Blue Bombers - 2023 Regular Season - Discussion Thread

[GCn20]

10 hours ago, Fatty Liver said:

Use Bolo or lose him next season, don't see why a player would stick around for years if coaching staff doesn't have the confidence to use him when the opportunity he's been waiting for comes up.  

Johnny Augustine says what and Simonise, and Petermann say it's not quite that simple.

Edited October 19, 2023 by GCn20

[Mike]

Classic lol another player hurt and we’re yet again going to have no viable replacement for him on our practice roster

[GCn20]

16 minutes ago, Mike said:

Classic lol another player hurt and we’re yet again going to have no viable replacement for him on our practice roster

The CFL has a 10 player PR size so that is kind of an inevitability in our league. We are activating Greg McRae aren't we? 

Edited October 19, 2023 by GCn20

[17to85]

1 hour ago, Mike said:

Classic lol another player hurt and we’re yet again going to have no viable replacement for him on our practice roster

Classic drive by from Mike.

[FrostyWinnipeg]

17 hours ago, Noeller said:

regarding Schoen and the rest of this season, this is from the Winnipeg Sun today: 

“This is just my homeboy, so I’m representing him out here, keeping him with us a little bit,” Wolitarsky said.

“It’s a big hit. We feel that. We’re just going to be there for him. A lot of us have been through injuries and this is his first real injury, big injury.”

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Bombers will be without Schoen for at least the rest of the CFL regular season.

This is the Woli equivalent of saying grandma fell off the roof. 

[Mike]

57 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

Classic drive by from Mike.

I mean it’s true. Although I will admit I’m glad they at least trimmed a lot of the fat recently, but our PR is still very poorly used.

[17to85]

Oh I don't necessarily disagree with you, I'm just being an ass.

[Booch]

we had a viable....cut him...Mcrae is not  receiver...but likely gets on roster....and thats cause yes...no real viable replacement, and due to  bad PR...and guys on it who would make  diff....are not brought on for particular reasons on here discussed at length

[GCn20]

14 minutes ago, Booch said:

we had a viable....cut him...Mcrae is not  receiver...but likely gets on roster....and thats cause yes...no real viable replacement, and due to  bad PR...and guys on it who would make  diff....are not brought on for particular reasons on here discussed at length

We had Adugosi. It is arguable whether he was a viable replacement or at least any more viable than McCrae. McCrae isn't a true receiver in the traditional sense but he gave us a few good games this year and isn't chopped liver either. Pretty good coming from the PR imo. Imo, it's pretty unrealistic to expect difference makers to come in off the PR. All you can hope for off of any team's PR is either a raw rookie and the mistakes that come with that, a middling veteran like McCrae, or an over the hill veteran. None of the 3 are going to be particularly viable. This is especially true for any team as loaded SMS wise as we are in our game day roster. We, and other teams that are dominant, just simply cannot have a fully loaded PR chock full of budding stars because players of that calibre have too many other football options now that are better than 500 bucks a week.  I mean seriously, if you are a recruit to this league at receiver do you sit on a PR behind Lawler, Schoen, and Bailey in the hopes that they get injured because that is your only realistic chance of rostering?

Lots of times the guys ahead of your drive the desirability of your PR. Guys want some kind of realistic chance they can win a position.

Edited October 19, 2023 by GCn20

[Arnold_Palmer]

13 minutes ago, Booch said:

we had a viable....cut him...Mcrae is not  receiver...but likely gets on roster....and thats cause yes...no real viable replacement, and due to  bad PR...and guys on it who would make  diff....are not brought on for particular reasons on here discussed at length

McRae has shown decently in the games in which he actually gets to play receiver, and not have to worry about fielding punts. Pretty much what you would expect from someone coming off the PR anyways. 

[17to85]

Honestly other than killing mccrae in the height stat.... did agudosi so any more tha  mccrae with his chance?

[Eternal optimist]

Hope they win on Saturday and take care of business. Either way it'll be funny that SSK will be rooting for us next week against CAL. It's nice we're already in the playoffs though 1st place is ideal. I don't miss those lean years of looking for outside help as Halloween came around.

[GCn20]

21 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

Honestly other than killing mccrae in the height stat.... did agudosi so any more tha  mccrae with his chance?

No he didn't. Would it be nice if the next Schoen was hiding on our PR unbeknownst to us and the rest of the CFL? Sure. Is it a realistic ask from a fan base? Nope.

[Fatty Liver]

17 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

Honestly other than killing mccrae in the height stat.... did agudosi so any more tha  mccrae with his chance?

Agudosi was targeted 12 times in 4 games, he caught 9 for 120 yds. and no TD's.

McCrae was targeted 14 times in 9 games, he caught 10 for 152 yds. and one TD.

Agudosi was an underused downfield target, whereas McCrae was used as a gimmick player coming out of the backfield.

[GCn20]

22 minutes ago, Fatty Liver said:

Agudosi was targeted 12 times in 4 games, he caught 9 for 120 yds. and no TD's.

McCrae was targeted 14 times in 9 games, he caught 10 for 152 yds. and one TD.

