2024/2025 Blue Bombers Off-Season Thread

[Goalie]

Yes I’m sure Kenny looking forward to playing in front of 10000 less fans on average probably. Eat em raw right Kenny.  With him and Bridges tho, that’s 2 deadly weapons for BO. Dude gonna throw for 10000 yards and finish 6 and 12. 

Edited Wednesday at 09:56 PM by Goalie

[17to85]

1 hour ago, Fatty Liver said:

Numerous players that left have indicated the Bombers failed to touch base with them, communication is key to negotiations, keeping channels open never hurts.

Players always think they are the #1 priority. Lots of these guys probably weren't communicated to because the organization was moving on. 

In the case of Lawler he bailed for the money once already and then missed time because of his own dumb dumb decisions so walters maybe felt it wasn't worth the effort for a guy like that at that kind of price tag.

[Goalie]

1 hour ago, Fatty Liver said:

Numerous players that left have indicated the Bombers failed to touch base with them, communication is key to negotiations, keeping channels open never hurts.

The bombers channel was probably closer to 240 or 250 than 275. And that’s really what it comes down to. If Sask offered him 280 he’d be there. If Calgary offered 282 he’d go there. Pretty obvious they weren’t willing to pay Kenny close to 275 cuz of they were they could have matched that 275 and all things being equal we would have the best weight room and facilities still. 

Edited Wednesday at 10:02 PM by Goalie

[Fatty Liver]

29 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

Players always think they are the #1 priority. Lots of these guys probably weren't communicated to because the organization was moving on. 

In the case of Lawler he bailed for the money once already and then missed time because of his own dumb dumb decisions so walters maybe felt it wasn't worth the effort for a guy like that at that kind of price tag.

You're justifying poor business practices, maybe Walters didn't feel it was worth the effort to get out of bed that day so he let Kenny slide.

 

 

[17to85]

1 minute ago, Fatty Liver said:

You're justifying poor business practices, maybe Walters didn't feel it was worth the effort to get out of bed that day so he let Kenny slide.

 

 

I'm just saying players are always bitching and moaning about something.  I can sit with my coworkers and ***** about all the stuff our bosses do yet we're all still here.

[SpeedFlex27]

To me, our GM used to be on top of things always. Now, he seems to be behind on a lot of things. Walters has been that way since he had that contract dispute of sorts with Miller who signed him last minute before the 2024 season. That really seemed to set Walters & this organization back.

Walters has never seemed the same since. He looks asleep at the switch half the time or disinterested. This thing with the salary cap blaming the players worrying they may re-allocate the $400,000 cap increase to pension benefits is mind boggling.

He doesn't seem as accessible as he used to be with the media. This isn't the same guy who built this team into a two time Grey Cup champion anymore. He seems to have no plan. Fewer players want to come here. We're no longer a destination anymore. And for some strange reason, Miller & Walters have deceided to become cheap in a Grey Cup hosting year. All with about $10 million sitting in the bank. Go figure. 

[17to85]

And yet if you listened to walters talk way earlier in the offseason, specifically about Ford and Dobson, the impression is got was that he felt the price they were going to get was way too high. 

Fans are upset that the Bombers lost players and didn't make a lotnof huge splashes... but I bet Walters isn't nearly as upset as fans are. He seemed prepared to lose some of these guys.

[wbbfan]

23 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

And yet if you listened to walters talk way earlier in the offseason, specifically about Ford and Dobson, the impression is got was that he felt the price they were going to get was way too high. 

Fans are upset that the Bombers lost players and didn't make a lotnof huge splashes... but I bet Walters isn't nearly as upset as fans are. He seemed prepared to lose some of these guys.

We never have chased free agents hard. I do agree with not over paying lawler, ford, and Dobson. We’ve lost a lot of top tier guys in the past few years.  
we have to replace those guys some way. We haven’t been replacing top tier talent with top tier talent. It doesn’t have to be our guys, or other teams free agents. Can be trades, developing guys, signing nfl cast offs who excel etc. 

 we hit with ford last year and lost him just as fast. So as much as that’s a credit, it’s a fault too. We can’t just be developmental for other teams. Walters n co need to do better with the alternative routes if they aren’t gonna thump free agency. 
 

Toronto has been doing it by developing, trading, nfl and obscure finds. Bc has spent in free agency and made trades while doing well off the in league off casts. 

[SectionKBlackout]

9 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

We never have chased free agents hard. I do agree with not over paying lawler, ford, and Dobson. We’ve lost a lot of top tier guys in the past few years.  
we have to replace those guys some way. We haven’t been replacing top tier talent with top tier talent. It doesn’t have to be our guys, or other teams free agents. Can be trades, developing guys, signing nfl cast offs who excel etc. 

 we hit with ford last year and lost him just as fast. So as much as that’s a credit, it’s a fault too. We can’t just be developmental for other teams. Walters n co need to do better with the alternative routes if they aren’t gonna thump free agency. 
 

