mbrg

Pretty much a no-lose situation for us. Either we get a high quality RB who still has miles left on the engine or ... nice of him to visit us.

Offering more money is about all we can do and from what we've seen from Walters so far I think he'll do it, but I still doubt that will be enough to get him in blue and gold. Montreal and Edmonton have to be way more desireable to him.

That one was a bit on the insane side. Obviously they're starting out with a large demand so they can negotiate down to something reasonable, but it kind of defeats the purpose when your proposal is outright laughable. It's almost like they ran out of time on proposal writing day and didn't bother plugging the numbers in to see what would happen. 10% in year one followed by 3% in subsequent years at least would have a hope, but even the math on that might make payroll a concern for certain teams.

Worst signing ever. I like this signing just fine, but all this consensus is boring.

I think the Packers consider Mulamba a totally expendable depth player. Injuries gave him a shot and like you said, he did play fairly well. I agree Green Bay won't expend him this year, and when they get around to it Mulamba will try and get his foot in the 31 other doors, just like Bilukidi did. I thought we'd see him in a Bomber uni by 2015; maybe 2016 is becoming more realistic. Bilukidi squeezing another year out of the NFL vs being here in the fall? 50-50?

The right thing for him probably would have been to at least play one more season of CIS before joining the Bombers, but that would have required sneaking him through waivers. He hadn't played a lot of receiver, was really raw and not developed physically, he needed to play more games, not get 2nd team reps and watch from the sideline with a CFL team for basically 2 seasons. With the new eligibility rules, Etienne wouldn't have been in the draft until 2012, and still would have had one year of CIS eligibility left. I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up being a 45-50 catch 500 yard ish receiver for his career, disregarding his first two seasons where he didn't leave the sideline even when he was dressed. The kid needed a year or two in the minors, but the minors doesn't exist for the CFL. With his high draft pick status and negligible contributions to special teams, irrational people resented him. His career is really just at it's starting point right now. No matter, we turned a NI receiver we had hopes for into a starting QB we have hopes for. December thru June - the season of hope for Bomber fans.

Sears or Washington. Maybe one of the new guys. I thought they wanted that to be a Canadian spot? I always thought it would be Alexander at Safety with Bucknor at Field Corner. But If Alexander is better at Corner hopefully Newman can really step up and be a good safety for us. I just can't see two Canadians in the secondary. I see it as 4 OL, 2 REC, 1 rotating on D Two NIs starting in the secondary is unlikely, but ocassionally occuring as part of 3 OL, 2 REC, 1 DB and 1 rotating on D is quite possible. This has to be Walter's/OShea's backup plan if none of our NI's meet the minimum standard needed for a starting right tackle.

And an entire province rushed to return their Pilsner empties...

That's all this is. Football ends for every player. Some after 12 years, some after 3, some after their first and only week of training camp. Real life is waiting for all these guys. They didn't make the NFL. They didn't even land a regular roster spot in the CFL. What is their football dream worth? Is spending 14 weeks practising football while getting $750 per an insult when an injury gives you your big break in week 15? I don't think so. That's what this $750 is. It's not compensation for playing football, it's compensation for putting their post-football life on hold for a chance to chase their football dream a little longer. Guys will leave the game when the opportunity passes them by and go home to jobs where they earn less. Just like Goalie, the summer job I had during college paid about $750 (after deductions) every 2 weeks. 47-1/2 hours per week or more lifting heavy steel, and my employer wasn't pitching in room and board. I'd like to see the players receive a little more compensation for the physical price they pay to entertain us. I'd like the owners to finally reap some profits after decades of losses. I'm under the impression that Toronto and Hamilton still lose money on a regular basis. I suspect Ottawa will not be immediately profitable. I know Winnipeg has a massive debt to pay off. Does Montreal make money? I don't know what inspired TSN to pay that much for the TV rights but it sure seems to me like they overpaid. By a lot. Was the CBC trying to buy back into the CFL? What brought this massive $ increase about? It's a nice lottery win for the league but it sure seems like it will be temporary. If this was the revenue stream for the last 20 years and looked to be the revenue stream for the next 20, doing economic modelling around it would make sense for everyone. Right now I'd be really reluctant to link compensation to revenues if I was an owner, and that has nothing to do with greed. People throw out meaningless statements like "the CFL is as strong as it's ever been". Well, yeah, but so what? That's not the same thing as saying the CFL is strong, that's pointing out how weak it previously was. The CFL is a long ways from death's door. That's good news for everyone. I'm not of the impression that it's consistently profitable yet. I hope everyone gets a fair piece of the pie. I don't expect every player will get a $20,000 raise this year and every year that follows just because of the new TV contract. $750 per week for the practise roster guys? I'm fine with that. That isn't an injustice. That is the stipend they receive to keep their football dream alive one more year. It's not $750 for a job in football, it's $750 for a chance to someday have a job in football. It was the foothold that got Stevie Baggs to the NFL for a couple of seasons. It likely got Wallace Miles a starting job in Ottawa. The job at the lumbermart will be there next year. Chase the football dream while you can.

