2022 CFL Season - Non Back 2 Back Champs News

[Noeller]

Yeah, I asked my 70 year old uncle, who is a rabid Bombers fan, about the '21 D vs the legendary 80s Bombers D, and he said this is better. They've never had a front 7 at the same level as the one from last year...

[Bigblue204]

6 minutes ago, bryan35 said:

I was 14 in 1984 and had season tickets with my Dad that year.

They had a dominant defense in those years. Great linebackers. Top notch db's.

Last years defense was nothing like Ive ever seen. Shut down everyone.  By the third quarter it looked like the opposing offense had already quit.  The body language showed they believed they had no chance.

 

No football league in the world at any point has seen a defense like last year. I truly believe that. I don't think a lot of people realize just how special that team was. Any expectations that this years defense would be as good or better was expecting too much imo.

[Mark F]

8 minutes ago, Bigblue204 said:

No football league in the world at any point has seen a defense like last year

I am as big a CFL fan as there is, but this wrong.

85 Bears for starters.

[Bigblue204]

3 minutes ago, Mark F said:

I am as big a CFL fan as there is, but this wrong.

85 Bears for starters.

I argee that they might come close (and it's very hard to compare era's) but they were not playing the Offence styles the Bombers were. The CFL is very much a pro offence league. The bears got to be WAY WAY WAY more physical than anything the 21 team could do. I'd argue that today's offence is a lot harder to stop than any offence in 85.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Bigblue204

[Jpan85]

The 2000 Ravens gave up 10 points a game and won a super bowl with Trent Dilfer as there QB.

[Bubba Zanetti]

4 minutes ago, Mark F said:

I am as big a CFL fan as there is, but this wrong.

85 Bears for starters.

Pretty similar on paper.

Bears 12.4 average points against per game

Bombers 13.4 average points against per game

Bombers even more impressive IMO seeing as the CFL in 2021 was light years more pass heavy and offensive than the NFL in 1985......

Also, the Bears got to beat up on the likes of the Buccaneers, Lions, Vikings, Falcons, who were all below .500 teams, and accounted for half of their schedule. The Bombers didnt get to play the hapless doormat Redblacks at all....

[Bigblue204]

4 minutes ago, Jpan85 said:

The 2000 Ravens gave up 10 points a game and won a super bowl with Trent Dilfer as there QB.

ok maybe 2nd best defence any league has seen!

[Bubba Zanetti]

3 minutes ago, Jpan85 said:

The 2000 Ravens gave up 10 points a game and won a super bowl with Trent Dilfer as there QB.

That may have been the best D ever. Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Peter Boulware, Chris McAlister, Rod Woodson. Yikes.

[Jpan85]

Sam Adams and Tony Siragousa were load in the middle 

[TrueBlue4ever]

37 minutes ago, Noeller said:

Yeah, I asked my 70 year old uncle, who is a rabid Bombers fan, about the '21 D vs the legendary 80s Bombers D, and he said this is better. They've never had a front 7 at the same level as the one from last year...

Hard to compare names. But that 1990 team had Mike Grey and Stan Mikawos on the d-line with Quency Williams and Leon Hatziannou as the third option. The line backing crew of Ty Jones, James West, Greg Battle and Paul Randolph is the best foursome I can ever think of off the top of my head, certainly for a Bomber team. And the secondary had Darryl Sampson, Ken Hailey, Dave Bovell at safety, and was anchored by arguably the two best Bomber DBs ever in Rod Hill and Les Browne. CFL record 48 interceptions (not total turnovers, just INTs - almost 3 a game) and also CFL record for total turnovers at 89, basically 5 every game. That club in 1990 gave up 398 points, or about 65.4% of the league average of 581 that season. Last year’s club gave up 188, or 59.6% of the league average of 315. It’s close, and I think the 1990 club had more big names, but as a group last year’s squad is the best overall defence the Blue Bombers have ever fielded. 

