WEEK TWO GAMEDAY THREAD - BOMBERS @ REDBLACKS

[JohnnyAbonny]

1 minute ago, Colin Unger said:

I think we all agree on the point that the offensive line this season to date has been horrible. So my question is how can we really properly evaluate Zach Collaros under these conditions. Does he looks worse now then he did in late Hamilton or with the Riders? I think he will still be fine "if" we get the pass blocking situation figured out. And there's no reason right now especially with our depth of Canadian starters to settle for a bad offensive line. We've got Tui we've got American in camp.  Another question i have is would Geoff Gray not be superior to Paddy Nuefeld at this point and would we not consider giving him a call?

1. He doesn’t look *worse* than in Hamilton at the end or Sask, but no better either.

2. As far as I can see, if Geoff Gray still wanted to play football, he’d have probably been our starter at RG or RT out of camp 

[Colin Unger]

3 minutes ago, JohnnyAbonny said:

1. He doesn’t look *worse* than in Hamilton at the end or Sask, but no better either.

2. As far as I can see, if Geoff Gray still wanted to play football, he’d have probably been our starter at RG or RT out of camp 

I think its safe to say that Zach definitely doesn't have the mobility he had when he was younger. But i think if the offensive line play improves he will be fine. Some of that improvement will occur simply by having Brady Oliviera back in the lineup. I personally wouldn't pay much attention to JA if im an opposing defensive co-ordinator. 

[blue85gold]

37 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

You’re right they would. But they wouldn’t struggle with making the right reads, would react by getting rid of it faster and wouldn’t be missing when they have protection or leave the pocket. 
 No it wasn’t fine. His accuracy was terrible, he was tossing hospital balls that constantly knuckled. He was still under throwing when he had time, throwing behind and his touch was awful. 
 If you fixed all the issues around him, you could win some games with him but he couldn’t carry to wins. 

You said yourself that it was pretty much worst case scenario for him right now. Why wouldn’t you expect that to affect good accuracy or ability to make reads? There is no QB in the league capable of casting his team to wins on his own.

[sweep the leg]

3 hours ago, 17to85 said:

We can go round and round on that and we'll never know until we see something different... but collaros ain't doing himself any favours and that's plain as day regardless of whether the ol misses blocks. They're not missing every block out there.

I’d love to see an overhead view of games to see if the receivers are getting open. It seems like he’s double pumping a lot. Is that bc he’s not able to pull the trigger, the receivers aren’t open, or is the lack of protection getting in his head? Probably a bit of each, but it’s hard to tell without seeing film of the game.

[17to85]

1 hour ago, blue85gold said:

Zach can’t do it all by himself at this stage in his career.

He's being paid like a guy who can...

[blue85gold]

13 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

He's being paid like a guy who can...

That’s true. He’s being paid to be the best. Nobody in the league can do it all by themselves though. 

[JuranBoldenRules]

22 minutes ago, sweep the leg said:

I’d love to see an overhead view of games to see if the receivers are getting open. It seems like he’s double pumping a lot. Is that bc he’s not able to pull the trigger, the receivers aren’t open, or is the lack of protection getting in his head? Probably a bit of each, but it’s hard to tell without seeing film of the game.

They are way too focused on going vertical which requires a lot from OL.  On top of that some rapport between QB and receivers on where to expect ball, timing etc.

That’s what Zach likes.  Great if if it’s working, but completely kills passing game when it’s not.  Would like to see some adjustment.  Can we run some quick stuff?  Do we have anyone we can screen to?  Demski they do some of the tight bubble ones coming inside.  Can we get the ball outside and set up some 1 on 1 situations where we can get a decent gain and maybe a bigger one with one broken tackle?  Did some to Lawler vs Montreal once we were down and not moving the ball.  Gotta do some work to force defenses to cover whole field and not just clog up vertical and watch us spin our wheels.

Receivers are a bit of an issue too.  Wilson is looking basically useless.  Or they haven’t done a good job of getting him ready to actually play or both.

[Super Duper Negatron]

1 hour ago, JohnnyAbonny said:

1. Because it looks like it’s dead. 
2. Depends, who’s “people”?. I won’t pretend to have seen it as far back as Mike and Booch (wouldn’t have mocked them for it either, those guys have kind of a track record for knowing what they’re talking about)

I saw a bit in ‘22, much more toward the end of ‘23. After the Grey cup loss it really sunk in. 
Edit: I saw the issues but still got blindsided by just how quickly they crapped out. I thought up to and including Week 1 that the talent we still have would be worth another year of above .500 football. 
 

I am also not sure why you can't mourn the loss of something just because you saw it coming. We are all Bomber fans here. This season hurts so far.

[wbbfan]

34 minutes ago, blue85gold said:

You said yourself that it was pretty much worst case scenario for him right now. Why wouldn’t you expect that to affect good accuracy or ability to make reads? There is no QB in the league capable of casting his team to wins on his own.

