USABomberfan

This is extremely bizarre. First, what little I saw of him playing last year, he seemed to be just fine on the field with no indication he had suffered anything, and while I couldn't count for all his injuries, I don't recall seeing him taking all that much hard hits if any. What I hate about this is that people blame the league or other players for their decision to play a contact sport. What angers me even more is that there just seems to be this underlying belief that injuries can be eliminated from sports, and that's just bull. I mean you sign up to play football, whether it's peewee league, high school, college, or pro of any kind, you better have a health plan and possibly a backup plan because you are always at risk to get hit. Nobody wants to see injuries, though many people such as myself want good hard physical play, but you gotta know that there's the risk of that. And when you decide to play through an injury such as a concussion, that's you doing that. I agree the heightened awareness of concussions needs to be implemented, but it should not be bringing this crackdown nonsense into the league that we're seeing. That stuff has made for bad football down there in the NFL, and it should not be brought into the CFL.

Why is everyone getting on our O's case instead of our D's? Willy did get pressured some but not as bad as what some of the nuts here are saying, plus you can't expect 30 plus points to be put on the scoreboard every game. Etcheverry is the one who needs to be called out here, letting Troy Smith, that inaccurate passer everyone talked about, rack up 300 plus yards and some big plays against his D. I sure hope he picks his cover corner wisely and maybe has the safety watching Adarius Bowman, that guy has been the Eskimos lone offensive source so far. I expect Reilly to keep heaving bombs that direction more this week and we gotta be ready for them.

This is a tough week to call, cept for the Ti-Cats and Stampeders. With Toronto at Ottawa, this is a critical game for both teams. Pretty much nobody has claimed the East yet. Toronto's been up and down to start this season and are looking for consistency. Ottawa despite a hot start week 1 and despite playing a fairly solid first half vs E-town, has struggled to finish games and will need to do that here, going to be a matter which Burris shows up again. For Toronto, it will depend on which Burke defense comes to play, the one that rattled Durant week 2, or the one that got mutilated by Willy week 1 and the depleted Stamps O week 2. I'm gonna go with Toronto 26-24, but wouldn't be surprised to see this go either way. With Montreal and BC, home team has usually had the advantage in this one each meeting. After a rocky start the first two weeks, BC started seeing a bit better play in last week's win, and with their homefield advantage in this game as well as better preparation I believe, I've got the Leos winning this. Gonna say BC 27 Montreal 10 With the tiger cats at the stampeders, this one's gonna get ugly. This year, the stampeders defense may actually be better than their offense, which spells bad news for the Tiger Cats. They could be rolling with 2 QBs back and forth in this one, depending on what Austin decides to do, and against that defense that spells trouble. I expect with Hamilton's O-line problems Charleston Hughes is gonna be setting league sack records in this one. Calgary 49 Hamilton 7 Once again, we seem to be setting the stage for excitement in the peg. If I had to guess what this game was gonna be a month or more ago, I woulda thought this would be a battle between 2 teams 0-3 each just trying to stay out of the West cellar. Amazing that it's exactly the opposite of that. 3 years ago when we played these guys the first meeting, it was our swaggerville D going up against the new Kavis Reed and Ricky Ray O in Canada Inns Stadium, us at 4-1, them at 5-0, and we ended up coming out on top. This time the roles are a bit reversed, their tough D coming in against our new, vastly improved, and even unrecognizable offense. Gonna be tight but I think we take this 29-21.

I will say this though, after watching that Ochocinco TD a few times on the replay, the other Johnson - Megatron - may want to consider joining the CFL for that. Remember this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0Q4tKnfaIY

You'll be waiting a long time because only defensive pass interference can be challenged. There you see, another perfect example of why this rule is faulty. I would hate what this would entail as yellow flag tossing would get out of control and I've already stated I don't want to see more delays in games, but If you're truly going to keep the rule fair and balanced for both sides of the equation you would have to allow the challenging of offensive pass interference.

Not today, from what I understand, implies some other time. You think football players are obligated by law to speak to the media or something? Seriously.