[Noeller]

here's the thing: Each generation is better than the last, because of improvements to health and training...... and today's athletes would dominate previous ones.

[greenrider55]

1 hour ago, Bigblue204 said:

No football league in the world at any point has seen a defense like last year. I truly believe that. I don't think a lot of people realize just how special that team was. Any expectations that this years defense would be as good or better was expecting too much imo.

I think the ‘21 Bombers work their way into the best professional defensive units of all time with the 85 Bears, 2000 Ravens, 2013 Seahawks, 2015 Broncos. 
 

Definitely the best D in CFL history. The 2018 Stampeders D was ridiculous and they pale in comparison. 

[TrueBlue4ever]

1 hour ago, Noeller said:

here's the thing: Each generation is better than the last, because of improvements to health and training...... and today's athletes would dominate previous ones.

Absolutely true. That’s why is hard to compare eras as “best ever” and why I try to look at how they fared against and dominated their peers at the time as a comparable over eras. Like comparing McDavid to Gretzky. Connor is bigger, faster, more well-conditioned, and in his current body would probably dominate in the 1980’s compared to 1980’s Gretzky playing in 2022, but Wayne’s performance in his era was so much more dominant than anyone else that I don’t think there is much debate about who the all-time best was. But seeing last year’s defence dominate games and put up zero after zero in the second half and especially the 4th quarter puts them ahead of the turnover machine that was the 1990 squad for me. 

[bryan35]

On 2022-07-18 at 1:51 PM, kelownabomberfan said:

yup - Ray Jauch was a good coach but he kept running into the Edmonton juggernaut of the late 70's early 80's.  It was up to Cal Murphy and Mike Riley to bring it home.

Yes we finally won after Warren Moon left Edmonton for the NFL.

[wbbfan]

1 hour ago, greenrider55 said:

I think the ‘21 Bombers work their way into the best professional defensive units of all time with the 85 Bears, 2000 Ravens, 2013 Seahawks, 2015 Broncos. 
 

Definitely the best D in CFL history. The 2018 Stampeders D was ridiculous and they pale in comparison. 

Agree the pure stinginess with points and the versatility was insane. 

[Noeller]

the thing about last year, too, is that while our D was incredible, other teams regressed as well (I think, anyhow) and we REALLY benefitted by having so many veterans returning that we could hit the ground running. Pretty much every other team had more new players that took awhile to get going. From Day 1, we were a veteran lot and that made a HUGE difference. 

[Bomber_fanaddict]

2 hours ago, Noeller said:

here's the thing: Each generation is better than the last, because of improvements to health and training...... and today's athletes would dominate previous ones.

Yeah. The 85 Bears probably all showed up to camp 50lbs over weight and hadn’t worked out since 84. They also probably smoked and drank beer in the locker room before during and after games lol. 

[17to85]

9 minutes ago, Bomber_fanaddict said:

Yeah. The 85 Bears probably all showed up to camp 50lbs over weight and hadn’t worked out since 84. They also probably smoked and drank beer in the locker room before during and after games lol. 

Hockey players from the 80s all basically said the same, training camp was for getting in shape.

[SpeedFlex27]

4 hours ago, Mark H. said:

Would you say they were similar to the current group?  Able to crank it up a notch when it matters?

Yeah, very similar. The difference was we had Willard Reaves in 84 & not Brady Oliveira. 

3 hours ago, Noeller said:

Yeah, I asked my 70 year old uncle, who is a rabid Bombers fan, about the '21 D vs the legendary 80s Bombers D, and he said this is better. They've never had a front 7 at the same level as the one from last year...

Agreed. Too bad we couldn't keep all the starters on D from last year. 

[SpeedFlex27]

21 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

Hockey players from the 80s all basically said the same, training camp was for getting in shape.

