2024/2025 CFL (non-Bomber) Off-Season Thread

[SpeedFlex27]

15 hours ago, wbbfan said:

https://3downnation.com/2025/04/16/veteran-qb-dominique-davis-retires-from-cfl/

The davis era is finally over. 

The guy just showed up every year for over a decade with the teams he... cough, cough... played for & did absolutely nothing. 

[Blue In BC]

16 hours ago, wbbfan said:

You’re moving the goal posts. You said “we only used 2 globals when injuries mounted up with our Canadians.” Fact is, we broke camp with 2 globals including karamoko in the dime role and went with that almost the whole season including grey cup with 2. That was always the plan. 
 
I didn’t say we brought in quality globals, I’ve clearly stated many times we have been random with global draft since 22/23. 
 

ample teams and rotational/package global talent is available. 

No I'm not. We started the season without Noah Hallett, C. Lawson and B. Feltmate.  Oliveria missed a game early as did a few other Canadians. Chris-Ike, Charbonneau and Woli missed an early game or more.  Our early roster was musical chairs due to numerous injuries. Geez even Murphy had to be added from our PR. Kelly missed 8 games and didn't play until August. That shows how limited our choices were on our PR.

Karamoko only played 5 games in 2024.  IIRC the other 2 global players only were dressed for 6 or 7 games in total between them combined.  I stand by my comment they were added due to numerous injuries where we couldn't field our normal compliment of Canadians. That made adding a 2nd global as our only option.

I agree that we didn't draft or have quality global players but playing a 2nd one was a forced issue as I've covered. I might add that we couldn't find a better quality global in the entire world better than the two we had? Only 18 get drafted each season. A few don't even show up after being drafted.

 

Our current roster has 26 Canadians. We'll draft another 9 in 2025. I'd take the bet that barring a large number of early season injuries, we don't roster 2 globals on the AR to start the season.

 

 

 

 

Edited Thursday at 03:39 PM by Blue In BC

[wbbfan]

4 hours ago, Blue In BC said:

No I'm not. We started the season without Noah Hallett, C. Lawson and B. Feltmate.  Oliveria missed a game early as did a few other Canadians. Chris-Ike, Charbonneau and Woli missed an early game or more.  Our early roster was musical chairs due to numerous injuries. Geez even Murphy had to be added from our PR. Kelly missed 8 games and didn't play until August. That shows how limited our choices were on our PR.

Karamoko only played 5 games in 2024.  IIRC the other 2 global players only were dressed for 6 or 7 games in total between them combined.  I stand by my comment they were added due to numerous injuries where we couldn't field our normal compliment of Canadians. That made adding a 2nd global as our only option.

I agree that we didn't draft or have quality global players but playing a 2nd one was a forced issue as I've covered. I might add that we couldn't find a better quality global in the entire world better than the two we had? Only 18 get drafted each season. A few don't even show up after being drafted.

 

Our current roster has 26 Canadians. We'll draft another 9 in 2025. I'd take the bet that barring a large number of early season injuries, we don't roster 2 globals on the AR to start the season.

 

 

 

 

Yeah ok. 
 2nd hallett had nothing to do with karamoko playing the dime role. He’s never played that. Lawson and feltmate had no thing to do with it either, how do you figure it did lol 

5 games for karamoko, 1 for lucky, 7 for weitz. That’s not a coincidence, that’s more than we started over 8 nis. we were not thin at dl, lber, or db for ni players at any of those points. We actively picked 2nd globals over Canadians on the same side of the ball most of the 2 global games. 

[Blue In BC]

29 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

Yeah ok. 
 2nd hallett had nothing to do with karamoko playing the dime role. He’s never played that. Lawson and feltmate had no thing to do with it either, how do you figure it did lol 

5 games for karamoko, 1 for lucky, 7 for weitz. That’s not a coincidence, that’s more than we started over 8 nis. we were not thin at dl, lber, or db for ni players at any of those points. We actively picked 2nd globals over Canadians on the same side of the ball most of the 2 global games. 

I said we used a 2nd global player due to the fact we didn't have a healthy Canadian on the PR.  That's not difficult to understand. Just look at the week to week changes on the depth chart. He had 6 ST's in `12 gm Cole was the back up SAM for the 1st 4 or 5 games. McGhee was for 1 game until we added Griffin.  Bridges also saw some game time on defence ( 7 DT's ). Nick Hallett saw game time on defence in the secondary too. Karamoko was always listed as about the 3rd choice at WIL.

