2024/2025 Blue Bombers Off-Season Thread

[BigBlue]

YUP! Same as every year…

Bellyaching because we didn't make wild offers and upset the balance of paying the rest of the team well… And we are finally making all the changes we were bellyaching about not doing earlier. Booch continues his personal vendetta against Michael O'Shea. We probably deserve Mr. Friesen of the Sun.  Now we have someone else to shut Idown.

There's nothing wrong with Zach Collaros if he has a real offensive line. We saw what happened to the Kansas City Chiefs when they got handled in the trenches. Neither Kyle Walters nor Michael O'Shea are acting like ostriches. We have draftees and more importantly a good recruiting program so we can actually get three more quality linemen before the season opens.

Our rushing program will be excellent. And that will set up our passing game. Our defensive coaches is fantastic. Most importantly of all we run ourselves like a professional organization and we will definitely not be shooting ourselves in the foot.

We will be more conservative in terms of not turning the ball over and taking stupid penalties. That's part of the culture that has developed here.

Not one of us really knows who the top four in the playoffs will be this year. Were just guessing like everybody else. If it was all about money than Hamilton should be in the Grey Cup but we've seen that movie before.

We will have a good football club and we can continue to curse the Roughriders. The beer is the best and the crowd is amazing ... Our QBing will be good enough, not great, not horrible and we have a new apprenticeship program we can argue about. Yeah they have potential.

The grey cup Winner will be a sound club who gets a little bit lucky… Same as every other year. Unless of course the league's brain trust has already awarded the Cup to Toronto. Nothing new there either.

We all want to sound intelligent but one of the few ways we can do that is by keeping our mouth shut. If we really think things through there is a real possibility that a few of us might come across as either slightly smart or very good-looking.

Gold Bombers Go !!!

Edited February 14 by BigBlue

[SpeedFlex27]

42 minutes ago, Dodge and Burn said:

Right now we look like a 9-9 maybe 10-6 team. 

Neglect over the years on both lines of scrimmage have not been corrected this offseason either. Vaughters was a good get but dont see him turning that unit into anything more than what we saw last year. 

Lb's are mid tier. 

Secondary should still be good. 

Rec's are a question mark. 

Best set of RBS in the league. 

Zac another year older with a new OC...

Hope I'm wrong,  but right now the Bombers look half asleep going into a grey cup hosting year.

"Steading as she goes..." 

I can see the iceberg...anyone else?

 

I see the Good Ship Bombers sinking before they hit the iceberg. The team has sprung a leak. Especially with the way they are managing the cap now. 

[SpeedFlex27]

1 hour ago, BigBlue said:

YUP! We all want to sound intelligent but one of the few ways we can do that is by keeping our mouth shut. 

You say this on a discussion thread? Keep our mouths shut? We can cheer the team on without being fan bois here. Just because I & a few others here are criticizing the way this off season has gone. It doesn't mean we hate the team. Or aren't good fans. It means we care. For me, the alternative is to throw my hands up & say **** it I don't give a **** & start following my favourite NFL team a lot closer. I can tell you, I'll never stop loving this team. I'll also will never stop criticizing or applauding if I see or read something I disagree/agree with.  

Edited February 15 by SpeedFlex27

[bb1]

Back to football....Winnipeg Blue Bombers sign former Hamilton Tiger-Cats DB Dexter Lawson Jr., five others. https://3downnation.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c0b5ba8aa423955dcfd871950&id=46e295f857&e=41155e484c

Edited February 15 by bb1

[do or die]

Blue Bomber discussion board.........last time I looked.

[wbbfan]

6 minutes ago, bb1 said:

Back to football....Winnipeg Blue Bombers sign former Hamilton Tiger-Cats DB Dexter Lawson Jr., five others. https://3downnation.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c0b5ba8aa423955dcfd871950&id=46e295f857&e=41155e484c

Sneaky good pick up imo. Like Dexter as a guy who can elevate the battle for the last starting db. 
 Really like Trey vaval and cam Allen too. 
Allen isn’t a crazy athlete but average ish. Tremendous instincts and a great fit for our system if he can manage the open field speed. Hes another natural safety which is really interesting. Though I could see him playing an inside wall defender in our drop 7 scheme. 
vaval is another down field on the ball play maker. 5 blocked kicks in college which is pretty insane. Not an elite athlete but a much better on the field guy than a tester. 

