2022 Off Season - Back 2 Back Champs Edition

[GCn20]

14 minutes ago, Jesse said:

A couple of former Riders gushing over our signings and culture.

https://twitter.com/lucmull95/status/1484184435067174913?s=20

It is pretty safe to assume that neither Luc or Chris ever experienced anything like it in their time with the Riders. It's just a franchise that doesn't know how to succeed.

[Noeller]

 

[TrueBlue4ever]

1 hour ago, wbbfan said:

That moves a biggie. Stove and ba then the defense is in great shape. 

Zach Bryant Lawler and rbs on offense. A lot of work for the mafia left to do. 

So open question for the board -

Still some big pieces out there. Assuming we can’t afford all of them, which of these big ticket items (likely the most expensive option at their position) do we walk away from:

QB - Collaros

RB - Harris

WR - Lawler

OL - Bryant or Couture

DL - Richardson

DB - Alexander or W. Rose

K - Castillo

LS - Benson

Is Harris the obvious choice here, given the cost, age, and who is already in-house behind him. Emotions and loyalty aside, is this the smartest business decision, or do we owe it to him to allow loyalty and emotion as well as his skill set to factor into this decision?

And who are your top 3 “must sign” players, either on this list or the entire Bomber free agent list? 

Mine are

1. Collaros

2. Couture (younger Canadian at centre slightly over Bryant and all his talent, mainly because of age)

3. Lawler (if he goes to the NFL it will hurt, but losing him to another CFL team would be worse) 

[bearpants]

40 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

It is pretty safe to assume that neither Luc or Chris ever experienced anything like it in their time with the Riders. It's just a franchise that doesn't know how to succeed.

Well in his defense, Mullinder was on the 2007 team that won the Grey Cup... so he has experienced some success.

[Arnold_Palmer]

6 minutes ago, TrueBlue4ever said:

So open question for the board -

Still some big pieces out there. Assuming we can’t afford all of them, which of these big ticket items (likely the most expensive option at their position) do we walk away from:

QB - Collaros

RB - Harris

WR - Lawler

OL - Bryant or Couture

DL - Richardson

DB - Alexander or W. Rose

K - Castillo

LS - Benson

Is Harris the obvious choice here, given the cost, age, and who is already in-house behind him. Emotions and loyalty aside, is this the smartest business decision, or do we owe it to him to allow loyalty and emotion as well as his skill set to factor into this decision?

And who are your top 3 “must sign” players, either on this list or the entire Bomber free agent list? 

Mine are

1. Collaros

2. Couture (younger Canadian at centre slightly over Bryant and all his talent, mainly because of age)

3. Lawler (if he goes to the NFL it will hurt, but losing him to another CFL team would be worse) 

Alexander would be my number 2. Our defence changed completely when he was moved to safety. We need him. Not only for the big hits but the guy provides great coverage. Definitely my number 2 behind Collaros. I would still say Bryant would be my number third. He’s un doubt-idly the best tackle in the game by far. 

[Noeller]

10 minutes ago, TrueBlue4ever said:

So open question for the board -

Still some big pieces out there. Assuming we can’t afford all of them, which of these big ticket items (likely the most expensive option at their position) do we walk away from:

QB - Collaros

RB - Harris

WR - Lawler

OL - Bryant or Couture

DL - Richardson

DB - Alexander or W. Rose

K - Castillo

LS - Benson

Castillo likely back to the NFL

Benson is a LS...shouldn't be a "big ticket item"

If you put a gun to my head and made me choose, I'd say Richardson or Rose....

[Geebrr]

Richardson unfortunately plays the position where level of production is easier to manage. 75% of our line is back and Stove missed a big chunk of last year.

 

[TrueBlue4ever]

5 minutes ago, Arnold_Palmer said:

Alexander would be my number 2. Our defence changed completely when he was moved to safety. We need him. Not only for the big hits but the guy provides great coverage. Definitely my number 2 behind Collaros. I would still say Bryant would be my number third. He’s un doubt-idly the best tackle in the game by far. 

Alexander is a big keeper for sure, but I wonder if we have the pieces in the secondary to replace him more so than other positions? The cupboard behind Collaros is pretty bare in-house right now. Bryant is definitely superior to Couture player to player, but age, nationality, and ability to replace one spot in five factored in. But good points all around. 

[Geebrr]

Alexander is a must. 

[TrueBlue4ever]

5 minutes ago, Noeller said:

Castillo likely back to the NFL

Benson is a LS...shouldn't be a "big ticket item"

If you put a gun to my head and made me choose, I'd say Richardson or Rose....

