Jesse

I think Ceresna has more on-field value, if you take age and ant status out of the equation. And TO must be bracing to lose some DL pieces in FA. I think the trade works for both sides.

Shocked Chris Jones makes that move.

It does not have any direct bearing, other than the fact that there was a post-Christmas lull and now things seem to be picking up again. Walters will need time to get other players under contract and/or figure put replacement plans and we still seem to be in a holding pattern. Probably can't let it go on too much longer. I understand the reasoning on wait on Schoen, but he may be the more difficult sign. I can't help but think he's going to have a few teams bidding higher than we can reasonably expect to compete with.

Walters has said at some point he will have to move on and start allocating the funds to the remaining players on our FA list. Right now he's holding off because, if one or both of Brady and Dalton sign, it will mean making different choices. But at some point, he's going to accept that they're not going to sign and he'll move on. This decision will need to be made with enough time left before free agency to negotiate the remaining contracts we want to extend.

Starting to notice more signings around the league again the past few days. Might be getting close to the time Walter’s says now or never to Brady and Dalton.

Zach in an entrenched, MOP starter. He plays every game outside of injury or end of year scenarios. Coaches will let him play himself out of rough stretches, because they know he's capable of it. Zach has 2 years left on his deal and no one knows if he is going to retire at that point. Then you got Harris, who has completed maybe 4 games for the Riders and has a new coach with zero ties to him. Injury, poor play, losing streak. Multiple scenarios where they could potentially make a QB switch. Harris has one year left on his deal and would need to prove he's worth it to get another deal.

I know what you're saying, but there's always some extra bodies at camp.

If we don’t have Brady, it’s import at RB.

Don’t say it like a bad thing. That’s the best case scenario.

The QBs in question are terrible and renegotiating so they aren't cut outright, Zach equaled the performance that got him the contract in the first place.

Maybe in a very literal sense some players were offered "more". This just might be me, but if Toronto offers Kenny 310 and we offer him 305 (especially considering the cost of living between the two cities, I don't really feel as if the player accepted less to be here. Same thing with Willie. We made him the highest paid defensive player in the league when he came here. If teams ever offered more than we did, it certainly wasn't by anything significant.

Team building wise, that would be huge. But it only works if you hit on the rookie. Get a Dalton Schoen at the RB position.

I keep hearing that. But we had to make Zach the highest paid player in the league, we've made both Willie and Adam the highest paid defensive players at different times. Kenny left for more money and only came back when we paid him 300+ (saying he left money isn't the only thing that matters but contract saying otherwise). Everyone says Bailey came back for less money, but he went into FA and then came back so I honestly just believe the offers out there just weren't what he thought they'd be. Who's taken less money to be here?

This isn't really true. We've consistently paid guys at the top of the pay scale to get them here and keep them here.

Ok, now I think people are going too hard in the other direction here. Last year Brady was absolute crap for the first half of the season and clearly made changes to be the incredible back he was for the last half of 2022 and all of 2023. It is not all the OL and not every back will have close to his success. Augustine had a high average at the end of blow out games. It's not an equal comparison.

Brady is an all round great back. What he does is repeatable and he'd continue to have success for a long time. He'd break records and he's do it as a local kid. So, it would be tough to lose him. We will probably not fall backwards into another great back, you may get a good percentage of the the production at a vastly different price point though. It would be nice to add home run speed into the equation, as that's an element Brady doesn't bring (and why he shouldn't reset the market, imo - even if there's an RB who does). But it's likely that we go by committee and cycle through different backs in the future if we're unable to retain Brady's services, and that just sucks.

Anyone else find this kind of comment annoying?

Even more information in the Ed Tait article: https://www.bluebombers.com/2024/01/09/once-those-higher-ones-get-settled-whether-they-come-back-dont-come-back-lock-into-a-dollar-value-then-i-think-the-rest-should-move-along-fairly-quickly/

So am I, obviously.

Making the game is championship pedigree. At that point, it’s any given Sunday. look at the Stamp and Als dynasties across the last 20ish years. Pretty poor records in the play-offs and Grey Cups compared to how many regular season victories they had. Winning the Championship is hard. Y’all unsatisfied about only winning 2 of the last 4 cups, honestly.

He was the third highest, but that was only 165k. LBs aren’t paid as much as other position groups. lol. In what world were the Als the best team in the league last year?

It is very difficult to upgrade the best team in the league.

I feel like too many people are still trapped in the drought. They don't believe that the Bombers can actually be good. Every loss is a harbinger of doom. Every interception is Zach getting too old, every sack is the OL deteriorating. Ignoring the fact that we still placed first in almost every meaningful statistical category for the past 3 seasons. We are a great team. Period. Full stop. There are areas we can improve. First glance of the off season (early signings and coaching changes) shows me we are committed to making those improvements.

I feel the opposite way you do. I'm quite excited to bring back as much of the core as we can.

I didn't really get that impression at all.