Noah Hallett was an ST player and as such more valuable than a global listed as a back up at WIL. He had 6 ST's in 12 games. Karamoko had 2 ST's in 5 games. We use more people on ST's than we rotate through our WIL barring injury.

Karamoko was a waste of space on the roster. He's so good he was released outright. I don't know what you're trying to justify his existence in the few games he played when it's very clear that he was just the last man standing to choose from the PR.

 

2024 depth chart etc are still available. We had between 3 - 4 Canadians on the IR for the 1st 4 - 5 games. All we had on the PR was Murphy and Hubert. Neither of which was needed as positional depth and neither played ST's. Neither are currently with the team. As I said, at least Karamoko was capable of playing on ST's if necessary.  Essentially he was the only choice to activate due to the injuries.

 

Edited Thursday at 08:43 PM by Blue In BC

[wbbfan]

4 minutes ago, Blue In BC said:

I said we used a 2nd global player due to the fact we didn't have a healthy Canadian on the PR.  That's not difficult to understand. Just look at the week to week changes on the depth chart. He had 6 ST's in `12 gm Cole was the back up SAM for the 1st 4 or 5 games. McGhee was for 1 game until we added Griffin.  Bridges also saw some game time on defence ( 7 DT's ). Nick Hallett saw game time on defence in the secondary too. Karamoko was always listed as about the 3rd choice at WIL.

Noah Hallett was an ST player and as such more valuable than a global listed as a back up at WIL. He had 6 ST's in 12 games. Karamoko had 2 ST's in 5 games. We use more people on ST's than we rotate through our WIL barring injury.

Karamoko was a waste of space on the roster. He's so good he was released outright. I don't know what you're trying to justify his existence in the few games he played when it's very clear that he was just the last man standing to choose from the PR.

 

We did, though. We always have more than 1 Canadian on the PR. That would be virtually unheard of in the cfl. 

Teams tackles don't have any thing to do with it though. 

Cole = nickle, karamoko = Dime. Pretty straightforward? Depth roster positon doesn't mean much, Griffin ended up taking a ton of reps, karamoko did early as well. Go back and watch some of the lapo early season break downs. You can see him break down the ford, holm, kramdi side with karamoko in a bunch of snaps. 

Tackles are not a success indicator, no mater what milligan fans say. Tanner cadwallader was the most consistently oustanding cover guy in the league last year. Ayers made more impressive solo plays on teams that didn't result in a tackle than half the league. He could've had 30+ tackles if he played less reliably in his lane. 

Karamoko was a reach in his role on D. On teams, he was honestly fine. He did his job and didn't sell out to try and make plays out side of the scheme. Which is 90% of a teams success on kick cover. It so happens though, we had some stellar cover team talent last year. 

week one PR had 2 canadians on the PR ready to go week 1, and 3 on week 2. 

[Blue In BC]

35 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

We did, though. We always have more than 1 Canadian on the PR. That would be virtually unheard of in the cfl. 

Teams tackles don't have any thing to do with it though. 

Cole = nickle, karamoko = Dime. Pretty straightforward? Depth roster positon doesn't mean much, Griffin ended up taking a ton of reps, karamoko did early as well. Go back and watch some of the lapo early season break downs. You can see him break down the ford, holm, kramdi side with karamoko in a bunch of snaps. 

Tackles are not a success indicator, no mater what milligan fans say. Tanner cadwallader was the most consistently oustanding cover guy in the league last year. Ayers made more impressive solo plays on teams that didn't result in a tackle than half the league. He could've had 30+ tackles if he played less reliably in his lane. 

Karamoko was a reach in his role on D. On teams, he was honestly fine. He did his job and didn't sell out to try and make plays out side of the scheme. Which is 90% of a teams success on kick cover. It so happens though, we had some stellar cover team talent last year. 

week one PR had 2 canadians on the PR ready to go week 1, and 3 on week 2. 

I listed the 2 Canadians on the PR and they had no value on ST's and were not specifically needed as depth at their position. Murphy and Hubert for the 1st 2 games and then Samson added to the PR for the 3rd game.  Once again a 2nd global is added at the cost of a Canadian choice. Clearly the Canadian choices were of no value on either defence or ST's That's my point. Karamoko was the least worst choice that could be made under those circumstances. A global player can be added at the expense of an import but that rarely happens.  We had a complete compliment of imports on the AR and PR depth behind them.