I'll retract a little bit on what I said to date, I admit when I made this thread I was a bit pissed at what I thought was bad moves by the CFL which I figured were an attempt to make a soft football league, and unnecessary delays in game action. I'll go back on that a little bit after thinking it over. As far as these roughing the passer calls have gone, it occurred to me maybe the reason the league has become a little more conscious of these is because of what happened to Zach Collaros. That I admit was a brutal hit which was a bit unnecessary on Willis's part. I do hate seeing QBs go down like that and wish for all of them to stay healthy. I think it's just important that the defensive linemen don't get punished for every sack or every pressure hit they put on a QB. It's their job to get after the QB and there should not be a flag every time the QB goes down. If it's a hit like what Willis delivered, then yeah throw the flag, but some of the tackiness we were seeing on this last week is not acceptable and should not be flagged. As for the video replay thing, well my choice of words was a bit poor on that one. No matter how you look at it, there's no such thing as a perfectly officiated game, and unless you use completely robotic refs that have special biometric functions built into them that have special penalty detectors built into them, there will be no such thing as a perfect game, video replay or not. And I admit, there've definitely been games before replay was introduced in officiating that have had some wrong calls affected by the officials' judgment, but I really don't recall any game back in the 80s and 90s when this was going on, where officiating, whether there were bad calls or not, had as huge an impact on the game as what we tend to see nowadays even with all this replay technology that's used. Add into all the delays that it makes for during games and at times having to keep fans waiting till they get done standing on the sidelines with that headset on. And to add to the replay thing, when you throw pass interference into the mix, you're essentially doing this. You're basically passing the buck, or giving the coach the chance to ask the ref sitting up in the booth whether what he thinks he sees on that screen is pass interference or not. But let me tell you, I seen different interpretations of the refs up there making the call already, and I'm going to take my bomber glasses off when I bring up examples here. so back in our preseason opener against Toronto where it was used, Millanovich threw the flag because he figured our guy had run into his player without turning around and looking for the football, which in the book should be PI right? Ok they got it right that time. But then fast forward to this last week, we had a similar incident where our guy did the exact same thing and ran into the Als receiver without turning around and looking for the ball. Higgins also threw the flag for the repeat of the same play Millanovich challenged, only this time the man upstairs said no, making a point that video replay for this does not guarantee consistent calls in regards to the rule at all. Again, I'm looking at this from an unbiased point of view and putting wins-losses aside, just saying that all this replay system is doing is just making a man sitting up in a booth watching a video screen a judge with the final authority in regards to a penalty. And if challenging PI is such a good idea, how come the NFL or NCAA don't allow it. I guarantee you, if you think they're gonna follow suit in this rule you are sadly mistaken. Why? Because it's a judgment call that the man on the field may or may not make, and sure he could miss it at times or see it from the wrong angle as well resulting in an incorrect call, but I still think they see it more times than not. And, I got a bad feeling there's gonna be times when a defensive back makes a clutch interception in the endzone, coach just decides to throw a flag on the off chance he gets a PI call in his favor, man in the booth. decides to award a PI call just because the DB touched the WR with 1 hand as he gets in position for the pick. Interception gets erased and offense gets the ball at the 1 yard line all because one man in a booth decides to award the offense a pass interference call. I am almost certain we were gonna be seeing more challenge flags thrown on interceptions that happen in the last minutes of a game from coaches just hoping to get lucky with a PI call. The end call may be correct or incorrect in that regard, but I still don't like that idea.

Hey guys, game was reuploaded to a bit of a better quality, watchable in 480p. Not HD but not too blurry anymore. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVWbcaUkzpE

Those happen on virtually every play, which is why I am saying there should be a cap on the amount of flags thrown in a game. Only blatant holding penalties, blocks in back, and pass interference calls should be made, which is the way it was always done in the past, and the games went just fine, there were no flags being thrown every other play, and you didn't see teams get their momentum stifled and the crooked zebras get in the way of the game. Also this so called problem of head targeting is grossly exaggerated. Head targeting to Mark Cohon or somebody apparently means if the defensive lineman causes the QB to hit the turf at all, it's a head targeting. That's just bullshit. The way that penalty is going is starting to drive me nuts, and it's starting to make me want to completely eliminate the unnecessary roughness penalty altogether. It shouldn't even be called that, the refs should just outright say, "defensive lineman doing his job, number ___, 15 yard penalty automatic first down". This is how ridiculous it is getting. And I don't care what anyone else thinks about this. Get rid of this whole video review system. It was never used in football up until this decade and there were never any problems with scoring plays, turnovers, or pass interference being questioned. And I argue that all it has done is just made for irresponsible lazy officiating these days. The officiating was high quality and refs actually put in better efforts to do their jobs right back in the 90s, but these days its turned into a rag fest out there. I say football needs to return back to the 80s and 90s way of doing things so the refs actually care about doing their jobs right again and quit turning every little block, contact with a WR, or hit to a QB into a penalty, it needs to stop at once.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIg6pkxFyGo Enjoy

I don't care how much these clowns are paid, someone needs to tell them this isn't the ****** lingerie football league. Those flags defenders get thrown at them for hitting a QB, any QB, are unacceptable and don't belong here. You'd think Cohon was stuffin extra bonuses in their pockets for every late hit on the QB call they make. I have never in all my years of watching the CFL seen a weekend of phantom roughing the passer calls as bad as I've seen this. I can only imagine Buck Pierce must be wondering why Jamal Johnson, Craig Butler. or Brandon Isaac didn't get these back in the day.