It is, but it’s not the entire picture. 
 Because he’s a 36 year old multi mop multi gc winning hof bound qb. Every game qbs deal with adversity. The job is to over come it especially when you are given a chance to succeed. The bounce back in game is every thing. That’s how the position works. If you need every thing to be ideal to succeed you aren’t a starter quality qb. That’s even just football. You can’t be broken to the point you can’t succeed when the defense doesn’t beat you. 

 There are qbs that do that. Brown did it for us in the Edmonton game last year. Crumb did it to us. Fajardo has done it. Vaj either wins bc their games or loses them.  
 

 

[Super Duper Negatron]

Just now, wbbfan said:

It is, but it’s not the entire picture. 
 Because he’s a 36 year old multi mop multi gc winning hof bound qb. Every game qbs deal with adversity. The job is to over come it especially when you are given a chance to succeed. The bounce back in game is every thing. That’s how the position works. If you need every thing to be ideal to succeed you aren’t a starter quality qb. That’s even just football. You can’t be broken to the point you can’t succeed when the defense doesn’t beat you. 

 There are qbs that do that. Brown did it for us in the Edmonton game last year. Crumb did it to us. Fajardo has done it. Vaj either wins bc their games or loses them.  
 

 

People seem to be forgetting that he had better protection and healthy receivers last year and had a LOT of games where we noticed the same troubling signs.

[wbbfan]

31 minutes ago, sweep the leg said:

I’d love to see an overhead view of games to see if the receivers are getting open. It seems like he’s double pumping a lot. Is that bc he’s not able to pull the trigger, the receivers aren’t open, or is the lack of protection getting in his head? Probably a bit of each, but it’s hard to tell without seeing film of the game.

With the hash mark change you always have windows to complete passes in the cfl now. If you throw as the wr breaks to the side line and lead them it can’t defended if executed properly. Qbs are up to 75% completion now. 
 We aren’t running good schemes for sure, but we are running much of what we usually run. 

2 minutes ago, Super Duper Negatron said:

People seem to be forgetting that he had better protection and healthy receivers last year and had a LOT of games where we noticed the same troubling signs.

Yeah. Touch on the ball can become fickle with age and hand injuries. Khari lost it and that was his real trade mark skill. 

[3rdand1.5]

If we establish a run game, I believe the pass pro will look a lot better. Ott did not need to respect a run, gap control, RPO. I am not sure why the game plan was so bad this past game. 

In the first game Brady was in and we tried (but very clearly he was far from 100%), we also had Strev do a few things, correct me if I am wrong but did we not have a Demski run play?? Last week We never really used JA, at least not enough to be any threat, Strev came in short yardage and was no threat (I think he is hurt) 

IMO our offensive game plan against OTT. was bad. Yes execution was poor at times, and our O-line struggled in pass pro, but Zach, and the O-line had no favors with the play calling.

Against BC IF brady is still out, game plan for the run game we can do, or airlift in some big bruisers......we have ratio flexibility

[JohnnyAbonny]

2 hours ago, sweep the leg said:

I’d love to see an overhead view of games to see if the receivers are getting open. It seems like he’s double pumping a lot. Is that bc he’s not able to pull the trigger, the receivers aren’t open, or is the lack of protection getting in his head? Probably a bit of each, but it’s hard to tell without seeing film of the game.

Man, I wish there was an NFL Game Pass type service where we could see the all-24 

[TBURGESS]

Brady O is the straw that stirs the drink. He consistently gets us ahead of the sticks with 5+ yard carries, which allow us to do whatever we want on 2nd down. Without him, our O is severely hampered.

Lawler is great, but we were a very potent offence last year even without him. Can't say that this year. 

Our pass pro has been spotty at best this year, yet Buck keeps calling deep shots, which turn into shots on Collaros. He won't last past labour day at this rate. 

Collaros hasn't been on very much at all this year. I've always said that we became a great team the day Collaros started and we'll revert to a middle of the road team when he retires. Looks like I need to add or can't do it anymore.

All that being said...

All is not lost. We're 0-2. BC had to put 2 starting O lineman on their 6 game this week and their OL play was poor in week 1. It's a good chance that they lose this week. Even if they win, we're only 1 game behind them. The Riders beat Edmonton. Big deal. Everyone beats Edmonton. Even if the Riders win this week, we're only 2 games behind them. We can catch up labour day/Banjo bowl. Calgary beat Hammy. Anyone have Hammy as a good to great team? Nope! 

Next week is a huge game. Win it and we're back in the hunt right away. Lose it and we're looking up at all the Western teams except maybe Edmonton.  

[Deiter Fan]

Wasn't able to watch on Thursday and have been busy the last couple of days. Just finished watching my recording and I missed the last 2min cuz of the weather delay. I take it they lost...but did they at least make it close?

We had the ball...down by 6 with 2 min remaining. Did they even sniff the endzone?

[Super Duper Negatron]

4 minutes ago, Deiter Fan said:

Wasn't able to watch on Thursday and have been busy the last couple of days. Just finished watching my recording and I missed the last 2min cuz of the weather delay. I take it they lost...but did they at least make it close?

We had the ball...down by 6 with 2 min remaining. Did they even sniff the endzone?

They got to the 7, but failed to punch it in because they didn't even threaten to run so Ottawa shut them down.