[SpeedFlex27]

4 minutes ago, do or die said:

Blue Bomber discussion board.........last time I looked.

And we all have a voice whether it's good or bad. We agree or disagree. We're lucky to have this place. Fans in Montreal & Ottawa have nothing. 

[Arnold_Palmer]

9 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

Sneaky good pick up imo. Like Dexter as a guy who can elevate the battle for the last starting db. 
 Really like Trey vaval and cam Allen too. 
Allen isn’t a crazy athlete but average ish. Tremendous instincts and a great fit for our system if he can manage the open field speed. Hes another natural safety which is really interesting. Though I could see him playing an inside wall defender in our drop 7 scheme. 
vaval is another down field on the ball play maker. 5 blocked kicks in college which is pretty insane. Not an elite athlete but a much better on the field guy than a tester. 

Seems like some good players and pedigrees. I’m going to trust Walters plan, got to trust the scouting. The free agency champions almost every year end up being at the bottom of the standings, not to say you can’t improve your team in FA but I think there’s going to be a lot of opportunity for guys to step up. 

[WinnipegGordo]

13 minutes ago, Arnold_Palmer said:

Seems like some good players and pedigrees. I’m going to trust Walters plan, got to trust the scouting. The free agency champions almost every year end up being at the bottom of the standings, not to say you can’t improve your team in FA but I think there’s going to be a lot of opportunity for guys to step up. 

This had me thinking about that scene from Moneyball. The only way O'Shea is going to play a new guy is if the incumbent is not signed or is traded.

 

 

 

[Noeller]

27 minutes ago, WinnipegGordo said:

This had me thinking about that scene from Moneyball. The only way O'Shea is going to play a new guy is if the incumbent is not signed or is traded.

 

 

 

Don't trigger The Booch!!!

[wbbfan]

45 minutes ago, Arnold_Palmer said:

Seems like some good players and pedigrees. I’m going to trust Walters plan, got to trust the scouting. The free agency champions almost every year end up being at the bottom of the standings, not to say you can’t improve your team in FA but I think there’s going to be a lot of opportunity for guys to step up. 

At some point I wanna do a thread based on the building styles and what’s changed this year. I’m really interested in seeing how our approach pans out. I like it a lot actually. Though I wish we prioritized some positions like ol a lot higher. 
 

if you look at it the bottom 3 teams are big buyers every year the top 3 mostly rely on trades and shrewd moves. 
 Bc has been flipping big contracts more in free agency than top 3 teams usually do, because they keep trying and missing on big guys so they frequently have that room to do so. Plus they just don’t care about the cap. 
 But you look at the lions and Argos their biggest moves have been trades. 

If there is a big negative this off season for us, (aside from not getting away from old can’t get it done guys) it’s that we’ve missed out on a ton of value in trades when the teams in our range have been cashing in. 

[Brandon]

4 hours ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

I see the Good Ship Bombers sinking before they hit the iceberg. The team has sprung a leak. Especially with the way they are managing the cap now. 

The fear that I have is that a guy like Zach will be completely done and the stubborness of O'Shea of moving on will pile on an extra 5 - 6 losses for no reason at all.  

[Pete]

3 hours ago, Arnold_Palmer said:

Seems like some good players and pedigrees. I’m going to trust Walters plan, got to trust the scouting. The free agency champions almost every year end up being at the bottom of the standings, not to say you can’t improve your team in FA but I think there’s going to be a lot of opportunity for guys to step up. 

Last year everyone had hamilton challenging in the east and bc winning the west esp when they had Rourke and Betts back.How did that turn out? It isn't always about the talent on paper.