Toronto has been doing it by developing, trading, nfl and obscure finds. Bc has spent in free agency and made trades while doing well off the in league off casts. 

B.C. is not the model of success since Mike Reilly.

[wbbfan]

Just now, SectionKBlackout said:

B.C. is not the model of success since Mike Reilly.

It’s true. But their short fall isn’t due to diminishing by way of adding less talent then they lose each year. 
 Toronto is the model every one wants. Calgary before them. But we are not willing to dump vets at their peak. We want to dump em when they’ve got nothing left or get paid. 

[rebusrankin]

Walters performance has dropped the past few years. 

[17to85]

30 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

We never have chased free agents hard. I do agree with not over paying lawler, ford, and Dobson. We’ve lost a lot of top tier guys in the past few years.  
we have to replace those guys some way. We haven’t been replacing top tier talent with top tier talent. It doesn’t have to be our guys, or other teams free agents. Can be trades, developing guys, signing nfl cast offs who excel etc. 

 we hit with ford last year and lost him just as fast. So as much as that’s a credit, it’s a fault too. We can’t just be developmental for other teams. Walters n co need to do better with the alternative routes if they aren’t gonna thump free agency. 
 

Toronto has been doing it by developing, trading, nfl and obscure finds. Bc has spent in free agency and made trades while doing well off the in league off casts. 

I agree with you, but I want to see how the roster shakes out before I really get too worked up.

[Noeller]

I'm really curious if there's some totally forgotten about player that we might sign outta nowhere... Like someone forgotten in the NFL who all of a sudden makes a return and everyone goes "wow!" I don't know enough about who all is still out there unsigned north and south ...

[wbbfan]

1 hour ago, 17to85 said:

I agree with you, but I want to see how the roster shakes out before I really get too worked up.

Yeah I get that. I think we are a couple more solid vets and a break through player or two away from genius off season or couple injuries/crash n burns away from completely bungled. 
 I like the idea of how we are doing this year. I think we should’ve done It sooner, and need more volume still to make it work. 
 

I think the draft will be where we can really start to dial in how good this off season was. If we draft again like last year it’s gonna help a lot. 

[Pete]

When looking at our offseason , and assessing moves, it has to be taken in context of our injuries ly. 

Schoen, Lawton, Parker, and to a lesser extent Wilson missed most of last season.If any other team had signed players of that caliber it would be a good haul

[wbbfan]

32 minutes ago, Noeller said:

I'm really curious if there's some totally forgotten about player that we might sign outta nowhere... Like someone forgotten in the NFL who all of a sudden makes a return and everyone goes "wow!" I don't know enough about who all is still out there unsigned north and south ...

I think with the cfl you always have guys like that. 
 Wouldn’t be singleton. But stiggers, Alford, Isiah adams, Sydney brown, maybe good-jones, or maybe some one whose rights are owned by another team is cut and we trade for them. Like Doug brown back in the day. 

[Arnold_Palmer]

1 hour ago, rebusrankin said:

Walters performance has dropped the past few years. 

Not saying he’s not immune to criticism, but we’ve ran the West for the past 5 seasons, we’ve been one of the top three teams for nearly a decade. Trust me it’s going to be a sad day when Walters leaves the Bombers. 

[SpeedFlex27]

2 hours ago, wbbfan said:

We never have chased free agents hard. I do agree with not over paying lawler, ford, and Dobson. We’ve lost a lot of top tier guys in the past few years.  
we have to replace those guys some way. We haven’t been replacing top tier talent with top tier talent. It doesn’t have to be our guys, or other teams free agents. Can be trades, developing guys, signing nfl cast offs who excel etc. 

 we hit with ford last year and lost him just as fast. So as much as that’s a credit, it’s a fault too. We can’t just be developmental for other teams. Walters n co need to do better with the alternative routes if they aren’t gonna thump free agency. 
 

Toronto has been doing it by developing, trading, nfl and obscure finds. Bc has spent in free agency and made trades while doing well off the in league off casts. 

Ford just seems like a wasted pick. We drafted him in 2022. I can't remember if he was even here in 2022. Then he went on a year long NFL sojourn in 2023 & came back for one season last year.

Ford became an all star & now has left for Edmonton because Walters doesn't feel CB's are worth what Edmonton paid. And Tyrell wanted to play with Tre. So, I won't fault Walters much on that. What I will fault is his unwillingness to pay players in certain positions like CB because Walters feel after a certain point it's an overpayment. Times have changed. 

Walters didn't want to pay Dobson what other CFL teams were willing to pay. To me, that was a mistake losing a potentially great young OL. We already have a veteran Center who may be the worst at his position in the CFL. Yet, he continues to play & draw a hefty salary for what he's worth. Kolankowski is who he is yet Walters & Osh seem satisfied with what he brings as a player.

