show up on it's own eventually but it's more likely that he farts around Russia and Europe for a half dozen more years until he's worn out his welcome everywhere. Noel didn't do anything to him other than try and get him to grow up, but calling immature people on their immaturity tends to end in immature responses. Surprise surprise. You can't offer trade value for top-end Richards; that's a bad deal. LA would want more than the value of bottom-end Richards cause they can get it. Is your deal proper value for median stats Richards? It might be doable. $4 mil is too much to pay for the way Richards played this year, but you have to assume that he'll be better than that in 2015. If not, why acquire him at all?

In previous years, yes.

While i do agree to an extent, i dont see him as a moore or stegall (and thats fine) and he isnt expected to be at this point.. Im thinking hes supposed to be a 3rd 4th option and will be very good in that role.. also, his knowledge of marcel's offense is huge when you factor in the inexperience of our QBs..Not every rec needs to be a simon, bruce or milt.. And he's a good fourth option to have. His size gives you matchup problems in the red zone and he's good to deliver a strike to running a slant or when you need a guy to break off his route at the first down marker. It's not like he has a massive case of the dropsies like many in this league have. Yes he's a slow runner but that's fine as long as you catch the ball which he does. I find most people who say they don't like him simply leave it at that and don't go into detail about what they don't like (perhaps mostly because there isn't a laundry list of things he does wrong). We could certainly do much, much worse. 3 TD's in 24 games. Take out his 3 biggest plays last year, and he's averaging 20 yards receiving a game. That's while playing a lot of boundary WR, one of the primary targets of a CFL offence. He's doing something wrong, because he was completely unproductive aside from 3 long balls down the sideline in half a season, like worse than Jade. Everyone was unproductive last year. If he's having a good camp he deserves credit for having a good camp. He seems best suited on the wide side which we've reserved for NIs in recent years. At least he can do more than a Hargreaves decoy run. Or the Poblah dive for the ball and get hurt. Lining up anywhere else on the field his value is probably lower than players we already have. Highlight reel yet not particularly amazing is an odd combo. Chris Brazzell 2.0? What does suited for the wide-side mean? A guy you don't want to throw the ball to? He does his best work along the sidelines and his biggest strength is out-muscling receivers for jump balls. He's not great in traffic. He's not a slick route runner. He does a decent job of hauling in the stuff that gets thrown in his area. He has enough speed to get 30 yards downfield as opposed to Hargreaves who had enough speed to get to the first down marker.