Free agency is way overhyped To me the best job by a gm has been mtrl and its not close.They have locked in a lot of key pieces for 2-3 yrs, signed a young qb for now and the future, and probably the least active in free agency - ( which is the farthest thing from free!)

 

 

Edited February 15 by Pete

[Booch]

On 2025-02-14 at 12:32 PM, Goalie said:

Open house at daughter’s middle school for next year last night. Ppl talking about safe spaces. Same middle school I went to and no safe spaces when I was there. Now it’s all a safe space. Didn’t even resemble the school I went to and it’s the same damn one lol. The world is a changing. Being SOFT is the new normal. It made me question what the hell we doing honestly. Same with work, if ppl had a rough 15 or 20 they can go chill in the dark room, just everything is now so overwhelming for people. It’s pretty wild.  Whatever happened to insulting the person who insulted you and then having a laugh and moving on almost immediately. 

Become a society of whiners and weak minded...and lack of a better word a bunch of pusssssssiea!

 

20 hours ago, Dodge and Burn said:

Right now we look like a 9-9 maybe 10-6 team. 

Neglect over the years on both lines of scrimmage have not been corrected this offseason either. Vaughters was a good get but dont see him turning that unit into anything more than what we saw last year. 

Lb's are mid tier. 

Secondary should still be good. 

Rec's are a question mark. 

Best set of RBS in the league. 

Zac another year older with a new OC...

Hope I'm wrong,  but right now the Bombers look half asleep going into a grey cup hosting year.

"Steading as she goes..." 

I can see the iceberg...anyone else?

 

Dbs..and Rbs as collective group..best in league...the rest at moment...mid tier at best until shows othwrwise

20 hours ago, BigBlue said:

YUP! Same as every year…

Bellyaching because we didn't make wild offers and upset the balance of paying the rest of the team well… And we are finally making all the changes we were bellyaching about not doing earlier. Booch continues his personal vendetta against Michael O'Shea. We probably deserve Mr. Friesen of the Sun.  Now we have someone else to shut Idown.

There's nothing wrong with Zach Collaros if he has a real offensive line. We saw what happened to the Kansas City Chiefs when they got handled in the trenches. Neither Kyle Walters nor Michael O'Shea are acting like ostriches. We have draftees and more importantly a good recruiting program so we can actually get three more quality linemen before the season opens.

Our rushing program will be excellent. And that will set up our passing game. Our defensive coaches is fantastic. Most importantly of all we run ourselves like a professional organization and we will definitely not be shooting ourselves in the foot.

We will be more conservative in terms of not turning the ball over and taking stupid penalties. That's part of the culture that has developed here.

Not one of us really knows who the top four in the playoffs will be this year. Were just guessing like everybody else. If it was all about money than Hamilton should be in the Grey Cup but we've seen that movie before.

We will have a good football club and we can continue to curse the Roughriders. The beer is the best and the crowd is amazing ... Our QBing will be good enough, not great, not horrible and we have a new apprenticeship program we can argue about. Yeah they have potential.

The grey cup Winner will be a sound club who gets a little bit lucky… Same as every other year. Unless of course the league's brain trust has already awarded the Cup to Toronto. Nothing new there either.

We all want to sound intelligent but one of the few ways we can do that is by keeping our mouth shut. If we really think things through there is a real possibility that a few of us might come across as either slightly smart or very good-looking.

Gold Bombers Go !!!

Mr oshea is a big reason of our roster deteriorating..whether you choose to.believe it or not...guys tend.to.not resign or pick a spot sometimes not cause of $$...or potential to.get theor dollars up for next deal 

And it's not that we didn't "overspend" for a big name.

 

 

[Colin Unger]

51 minutes ago, Booch said:

Become a society of whiners and weak minded...and lack of a better word a bunch of pusssssssiea!

 

Dbs..and Rbs as collective group..best in league...the rest at moment...mid tier at best until shows othwrwise

Mr oshea is a big reason of our roster deteriorating..whether you choose to.believe it or not...guys tend.to.not resign or pick a spot sometimes not cause of $$...or potential to.get theor dollars up for next deal 

And it's not that we didn't "overspend" for a big name.