Cole saw the field in multiple spots in the early going. He was listed and used in all 3 LB spots in rotation.  That tapered down when we added Griffin to the AR and Ayers seemed to surpass him on the depth charts and playing time. Obviously we know our depth charts are close to meaningless compared to how and where players play. I also know tackles are not the only stat worthwhile, however, he only played 3 games in his 1st 2 seasons and maxed out out 5 in 2024.

That''s not impressive in the least and the fact he was released should tell you he was nothing more than a warm body available. I'd hardly rate him as fine.  There is a reason why he was replaced after the early going by a Canadian ST player.

[SpeedFlex27]

On 2025-04-16 at 1:43 PM, Stickem said:

Put himself out of his misery....Classic example of 'just not good enough'....Looked like a winner at the start but in the end couldn't deliver

Davis never delivered at the beginning, the middle or the end. There wasn't one game where he ever shone. Where fans said this guy has potential. He had none. I hate guys like that who are gifted a spot because they're supposedly great athletes. In reality, they have million dollar bodies but ten cent heads. 

[MOBomberFan]

I remember Davis being lights out on the practice net, that's really about it. Perfect accuracy at a short distance with no pressure in his face. Big whoop I can do that on a good day

[wbbfan]

18 hours ago, Blue In BC said:

I listed the 2 Canadians on the PR and they had no value on ST's and were not specifically needed as depth at their position. Murphy and Hubert for the 1st 2 games and then Samson added to the PR for the 3rd game.  Once again a 2nd global is added at the cost of a Canadian choice. Clearly the Canadian choices were of no value on either defence or ST's That's my point. Karamoko was the least worst choice that could be made under those circumstances. A global player can be added at the expense of an import but that rarely happens.  We had a complete compliment of imports on the AR and PR depth behind them.

Cole saw the field in multiple spots in the early going. He was listed and used in all 3 LB spots in rotation.  That tapered down when we added Griffin to the AR and Ayers seemed to surpass him on the depth charts and playing time. Obviously we know our depth charts are close to meaningless compared to how and where players play. I also know tackles are not the only stat worthwhile, however, he only played 3 games in his 1st 2 seasons and maxed out out 5 in 2024.

That''s not impressive in the least and the fact he was released should tell you he was nothing more than a warm body available. I'd hardly rate him as fine.  There is a reason why he was replaced after the early going by a Canadian ST player.

Hubert  had value on teams and d. Canadians who can only play teams are always available in free agency. 
 

cole saw action as the wil sub early on D. He did not play Sam or Mac in the regular season. 
 

Again, nothing to do with the post or point. For the last few years we’ve been more of a 2 global roster than not. Karamoko is not an indicator of the global positional talent that has been available for the past two years. 
 Just like schmekel is not the measuring stick for ni dl talent coming into the cfl the last few years. 

[Blue In BC]

22 hours ago, wbbfan said:

Hubert  had value on teams and d. Canadians who can only play teams are always available in free agency. 
 

cole saw action as the wil sub early on D. He did not play Sam or Mac in the regular season. 
 

Again, nothing to do with the post or point. For the last few years we’ve been more of a 2 global roster than not. Karamoko is not an indicator of the global positional talent that has been available for the past two years. 
 Just like schmekel is not the measuring stick for ni dl talent coming into the cfl the last few years. 

Hubert was MEH. IMO he only saw the AR due to the injuries that Haba, Garbutt and Fox had in 2024. All were on 6 game IR by game 3. Depth on the DL was not good all year. Interesting that all the 2024 DE's are no longer with the team.

The PR roster is only 12 players. Of that 2 are created for global players. For the 10 remaining spots, the majority are held by imports.  I'd be surprised if we see 4 Canadians on the PR to start the season.  That means when you need to add a player to the AR from the PR that fills a Canadian spot, it's a choice between possibly 6 players.  As we know a 2nd global player comes at the cost of Canadian choice, not an import.

At that point a consideration might be made from a positional point of view among those players. Essentially which player adds the most value on ST's.

We disagree on whether the global players are a forced decision due to limited roster sizes due to injury constraints as I've suggested.  In 2024, 7 of the 18 global players drafted were either P or K. 7 of 18 also in 2023. 6 of 18 in 2022.  So in 3 drafts that's 20 of 54 were kicking positions. In the last 3 years of the Canadian draft we saw only 2 K's drafted in 220 choices.  That should tell you something.   I see the Als now have both licking positions held by 1 of each.

What I don't see anywhere in the CFL is a 2nd global player on an AR that is getting more significant reps on either offence or defence, ahead of any other import or Canadian.  What I don't see is one full time primary starter aside from kickers.