[Deiter Fan]

6 minutes ago, Super Duper Negatron said:

Ottawa shut them down

Well...there's 4 words that should never be said when talking about the Bombers.

So how's everyone feeling about our off season QB decisions now?

Sorry, sorry...just stirring the pot.

[wpgallday1960]

4 minutes ago, Deiter Fan said:

Well...there's 4 words that should never be said when talking about the Bombers.

So how's everyone feeling about our off season QB decisions now?

Sorry, sorry...just stirring the pot.

If you’re being realistic they were never going to cut Collaros and promote Brown to starter.  That may be the wrong move but let’s wait until the end of the season before we declare a winner.

[wbbfan]

11 minutes ago, Super Duper Negatron said:

They got to the 7, but failed to punch it in because they didn't even threaten to run so Ottawa shut them down.

put strev in with Collaros. 
First down, run the bread and butter inside zone option with an iso corner play side with dalton, strev on jet motion. 2nd down Demski at r, Motion him out, and strev in, early sweep motion for play action pump the play side then draw to strev weak side counter. 3rd down if it isn’t a goal line push, pa to Demski on jet motion starting pre Snap, then toss him a screen to the wide side. Get it out early and make a db try to keep him out. 

2 minutes ago, wpgallday1960 said:

If you’re being realistic they were never going to cut Collaros and promote Brown to starter.  That may be the wrong move but let’s wait until the end of the season before we declare a winner.

They could’ve traded Collaros for a tidy sum. 
 No matter what happens with Zach, the only way giving up on brown works out is if brown ends up a bust. If he isn’t a bust we let him walk for a guy who is about to turn 36. The only higher failure rate than young qbs getting their first shot at starting is keeping qbs closer to 40 then 30. 

[IC Khari]

Too soon to have all of this angst IMO. Changes happen in sports. I think we have top of the league talent on this team but we have to fill in the holes left by FA etc. I believe this will happen, however eventually our guys will get old. This already is starting but is not unexpected. That's why you enjoy your team when it's in the process of being very good to great.  Not the same but sort of ... the 78 - 83 Edmonton Eskimo Dynasty was stopped suddenly when Moon left after the 83 season. Presto chango, an unknown guy named Matt Dunigan took over in 84 and by 86 he led them back to the Grey Cup, winning in 87. Another unknown at the time named Daman Allen added to a strong tandem on that team. Edmonton then gets Ham, Ray etc etc. ...

Edited June 15 by IC Khari

[deepsixemtoboyd]

On 2024-06-14 at 3:45 PM, JohnnyAbonny said:

Couture to an extent yeah. 

Desarlais wanted to live with his g/f in Ottawa because she’s getting a medical degree there, that one’s a bit more forgivable. 

Couture wanted to go home to BC. At least that’s what someone told me… That’s his home province.

[Noeller]

2 minutes ago, deepsixemtoboyd said:

Couture wanted to go home to BC. At least that’s what someone told me… That’s his home province.

All the ones mentioned... Chungh, Goossen, Couture and Desjarlais.... Were not coming back. They had non football reasons for leaving so there wasn't much you could do there 

[wbbfan]

54 minutes ago, IC Khari said:

Too soon to have all of this angst IMO. Changes happen in sports. I think we have top of the league talent on this team but we have to fill in the holes left by FA etc. I believe this will happen, however eventually our guys will get old. This already is starting but is not unexpected. That's why you enjoy your team when it's in the process of being very good to great.  Not the same but sort of ... the 78 - 83 Edmonton Eskimo Dynasty was stopped suddenly when Moon left after the 83 season. Presto chango, an unknown guy named Matt Dunigan took over in 84 and by 86 he led them back to the Grey Cup, winning in 87. Another unknown at the time named Daman Allen added to a strong tandem on that team. Edmonton then gets Ham, Ray etc etc. ...

It isn’t soon though, it’s a long time coming. Lost the last 5 games in a row including the gc and two gcs in a row. 
 

we aren’t. Not when we are healthy and we are miles from healthy.  Biggie ba kyrie Thomas wouldn’t make atleast 7-8 other teams. Neuf lofton(riders didn’t bring back) kola Augustine rookie wr none of them would either. And then Zach is the worst rated passer in the league this year. 
 

The tipping point on football talent 30+ hits extremely fast and drops right off a cliff. That’s happened to us. 

32 minutes ago, deepsixemtoboyd said:

Couture wanted to go home to BC. At least that’s what someone told me… That’s his home province.

Goose and suhk too. 

[IC Khari]

We knew this day was coming (or will be coming). Guess what? So do the Bomber's management. The rest of the season and the next few will be interesting as it will clearly show if they can do something to continue the excellence we had been experiencing. If not, then it exposes this team, allowing everyone to see if they can take the credit for this era or for example, were they lucky to get a great franchise changing QB in an end of season trade 5 years ago?

Edited June 16 by IC Khari

[17to85]

42 minutes ago, IC Khari said:

We knew this day was coming (or will be coming). Guess what? So do the Bomber's management.

The way they've run training camp the past 2 seasons and set up their practise roster and game day roster seem to indicate that they really don't..