 

 

Curious what is the concept behind Oshea being the reason for free agent losses?

[Goalie]

2 minutes ago, Colin Unger said:

Curious what is the concept behind Oshea being the reason for free agent losses?

Unhealthy obsession bordering on insanity 

[Colin Unger]

On 2025-02-14 at 5:30 AM, SpeedFlex27 said:

As I said before, at least Friesen calls it like he sees them. Like the media used to do years ago. I have no problem with his reporting style. 

He doesn't call it like he sees it.  He very clearly looks for negativity and always has. Not to see that there isn't genuine negativity to be had right now.  But he keeps beating the dead horse on how the bombers should have spent the new cap when basically all teams are in a holding pattern with it. 

2 minutes ago, Goalie said:

Unhealthy obsession bordering on insanity 

With what?  

[Tracker]

To put some icing on this cake, in the Freep today, Walters was quoted as saying that he thi8nks the team is deeper than they were last year, but is unsure if they are better. Faint praise, indeed.

Edited Saturday at 08:56 PM by Tracker

[Booch]

19 hours ago, Noeller said:

Don't trigger The Booch!!!

He's not wrong tho

 

39 minutes ago, Colin Unger said:

Curious what is the concept behind Oshea being the reason for free agent losses?

Well BOLO for one left due to it...2 contracts ago Woli was going to as well but some players stepped in and convinced him to stay...Strev this yr also alluded to it...I'm surprised Parked re-uppd as he was none to happy in 2023..there's others here but don't wanna trigger some light weights here who see no issue...a couple still here ...

 

39 minutes ago, Goalie said:

Unhealthy obsession bordering on insanity 

Stfu when you have no clue....I have this on 100 percent concrete knowledge...

 

38 minutes ago, Colin Unger said:

He doesn't call it like he sees it.  He very clearly looks for negativity and always has. Not to see that there isn't genuine negativity to be had right now.  But he keeps beating the dead horse on how the bombers should have spent the new cap when basically all teams are in a holding pattern with it. 

With what?  

With posters inane ability to attack others even tho some of his takes have no basis other than his assumptions 

[Colin Unger]

I'm by no means the eternal optimist i used to be.  However, the team does look alright compared to last year's team that was headed into camp. The bigger issue is that it seems like other teams in our division are clearly better than they were heading into camp last year. Arguably every one of them seems more imposing on paper. 

I'm using a bit of a cheat code in that I'm coming into this basically saying that Schoen and Lawson are new additions because they hardly played last season. 

Defensive line is in a much better position. Vaughters and Lawson being added and our American defensive tackles having a year under their belts and ditto for a couple of our young Canadian DT's. We are just looking for rotationary pieces from rookies this season rather than key cogs.

Secondary is probably in a pretty similar position. We didn't know Ford could play last camp and we were looking for a strongside corner as well. We have a bunch of Canadians battling for the safety spot, Parker as a dime, and we are gong to have to find a fieldside corner. 

Linebackers. Clearly superior. Do i need to do a writeup? Ayers NFL deadline passed, Biggie replaced already. Ect.

Overall on defensive we are in a better position right now than we were last season at this time. If our defense is at the same level as last season we'll be highly competitive with an average offence.

Receiving core of Mitchell, Schoen, Demski, Clercius, White Jr, and Sterns/Wheatfall as other options.   Vs  Unproven rookie, Unproven rookie, Wolitarsky, Lawler, And Demski. 

Upgrade at returner and runningback with the addition of Lopan.

Offensive line. Strikingly similar to last season. Tackles the same one a year old the other a year better. Nuefeld and Kowalchuck the same. Wallace vs Dobsen last year I call a saw off. Tui and a new draft pick incoming for depth. Randolph also an option to start. Starting a Canadian safety allows us to make a ratio change if need be. 

Wilson as a 2nd year pivot, Streveler with more experience, additions of Dolagala and Patterson make the QB position better. 

Overall the team is in a much better position and won't have to start a bunch of rookies this year. We can get them ready to contribute and give them chances later in the season. 