I put Benson in because he is our only option there, no idea who if anyone would be our back up if he left. That alone makes him more valuable. And a quality long snapper is an underrated but important piece to the special teams puzzle. Any ideas who is out there? Is it an easy job to learn?

[wbbfan]

15 minutes ago, Noeller said:

Castillo likely back to the NFL

Benson is a LS...shouldn't be a "big ticket item"

If you put a gun to my head and made me choose, I'd say Richardson or Rose....

I thought Castillo had 2022 under contract from when he extended or re activated or what ever. Might be wrong but I also don't think he gets an NFL call. 

9 minutes ago, Geebrr said:

Alexander is a must. 

Right now we have a kind of scary number of must signs. 

Ba was the most under rated defensive player in the league last year. 

[Booch]

1 minute ago, wbbfan said:

I thought Castillo had 2022 under contract from when he extended or re activated or what ever. Might be wrong but I also don't think he gets an NFL call. 

Right now we have a kind of scary number of must signs. 

Ba was the most under rated defensive player in the league last year. 

2 years

[bigg jay]

11 minutes ago, TrueBlue4ever said:

I put Benson in because he is our only option there, no idea who if anyone would be our back up if he left. That alone makes him more valuable. And a quality long snapper is an underrated but important piece to the special teams puzzle. Any ideas who is out there? Is it an easy job to learn?

In 2019, Rempel was our only LS, and he was easily replaced.   Benson was very reliable but if he doesn't come back, I'm not concerned that we couldn't lure someone here given the mass amount of FA's across the league.

[rebusrankin]

Collaros

Alexander

Bryant

would be my three.

Alexander replacing Hecht was a huge move for us.

Bryant is the best tackle in the CFL

Collaros because hey, 17-2 as our starter.

Not that I'd be happy to lose him but if Couture left, I believe Speller is a pending FA. (He did play C for all three 2019 playoff games).

Harris-Want him back of course but in theory Oliveria/Augustine would work.

[wbbfan]

10 minutes ago, Booch said:

2 years

True. Iirc he played like half of 19 at s when he came back from injury but that moment was critical to both gc wins. 

Idk if any one is more under rated. 

[GCn20]

1 hour ago, TrueBlue4ever said:

So open question for the board -

Still some big pieces out there. Assuming we can’t afford all of them, which of these big ticket items (likely the most expensive option at their position) do we walk away from:

QB - Collaros

RB - Harris

WR - Lawler

OL - Bryant or Couture

DL - Richardson

DB - Alexander or W. Rose

K - Castillo

LS - Benson

Is Harris the obvious choice here, given the cost, age, and who is already in-house behind him. Emotions and loyalty aside, is this the smartest business decision, or do we owe it to him to allow loyalty and emotion as well as his skill set to factor into this decision?

And who are your top 3 “must sign” players, either on this list or the entire Bomber free agent list? 

Mine are

1. Collaros

2. Couture (younger Canadian at centre slightly over Bryant and all his talent, mainly because of age)

3. Lawler (if he goes to the NFL it will hurt, but losing him to another CFL team would be worse) 

1. Collaros

2. Bryant

3. Couture

4. Lawler

5 Winston Rose

6. Castillo

7. Richardson

8 Alexander

I don't see us having any issues with Benson at all so I'm not even going to rank him, LS are not the highest paid dudes so it doesn't really come down to a choice really. I see Collaros as an obvious choice. Bryant is easily 2nd imo. GOAT blind side tackle. Don't care about age...he plays the most important position on the OL better than anyone. The rest just kind of follow in order of how I feel they enhance our chances of winning coupled with our ability to replace them. Not putting Harris up either, he either comes at a big home town discount or we move on imo.

1 hour ago, bearpants said:

Well in his defense, Mullinder was on the 2007 team that won the Grey Cup... so he has experienced some success.

He might have a championship but they never won it. All I have to say on that matter, and they had no sustained success there.

Edited January 20, 2022 by GCn20

[Arnold_Palmer]

1 hour ago, rebusrankin said:

Collaros

Alexander

Bryant

would be my three.

Alexander replacing Hecht was a huge move for us.

Bryant is the best tackle in the CFL

Collaros because hey, 17-2 as our starter.

Not that I'd be happy to lose him but if Couture left, I believe Speller is a pending FA. (He did play C for all three 2019 playoff games).

Harris-Want him back of course but in theory Oliveria/Augustine would work.