Why? We can all see his limitations yet he continues to play. Isn't that an overpayment of sorts? We allow someone like Dobson to walk because we don't want to pay what other teams will yet still overpay to keep Kolankowski as a starting Center. It makes no sense. So then, pay Dobson. Keep one quality free agent on our team. At least our OL would have been solidified. Nope, Walters lets Dobson walk. With at least $10 million sitting in the bank & the salary cap raised to $6.06 million plus an unexpected a windfall of $400 grand in salary cap money, we can't spend any more money??

As WBBFan said, all we're doing now is developing Canadian players for other teams. We draft them, they come here, play a year or two & leave with nothing positive to show for it. That has to stop. We need to reset & refocus as an organization. We have to be willing to re up our best young players. That should be the focus. I could give a **** about some over the hill player like Jake Thomas. who seemed to be a priority signing over Dobson. Where we used to be on top of things before. Now, there's a lot of failings.

Edited Thursday at 03:50 AM by SpeedFlex27

[SpeedFlex27]

2 hours ago, 17to85 said:

I agree with you, but I want to see how the roster shakes out before I really get too worked up.

It's nearly March. If we have holes now they won't get  fixed by training camp.

[GCn20]

7 hours ago, Pete said:

Lawler left cause he wanted the money and we couldn't afford both him and Shoen so we kept the one thats the best value

Of course llLawler wanted to stay ...  At 275k

That's what Lawler made last year. There would have been minimal cap impact. We shed a ton of salary and have not spent much of it at all. We could have easily signed Lawler at 275 and still gone big game hunting.

Bighill, Alexander, Lawler..that alone is 300k in new SMS space. New players probably around 100k into that so far.

Edited Thursday at 04:38 AM by GCn20

[SpeedFlex27]

17 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

That's what Lawler made last year. There would have been minimal cap impact. We shed a ton of salary and have not spent much of it at all. We could have easily signed Lawler at 275 and still gone big game hunting.

Bighill, Alexander, Lawler..that alone is 300k in new SMS space. New players probably around 100k into that so far.

There was room for Dobson but Walters chose not to pay. Of all the free agents on this team, he was the one who should have been the most important. If you can't sign three then at least sign one. Dobson. 

Edited Thursday at 04:51 AM by SpeedFlex27

[Noeller]

2 hours ago, Arnold_Palmer said:

Not saying he’s not immune to criticism, but we’ve ran the West for the past 5 seasons, we’ve been one of the top three teams for nearly a decade. Trust me it’s going to be a sad day when Walters leaves the Bombers. 

This. People have no idea how good we have it. Nobody's immune to criticism, and both Walters and Osh own some... But Jesus, we have been so spoiled.

[Pete]

1 hour ago, GCn20 said:

That's what Lawler made last year. There would have been minimal cap impact. We shed a ton of salary and have not spent much of it at all. We could have easily signed Lawler at 275 and still gone big game hunting.

Bighill, Alexander, Lawler..that alone is 300k in new SMS space. New players probably around 100k into that so far.

300k in new space doesnt go that far

Vaughters  +75k      Holms   +55k        T Jones     +30k

Mitchel    +60k      white/sterns   +30k   plus additional increases for players like castillo and Tony Jones  25k min

so far that totals 275k not a lot left over if your operating to ly , However I don't understand why we wouldn't exceed that given that we have the finances to do so especially this year,

Edited Thursday at 06:06 AM by Pete

[17to85]

1 hour ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

There was room for Dobson but Walters chose not to pay. Of all the free agents on this team, he was the one who should have been the most important. If you can't sign three then at least sign one. Dobson. 

honestly, Dobson is a guy who never lived up to the hype... Wallace will quickly become better than him. I completely understand not wanting to pay him that kind of money. 

Truthfully the "loss" that hurts the most was Desjarlais, but that's ancient history at this point. 

Ford is a loss from a ratio standpoint but I don't think the secondary will suffer from it. Dobson is a loss from a ratio depth standpoint but I don't think the OL suffers that much in terms of the first unit. Lawler wasn't the Lawler that we were bummed to lose a few years back, and last time Lawler left for a big pay day we got Dalton Schoen so it can still work out just fine. 

I don't think there are as many holes as people want to imagine there are on this team. There's some questions to be sure and some areas that could use an upgrade but I don't know that it's all that much worse than last year with some potential to be better, 

[SpeedFlex27]

3 hours ago, Pete said:

300k in new space doesnt go that far

Vaughters  +75k      Holms   +55k        T Jones     +30k

Mitchel    +60k      white/sterns   +30k   plus additional increases for players like castillo and Tony Jones  25k min

so far that totals 275k not a lot left over if your operating to ly , However I don't understand why we wouldn't exceed that given that we have the finances to do so especially this year,

You forgot to include the SS for players that left. 

3 hours ago, Noeller said:

This. People have no idea how good we have it. Nobody's immune to criticism, and both Walters and Osh own some... But Jesus, we have been so spoiled.

NEVER question the Trinity.