 

[Colin Unger]

I'd love to know what type of insanity we are dealing with?   DM me if it isn't suitable for public consumption. 

[Stickem]

According to turd down , Lucky has called it quits and retired....Not a surprise after disappearing last year ...on returns and his general contribution ...He most likely wouln't have survived tc at any rate

[wbbfan]

1 hour ago, Tracker said:

To put some icing on this cake, in the Freep today, Walters was quoted as saying that he thi8nks the team is deeper than they were last year, but is unsure if they are better. Faint praise, indeed.

I agree with that. We lost talent off the top and answered it with depth. 
 

34 minutes ago, Colin Unger said:

I'm by no means the eternal optimist i used to be.  However, the team does look alright compared to last year's team that was headed into camp. The bigger issue is that it seems like other teams in our division are clearly better than they were heading into camp last year. Arguably every one of them seems more imposing on paper. 

I'm using a bit of a cheat code in that I'm coming into this basically saying that Schoen and Lawson are new additions because they hardly played last season. 

Defensive line is in a much better position. Vaughters and Lawson being added and our American defensive tackles having a year under their belts and ditto for a couple of our young Canadian DT's. We are just looking for rotationary pieces from rookies this season rather than key cogs.

Secondary is probably in a pretty similar position. We didn't know Ford could play last camp and we were looking for a strongside corner as well. We have a bunch of Canadians battling for the safety spot, Parker as a dime, and we are gong to have to find a fieldside corner. 

Linebackers. Clearly superior. Do i need to do a writeup? Ayers NFL deadline passed, Biggie replaced already. Ect.

Overall on defensive we are in a better position right now than we were last season at this time. If our defense is at the same level as last season we'll be highly competitive with an average offence.

Receiving core of Mitchell, Schoen, Demski, Clercius, White Jr, and Sterns/Wheatfall as other options.   Vs  Unproven rookie, Unproven rookie, Wolitarsky, Lawler, And Demski. 

Upgrade at returner and runningback with the addition of Lopan.

Offensive line. Strikingly similar to last season. Tackles the same one a year old the other a year better. Nuefeld and Kowalchuck the same. Wallace vs Dobsen last year I call a saw off. Tui and a new draft pick incoming for depth. Randolph also an option to start. Starting a Canadian safety allows us to make a ratio change if need be. 

Wilson as a 2nd year pivot, Streveler with more experience, additions of Dolagala and Patterson make the QB position better. 

Overall the team is in a much better position and won't have to start a bunch of rookies this year. We can get them ready to contribute and give them chances later in the season. 


 

Agree. I think secondary is better. As ford to import at the easiest position in the secondary is a wash at worst. The rest will improve by having a second year with a bunch of guys. Plus moving on from ba will improve us imo. 
 

our ol will be a bit better by having time to play with each other. 
 

Our imp depth is much better but our ni depth is worse, and our star power too level talent is worse. 
 We will be far more susceptible to injuries on the top end of the roster, we need vets we picked up to excel in our system and we really need to hit on an all star with in our development guys and rookies. 

Edited Saturday at 10:03 PM by wbbfan

[Colin Unger]

The last time we signed a free-agent receiver with a similar profile to White Jr it worked out pretty well. In fact White Jr. was more productive in Montreal than Terrance Edwards was when we signed him.  All some guys need sometimes in the CFL is to take the experience they already have and get a fresh opportunity and role.

[Arnold_Palmer]

I’m not as down on our team as many people are either. Remember there were games where we were without Schoen, Lawler, Demski, Wheatfall, and Woli on offense. Losing Lawler hurts but bringing White Jr, Sterns, and Cobb and getting a healthy Schoen and another year of development from Clericus I think puts us in a decent spot not to mention maybe getting creative and including a guy like Logan into the offense. On D getting a healthy Lawson, and Parker back is also important not to mention, jones, and Vaughters. There’s going to be a lot of opportunity for guys to step up, also looking forward to seeing what’s in store for Gabe Wallace who’s an absolute monster.