Agudosi was an underused downfield target, whereas McCrae was used as a gimmick player coming out of the backfield.

Yes, using McCrae requires a little bit of a different look to our offence. Not sure that's a bad thing right now.

[Noeller]

a viable replacement for the best receiver the league has seen in years........ **** YOU BOMBERS FOR NOT HAVING THIS READILY AVAILABLE!!! 

The only viable replacement for Schoen is Lawler..... to paraphrase Adam Sandler in Happy Gilmore "...man, I'm glad I called THAT guy..." 

[Geebrr]

6 minutes ago, Noeller said:

a viable replacement for the best receiver the league has seen in years........ **** YOU BOMBERS FOR NOT HAVING THIS READILY AVAILABLE!!! 

The only viable replacement for Schoen is Lawler..... to paraphrase Adam Sandler in Happy Gilmore "...man, I'm glad I called THAT guy..." 

BRB - just going to to scour some PRs to find those immediate impact unstoppable WRs that can’t break into worse receiving groups for some reason. 
 

 

[Stickem]

2 hours ago, GCn20 said:

Yes, using McCrae requires a little bit of a different look to our offence. Not sure that's a bad thing right now.

yeah....never undersell the little guy....He could be the 'change-up' pitch that keeps the elks off balance....He has been productive before in certain sets.....

[wbbfan]

3 hours ago, GCn20 said:

Yes, using McCrae requires a little bit of a different look to our offence. Not sure that's a bad thing right now.

It’s a big difference but lucky we have lawler Demski and Bailey to step up plus career year woli. His redundancy with Demski worries me. I’d rather see him used to run off deep defenders but we will see.  

[Mike]

Lmao at everyone overreacting to a comment.

By viable replacement, I meant “maybe a guy who is actually a receiver”, not a proven all star. 

[TrueBlue4ever]

1 hour ago, Mike said:

Lmao at everyone overreacting to a comment.

By viable replacement, I meant “maybe a guy who is actually a receiver”, not a proven all star. 

We have a viable replacement- Bolo. McCrae is the back-up to the back-up, which is what level you’d expect a PR player to be

[JuranBoldenRules]

I like McCrae if they use him right.  With the way defenses are adjusting to Oliviera he can gash them, also with both guys and Demski on the field lots of jet options and ways to widen our D for Brady.  You really have a chance to do a thunder/lightning kind of run game when you’re going to need it with the ball being damp along with footing getting more suspect in November.

Lawler is really who needs to step up and he’ll get a lot more work in the slot.  D still can’t bracket him because we’ll have 6 guys on the field they’ll have to worry about.  Only big weakness now is we go down to 2 guys really effective on the vertical routes from 3.  Need to run more quick stuff for Bailey and Wolitarsky to open it up.

[Eternal optimist]

Lawler gets doubled up a ton by other teams, hence his lower production. He is seldom left one-on-one.

[Jesse]

12 hours ago, TrueBlue4ever said:

We have a viable replacement- Bolo. McCrae is the back-up to the back-up, which is what level you’d expect a PR player to be

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a receiver on the PR for the inevitable event when one of your starters misses time.

BOLO is a Canadian, which puts him in a different category for roster management purposes. McCrea came on as an RB and is more of a Demski replacement if anything. We had Agudosi, but we did a swap for a new prospect meaning that we've put ourselves in this position of having no one available with any experience in our system. 

MOS talks about it (We wanted to have a look at other guys). And in a vacuum that's fair. You've seen all you need to see from Agudosi so you move onto the next prospect. Great. But he has been here for three years. And you don't bring in that next prospect until the week before you cut him? It just seems like another example of not planning ahead/not using your PR effectively for such an experienced and successful group.

[GCn20]

14 hours ago, wbbfan said:

It’s a big difference but lucky we have lawler Demski and Bailey to step up plus career year woli. His redundancy with Demski worries me. I’d rather see him used to run off deep defenders but we will see.  

It requires different usage for sure and he adds a little redundancy with Demski for sure. However, the way we utlilized him and Demski vs. Calgary earlier this year with both guys in motion in the backfield was giving Calgary fits that game. Bottom line we could expect Adugosi to provide about 50 yds a game of production realistically and there is no reason to not expect the same from McCrae.

11 hours ago, JuranBoldenRules said:

I like McCrae if they use him right.  With the way defenses are adjusting to Oliviera he can gash them, also with both guys and Demski on the field lots of jet options and ways to widen our D for Brady.  You really have a chance to do a thunder/lightning kind of run game when you’re going to need it with the ball being damp along with footing getting more suspect in November.

Lawler is really who needs to step up and he’ll get a lot more work in the slot.  D still can’t bracket him because we’ll have 6 guys on the field they’ll have to worry about.  Only big weakness now is we go down to 2 guys really effective on the vertical routes from 3.  Need to run more quick stuff for Bailey and Wolitarsky to open it up.

Yea....I agree. McCrae forces us into a kind of a different look but it's not something we haven't done before with success. Schoen being out now is not a whole lot different than when Lawler missed the first 6 games. We will just have to adapt to it.