Jesse

They still need to be football players or we just need to scrap the whole thing and play flag football.

I know we're one of them. Ed Tait slipped it into one of his recent articles. Winnipeg now has 10 selections in the 2024 CFL Draft — each of its picks in every round, a bonus in the second round, 20th overall, as a reward for snaps by Canadian players in 2023 and now Ottawa’s fifth-round choice, 40th overall, secured from the Brown trade. The Blue Bombers will pick 8th, 17th, 20th, 28th, 37th, 40th, 46th, 55th, 64th and 73rd overall. https://www.bluebombers.com/2024/01/18/dru-brown-traded-to-ottawa-for-draft-pick/

I’ve been thinking BC, Sask, Winnipeg

The only thing keeping me from getting too excited is that he's an older prospect, but obviously not unusual for a CFL QB.

And we pay Kenny, and Demski, and still want to sign Schoen. Teams can afford multiple high end receiving contracts.

I said 200 just because it seems to be a milestone between BO's reported ask and what we'd reasonably want to sign him for.

And we now have 10 draft picks, so maybe there's some potential to replace some depth/STers with a few more minimum contracts.

IMO, he's a great fit. We disagree on that point. Hopefully, its a moot point and he's about to re-sign with us.

Severely. I'm talking about Montreal's desire for him - not the best place for his individual production. He's going to do his own personal cost/benefit of individual production/salary/living expenses/etc.

There is never as much saved space as people try and project.

They often do. Hasn't quite worked out for them yet.

It's a fair point. But that's also when he has Zach at QB. I can imagine him making the necessary changes to accommodate another QB.

Sure, they have lots of work to do, but premium players wont be available at every position. BC just signed 2 of their receivers for 200+ contracts and then Cottoy (didn't see that one's numbers). We have Lawler and Demski and still are trying to sign Schoen. There's nothing from keeping Ottawa from trying to sign Schoen as well.

Anything is theoretically possible until he signs, but I doubt this trade is made unless Brown and Ottawa already had some back door conversations.

Meh, it was a foregone conclusion he was going there anyway. They didn't have to send anything. But this allows them to get a contract in place before FA and move onto the next thing on their list.

Not necessarily. Do they have any other big receiver deals on the books?

I know you wouldn't (and that's fair), but I've always been pretty convinced that we'd be a top bidder. He's just more valuable to us than he'd be anywhere else and that goes both ways. He'd be a fool to leave.

That's more than I'd like to pay, but I believe that the WFC is willing to go there. It makes sense. I also believe that Brady is probably using the 250 number to try and pull us towards and over the 200 line. But that is just too much and would just hurt the team more than it would help us.

Schoen would absolutely not reach his potential, but he's the guy I think CoFaj needs. He finds open space when the QB is running around. Kenny wants to make the big play and CoFaj won't be able to get it there. Kenny would make his highlight reel catches here and there but it'd be a lot of incompletions and interceptions. Obviously any great receiver makes any QB look better. But I think Schoen's play style would be more valuable for them. If they're sitting there trying to wonder who to make a play for, Schoen or Rhymes, for example.

I just think Cody needs a receiver like him, who knows when to break off his routes and come back to the QB when he's running around. He does so well at finding open space. If Montreal wants to commit to Fajardo, Schoen's the best guy for him. BUT, I'm obviously hoping we're in his ear and can convince that he's going to be much more successful by staying here with us. Hopefully we got Kenny and Zach in his ear too.

I've been expecting them to make a big push for Schoen.

Not really, he even said in the article it's what you do as you get to this point in your career. He's not at his peak.

That seems super unlikely at this point in his career. Especially with the way MOS and Younger have been talking about his role going into next year. Seems pretty settled already.

But I'm talking about the difference from Year 1 to Year 2. It's wonderful that he's taking less than he was supposed to, but it still represents more of our cap space than he took up last year (if the numbers reported are to be believed - which is iffy at best, of course).

I don't want to sound like a naysayer, but when I look up receiver salaries from last year, 3down reported that Kenny was supposed to earn 250k in hard money with a max of 258. If we're taking these numbers at face value, Kenny is still getting a significant raise this year. Not as much of a raise as he was scheduled to get, but it still represents less money from last year, not more.