Un popular opinion but if it saves us the money to shore up lol the big guns I am willing to go with Oliveria/Augustine. I love Harris and he is undoubtedly one of the best running backs to play this game but he has a lot of mileage and is starting to become injury prone.  

[JCon]

Part of Harris' extra-curricular work is training elite youth. I wonder if he would be interested in grinding it out for a few years as a coach, working his way up the ranks or if his other business interests are more important? Could he retire into a coaching gig? 

[TBURGESS]

2 hours ago, GCn20 said:

Fact: YOU are the one moving the goal posts. No one said that pre-Collaros we were dominant. What was stated is we were better than mediocre. 

Fact: We were well above mediocre (1st place) until a season ending injury to our starting QB. We struggled, AS ANY TEAM WILL, behind our backup. Once Collaros came we went back to being above average.

Fact: Our defence was the main reason we won both the 2019 cup. Collaros just game managed because he had very limited time in our system up to that point.

Fact: No one is suggesting we were dominant at any point prior to 2021.  The argument was about your use of the term mediocre to describe the pre-Collaros 2019 Bombers. An assessment that NO ONE seems to have but you and one that is most certainly nothing more than opinion on your part. Ours too, but we will man up and at least admit it's our OPINION and it vastly differs from yours. I will take solace in the fact that the overwhelming majority reject your opinion as a clue as to how accurate it might be.

Fact: Our pre-Collaros TEAM was well above mediocre even after Nichols went down. I will cede that our QBing after Nichols injury and prior to Collaros left a lot to be desired but that's not the same as thing as calling the entire team mediocre. We were a very good team needing an upgrade at QB after injuries to both our starter and backup. It's that simple really.  

Fact: Here's the post that started it all:

Quote

Collaros was the top QB in the league last year so he should be paid the top $. If we don't pay him, other team(s) will. Considering we were a middle of the road team without him and a dominant team with him, we need to sign him at top $ even if that means losing a couple of other players. I don't buy the idea that we can be dominant with Harris or MBT or Masoli. 

As you can plainly see, I said middle of the road which, as I've explained before doesn't mean mediocre no matter how many times you pretend it does. (Fact: You're the one moving the goalposts)

We were above average for the first third of the season and we were below average at least for the last third of the season. Averaged together, we were middle of the road. (Fact: A reason for being below average doesn't change the fact that we were below average at that time.)

Fact: Our defense was great, but not good enough to create many wins in the last third of the season until Collaros took over at QB. The defense didn't change, the QB did.

You're confusing facts and opinions again. Any team that loses 4 out of 5 games, especially down the stretch when they don't have first place locked up, isn't 'well above mediocre' and doesn't even make it to middle of the road territory.

FTR: It's rare to be able to pinpoint one trade, one player one thing that turned a season around. 2019 was one of those situations. The Collaros trade, brought in the one player we needed to turn the season around. The team visibly flipped a switch when Collaros scrambled and threw the TD pass in the last game of the season. After that, they were unbeatable. Before that they were a middle of the road team hanging on to 3rd place and hoping that Streveler would get healed enough to win a playoff game.

Yet another argument that didn't need to happen, but that's the off season for you.

[Jpan85]

Brandon Alexander is the most important DB he has basically become a coach on the field. Need that strong communication in the secondary.

[blue85gold]

24 minutes ago, Jpan85 said:

Brandon Alexander is the most important DB he has basically become a coach on the field. Need that strong communication in the secondary.

Totally agree. One of the Hallett bros could be a decent safety, but BA is what makes the D elite.

[Arnold_Palmer]

3 minutes ago, blue85gold said:

Totally agree. One of the Hallett bros could be a decent safety, but BA is what makes the D elite.

Yep can’t lose Alexander. Once he replaced Hecht at safety our D was completely different. He’s our most valuable piece of a really good secondary. 

[Tracker]

FWIW: The Freep today called the Bombers to win a third straight Grey Cup.  Sounds good to me,

[Wideleft]

4 hours ago, TBURGESS said:

Facts: 2019: 4th in the league. 3rd in the West. Collaros beat Hamilton which neither of our other QB's could manage. Collaros didn't lose a game. We lost 4 of the last 5 games before Collaros got his first start. The blue kool aid chugging fans who are arguing that we were dominant are the ones without the facts on their side. 

Fact:  None of that matters now -no matter which side of this argument you are on.

[JCon]

2 minutes ago, Wideleft said:

Fact:  None of that matters now -no matter which side of this argument you are on.

You know which side he's on. It kills him when we win and only comes around to slag the team. Ignore him and move on.