He was 25% of another one of Mike Kelly's blown promises - we'll re-sign all four free agent Olinemen! I think he's from Kenora. My memory is a bit hazy on it all, but I think he primarily played guard while here but got moved to center when Khan had some health issues. He spent more time as a center in Edmonton than he ever did while here. By my estimation he's better than Kowalchuk and probably better than Morley, but we can't really say how good Morley is if we've never seen him play the position before (and I'm totally willing to give Morley a fair shot at winning that job). So if Goossen isn't ready for week 1, Koch would be a decent safety net. BC brought in Glenn because they were uncertain of the timeline at that position. In this way, bringing in Koch would be no different.

Lucky for him CFL coaches are all experienced in teaching players who've never played by CFL rules how to do it. Is it any different than an american coming in and having to learn? Might be more of a challenge for a centre because they have to recognize the defensive scheme then call the protection based on that. With the extra man on defense that might take him a little longer to be ready mentally, compared to a US guard or tackle coming to the CFL. Snap the ball, come out of his stance. The job description won't change at all. His adjustment will have to come in the form of patience; there will now be another split second before contact that wasn't there previously. He has to make sure he makes contact with the lineman across from him. I don't see it being a huge problem, especially if his guards realize that they'll need a high focus on inside-out blocking with a rookie between them. Lunging at air and falling flat on your face because of a stunt or a swim move will have a humiliating way of teaching him there is a yard that wasn't there before - Zach Anderson might cure him of that impulse by the end of training camp. Is he ready to call protections at this level? That might take a while to learn, and hopefully whomever lines up next to him can help out. Speaking of patience, one of the points that kept coming up in Goossen's scouting report was that he potentially had a higher ceiling than Lavertu, or in other words, if we all have a little patience we might find that we ended up with the better player. I highly doubt Lavertu vs Goossen will be the deciding factor in whether or not the Bombers are Grey Cup champs in 2014.

come on now, Mack moved up in the draft as well and he wasn't afraid to go and get the player he wanted in the draft either. I swear some of you just make **** up all the time. The difference here is that Walters is going more by the book, remains to be seen if that's the correct strategy or not. I'm fine with many of the draft choices Mack made. The 2008 draft gets a 100% score. Out of the park. The 2009 draft gets a 0% score. Total Kelly crapfest. Mack's stretch from 2010 thru 2013? Lots of good, some bad, some that has yet to be categorized. So, 55%? Most of those picks are still on a CFL roster right now, except for the ones that are so good they're in the NFL. Anthony Smith and a few others had shorter careers, that's true of almost every draft from every team. I would definitely not look at the draft as Mack's biggest failing; I'm not sure it's even fair to consider it a failing at all.

We got a starting cornerback/linebacker and our defacto starting QB out of those trades. That's some pretty heavy value for two NI's who have never been able to make a significant impact after 3 years. You are correct in that our lack of depth at NI receiver is likely to be exposed in the course of 18 games.

Too often in previous drafts the Bombers had to settle for players available rather than getting players they wanted. They clearly wanted Briggs and Jones and they got them, so I'm happy. The knock on Goossen seems to be that he's not ready to start in the CFL immediately, not that he can't be a decent starter. Don't blame the player when the real problem is this team is so devoid of NI talent that Goossen has to be the team's life preserver. Give him a year under Wylie's tutelage and we might have a starter for the next decade emerge. My draft disappointment doesn't come from the Bombers, rather that two project players I thought we should kick the tires on almost fell to us in round 6 - Paterson and Fox. Obviously these guys might amount to a whole lot of nothing, but based on the scouting reports I read I was intrigued and thought there was a chance we could get one or both late. Guess we'll see how Everett stacks up against our current NI DL. I know nothing, absolutely nothing about Eisho. If he makes it out of camp I'll try to spell his name correctly more often then not; until that happens I'm not committing to making that effort.