Pretty much the feeling I had for that one guy who got tagged for sacking Reilly last night. I mean, jeezes what the hell was he supposed to do? He catches a hold of his jersey, from the bottom side I might add. The official who threw the flag on that one oughtta be fined and told he doesn't work for that lunatic Roger Goodell down south.

No I say these refs need to be sent a message that the fans are there to watch the game, not watch the refs litter red on the field and run their ****** mouths almost the whole time. That's money wasted on their part, and these refs need to learn they are not above the law. In the words of Kavis Reed, "There Must Be Consequences".

I say yes, and I say that because of this. Now I was happy amidst all of the penalties that the bombers came out on top, who wouldn't be. But these officials have gotta be held accountable for that inexcusable and excessive drag they put on that game with ridiculous flags, half of which had no legitimacy to them. I mean, some games I know the players out there will commit more penalties than others, but I have never in all my time of watching the CFL, seen a game where you could just about color the whole field red with how many times that flag was dropped, and I have come to hate those kind of games where you nearly come to anticipate a flag on almost every play, and last night became one of them. I am personally blaming the officials and Mark Cohon for this, and Chris Schultz was right for calling out this game for going too slow paced. I've come to expect football games to be right about 3 hours long, give or take a serious situation such as an injury or an act of God on the stadium, last night's game, those idiot referees took that 20 second play clock and stretched it into 3 minutes between plays about. That should never happen in football. I say solve that problem with one of two ways. First, put a limit on how many flags the officials collectively are allowed to throw. If they exceed that, the whole crew gets slapped with a million dollar fine for obstructing the game progress. That way they learn to only call blatant penalties, and cannot call tacky ones. Or second, if it happens again, have the league commission review all the penalties in the game, and start fining them individually for every tacky call they make, so that way they get a message sent that these so-called roughing penalties that happen are not to be flagged and players are not to be punished for tough hits they make. NFL fans have been seeing this happen in their league and getting upset at flags and fines on players for doing this, and I think the CFL needs to make sure they don't go that route either. And finally, get rid of that stupid pass interference challenge rule, it does nothing to make sure the call gets right, it's a disgrace to football, makes for lazy or disgruntled officials, and ruins the pace of the game. ****** sick of it already.

And again, before anyone looks around for it, this week's game is coming to a YouTube link near you. Will be a little while but it will be up.

Live stream coming on www.justin.tv/northcarolinabomber

Dingus at its finest

So after we kickoff another weekend of football with hopefully another entertaining masterpiece, we'll have 3 other games, at least 2 of which look like great thrillers to watch. Ottawa vs Edmonton: Even though the Redblacks lost this last week to us, they had to come away from that game taking many positives from what they did. Even though their offense did rather slow up in the periods after the 1st quarter, that fast start had them looking like a team that had found traction and cohesion even being an expansion team. Now for Edmonton, I know some posters here have not been impressed with them, I give them full credit for a 2-0 start, they've capitalized on a strength of their team, the defense whose gotten them scoring plays off of turnovers and come to the aid when the offense has struggled to find a rhythm. This team has a lot of the 2011 Bombers written on them, a team that wasn't really labeled as impressive, but kept finding a way to get it done. My one drawback about Edmonton is that despite their solid D play and turnover battle winning, offense has been mediocre. Not terrible but mediocre like the 2011 Bomber offense, and if they are asked to win games that require the offense to maintain drives and score more than 4 tds, I don't like their chances. Also despite forcing 5 turnovers off of the Tigercats and taking out Collaros, they still were just inches away from losing that game. I think Ottawa just may come into Commonwealth late Friday and beat them. Ottawa 27 Edmonton 23 Calgary vs Toronto: Well, the Argos have won 7 of the last 9 in this series going back to 2010, including the Grey Cup win of 2012. The Boatmen will be playing without Andre Durie though, and you can expect the Stampeders are planning to hone in a bit more on Chad Owens. The question for the Stampeders is whether or not Cornish will be back in time, but if not Jock Sanders seems more than ready to take the reins. Big game for both of these teams as they both try and stay atop their respective conferences, expect a tight battle to the end. This one is a bit too close for me to call. BC vs Saskatchewan: This game is not going to be so close. Sure Saskatchewan took a beating out in Toronto last weekend, much to our delight, but they are coming home this week to face a BC team that has no confidence whatsoever, and is just looking for some kind of spark or something for answers. Already a bad road team and doing virtually nothing against a Montreal team with issues of their own, until Lulay and Arceneaux come back, things are not looking to get better for the Leos, and even with those returns they probably won't get much better. The Lions are the worst team in football right now and this one is going to get ugly from the start. Saskatchewan 37 BC 6

Yup, just saw the same thing on the Als board.