Not in 1984. Guys didn't show up overweight. They did in the earlier years up to the mid 70's but after that players were expected to work out, lift weights, do cardio & eat right in the off season as they do now. They were on training regimens. Training Camp is pure hell. Why anyone would show up 20 lbs overweight & then suffer for a month afterwards is beyond me. It's just stupidity.

Edited July 20, 2022 by SpeedFlex27

[kelownabomberfan]

4 hours ago, Noeller said:

Yeah, I asked my 70 year old uncle, who is a rabid Bombers fan, about the '21 D vs the legendary 80s Bombers D, and he said this is better. They've never had a front 7 at the same level as the one from last year...

yeah I'm not as old as your uncle (not by a long shot) but I can agree with him on this one.  Would be good to talk to him and reminisce about those days.  I still to this day have never seen another player like Tyrone Jones.  I don't know why that guy wasn't in the NFL, but man did we luck out on getting that guy.

4 hours ago, bryan35 said:

I was 14 in 1984 and had season tickets with my Dad that year.

They had a dominant defense in those years. Great linebackers. Top notch db's.

Last years defense was nothing like Ive ever seen. Shut down everyone.  By the third quarter it looked like the opposing offense had already quit.  The body language showed they believed they had no chance.

 

I can agree but you also have to remember last year was a bit different, no training camps, 14 games etc.  A lot of teams just weren't ready to play like the Bombers were, and kudos to our Canadian mafia who had everyone ready to go.  This year is going to be more of a test I think for just how good we truly are.  JMHO.

Edited July 20, 2022 by kelownabomberfan

[kelownabomberfan]

3 hours ago, TrueBlue4ever said:

Hard to compare names. But that 1990 team had Mike Grey and Stan Mikawos on the d-line with Quency Williams and Leon Hatziannou as the third option. The line backing crew of Ty Jones, James West, Greg Battle and Paul Randolph is the best foursome I can ever think of off the top of my head, certainly for a Bomber team. And the secondary had Darryl Sampson, Ken Hailey, Dave Bovell at safety, and was anchored by arguably the two best Bomber DBs ever in Rod Hill and Les Browne. CFL record 48 interceptions (not total turnovers, just INTs - almost 3 a game) and also CFL record for total turnovers at 89, basically 5 every game. That club in 1990 gave up 398 points, or about 65.4% of the league average of 581 that season. Last year’s club gave up 188, or 59.6% of the league average of 315. It’s close, and I think the 1990 club had more big names, but as a group last year’s squad is the best overall defence the Blue Bombers have ever fielded. 

Rod Hill was unbelievable.  The guy was an INT machine.

[kelownabomberfan]

2 hours ago, bryan35 said:

Yes we finally won after Warren Moon left Edmonton for the NFL.

True, but we crushed Edmonton in the WSF in 1983 with Moon at QB.  Edmonton was already on the downslope by that point.   BC was just starting to rise, and so were we.  The rest of the 80's was more about BC vs Winnipeg, but even if Moon had stayed Edmonton was not going to be nearly as dominant.

32 minutes ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

Not in 1984. Guys didn't show up overweight. They did in the earlier years up to the mid 70's but after that players were expected to work out, lift weights, do cardio & eat right in the off season as they do now. They were on training regimens. Training Camp is pure hell. Why anyone would show up 20 lbs overweight & then suffer for a month afterwards is beyond me. It's just stupidity.

I remember back in the day Dale Hawerchuk saying that his summer training regime was "golf".  He didn't do much to get in shape during the summer.  But he didn't have to, he had natural talent that few players before and since had.

[Pete Catan's Ghost]

3 hours ago, bryan35 said:

Yes we finally won after Warren Moon left Edmonton for the NFL.

And also after Jauch left for Washington of the USFL. 

[SpeedFlex27]

1 hour ago, kelownabomberfan said:

Rod Hill was unbelievable.  The guy was an INT machine.

Hill was always around the football. He blocked quite a few punts & FG's as I recall.