Well, that's the plan going forward. Hopefully YouTube keeps them up and doesn't delete them, but if they do, I got other backup solutions to post. So far though, every full CFL game I've seen loaded on there is still up and hasn't been touched, so that's a good sign.

I think the overall problem with the media, and Milt Stegall talked about this on TSN last Thursday night before the game, is that some of these people like to spout educated guesses about how things will go during a year, and then just wait to say "I told you so" among other things. To be fair I was just thinking about what the headlines might be saying about the bombers as I didn't really look at them after the Argo game and decided to look at them today. Overall, the tone seems to be okay on the WFP site, but I've noticed GL has put no more columns down on the site about the bombers since releasing that one about O'Shea and keeping a lid on it. My take on him in particular is that he likes to think he's the Nostradamus of the CFL. My problem with Wiecek, and I don't read much of his columns, but it seems to be that even in some of his more positive articles, he uses terminology that strikes me as being unprofessional for a media person. Maybe living down in the states and living down in different paradigm of media markets has made me think this way, but I see some of his titles and wording as being a bit too casual even for a columnist. I think one of the problems is some of these outlets are relying too heavily on columnists instead of putting people in there that go out and get actual news from what's going on. And by that I don't mean you have to be in every team meeting or go trying to find out their game plan or find all the dirt going on, but there are plenty of ways to get more stories with hard facts about the team going than what's been happening recently, or at least enough to not have to rely on columnists. Someone else was saying that some of what may be going on more recently is the press being upset about their access to the team these days, hence why they may write more opinionated tabloid-like pieces. But I would have to agree, I know people who have no degrees in journalism or communications at all that could still write better articles than some of the garbage that pops up around there.

Enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXbLDBhg6ms

Which is why we have to keep him away from the strippers, the night before. .... Yup I've heard those women over there are quite delicious to the eye. Lol While I do see the humor in this, I'm gonna say that there is an element of truth in it as well that you gotta beware of if you're the players. If you go into Montreal on vacation mode, thinking it's just a day in the park, you certainly are gonna walk into a den of angry bears. Those who think this Montreal defense is one that you can just play pitch and catch on all day while being laxidasical in the approach is sadly mistaken. I fully expect John Bowman, Chip Cox, and company to be looking to play physical and try and force turnovers off of us to try and help their offense out, so we had better come into this game looking at them as a team that we got serious business to deal with. If we do that, I think we come out with our heads up high. If not, we're gonna be bound for disappointment.

Looking it over and this is what I believe will happen. I'll put the two conferences parallel to each other to get a better idea of how I see them stacking up. West East Y - Calgary 12-6 Y - Toronto 10-8 X - Saskatchewan 9-9 X - Ottawa 9-9 X - Winnipeg 9-9 Montreal 6-12 X - Edmonton 8-10 Hamilton 5-13 BC 5-13 No BC is not gonna come back from this deficit. That 2011 team was loaded with depth, still had Geroy Simon, and Lulay didn't miss any games that season, 0-5 start wasn't bad, just full of unlucky breaks and close losses in tight games. This year's Lions team is awful in all phases of their game. They have no threats at WR, no running game, and even if Lulay makes it back by season's end he's gonna be a friggin rust bucket. I will bet you these standings, give or take a few from the top listed teams in each, are about as accurate as you're going to get.

With the conclusion of this last week, we now embark on the road to play one of our good old former east rivals, the Alouettes. On paper, our team should be able to finish em off quickly, clearly we know who the better QB and better offense is in general coming into this game. But matchups aren't won on paper. That being said, even though Montreal's offense is anemic, their defense has been pretty good. BC is looking bad this year sure, but that Montreal defense was holding the Stampeders' potent offense in check most of that game too. Apart from that one bomb caught by Mo Price, that Calgary offense was having trouble moving the ball and sustaining drives, so this Als defense is nothing to take lightly. Plus the injury to greaves is concern for us. I'd expect the Als to attempt more rips and stunts again this week up front and we're going to have to be ready for those. In the end I think we'll win this but I don't see it being another offense shoot the lights out game. I've got: Winnipeg 25 Montreal 19