If an import is injured a team will activate another import from the PR or coming off of IR.  That is a different situation for a Canadian player that falls more into who is left on the PR in a smaller pool as I've outlined.

I don't see the value of the global program aside from kicking positions. I expect to see a large number ( 6 - 8 ) of 18 drafted again in 2025.  Their roster spots are an arbitrary ratio designation by Ambrosie.

This conversation will come up post TC to see how our rosters shake out.  Sheehan probably makes the AR by default. OTOH, we may draft another P with one of our choices that might beat him out. What I expect is that we may draft potential replacements at both kicking positions for development for 2026. Who ends up on the PR between the 4 total choices of current and 2025 draft choices is a TBD.

Even though I'm anti ratio, I would be disappointed if a 2nd global makes the AR in front of a Canadian.

 

 

Edited yesterday at 02:09 PM by Blue In BC

[17to85]

18 minutes ago, Blue In BC said:

Hubert was MEH. IMO he only saw the AR due to the injuries that Haba, Garbutt and Fox had in 2024. All were on 6 game IR by game 3. Depth on the DL was not good all year. Interesting that all the 2024 DE's are no longer with the team.

Hubert started really strong and probably hit a wall. Yeah he got more chances because of injury but he was noticeable in a good way when he did get that chance.

[Blue In BC]

22 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

Hubert started really strong and probably hit a wall. Yeah he got more chances because of injury but he was noticeable in a good way when he did get that chance.

Without knowing what a given assignment was or how well he followed that, or took direction it's a subjective view for posters. The only thing we know is that when we had import options healthy, he was taken off the AR for other choices. I don't remember if he also had injuries issues and happened from a timing point of view. We did add Ogbevoen for a game or 2. So those were our two choices for depth at DE.  So our global choice couldn't get more playing time than the Canadian we cut?

The team choose to not bring him back in 2025 and now he's in Hamilton. That must be worth noting.

Edited yesterday at 02:20 PM by Blue In BC

[Tracker]

3 minutes ago, Blue In BC said:

Without knowing what a given assignment was or how well he followed that, or took direction it's a subjective view for posters. The only thing we know is that when we had import options healthy, he was taken off the AR for other choices. I don't remember if he also had injuries issues and happened from a timing point of view.

The team choose to not bring him back in 2025 and now he's in Hamilton. That must be worth noting.

The problem we have in assessing the performances of someone like Hubert is that a) we don't know all the factors and b) we are faced with the seemingly arbitrary choices made by O'Shea defying all logic.

[Blue In BC]

1 minute ago, Tracker said:

The problem we have in assessing the performances of someone like Hubert is that a) we don't know all the factors and b) we are faced with the seemingly arbitrary choices made by O'Shea defying all logic.

Can't disagree with that. OTOH, it would have been so easy to just retain him after the season to bring him back for TC 2025. Note that I modified my 1st response about our global choice at DE being added for a bit.

[rebusrankin]

Is there information anywhere about the Globals available this year?

[Blue In BC]

5 hours ago, rebusrankin said:

Is there information anywhere about the Globals available this year?

I think I saw one earlier so I'll see if I can find it. In the past I haven't seen too many global players signed that weren't drafted. It's a very small instances where that happened. We've seen players drafted and not even show up. There are only 2 rounds for 18 players in total so losing a couple of no shows is not a good sign for any team.

You'd think there would be a few more that didn't get drafted still be signed for TC. I'm not sure what to make of that really. The competition is almost none for what might be 2 AR and 2 PR spots. At the moment we have 3 global on our roster and will draft 2 more.  Potentially all of them might be kept or 2 might be released.

 

As I suggested I might think about looking for choices that might be candidates in 2026. That said the situation is different that Canadians going back to last year of college. I don't know whether we retain rights of each year's draft choices if released. We also will draft 2 more in 2026 so are the ones form this year potentially better than in 2026? Don't know, but both our kickers will be potential free agents. Both may be back, one or both might be gone. Having a development plan on or off the PR would be beneficial.  A global kicker is like a free DI and in the case of the Als, they appear set to use 2 spots for 2 global specialists.

 

EDIT: There is a global player combine to be held on April 29 th. That might give us some idea of what kind of players might be available. I found the one from 2024 and there were only 12 players listed. Of that only 3 or 4 were actually drafted including the 2 we drafted. Small pool looked at and negligible post draft interest from that group.

Edited 22 hours ago by Blue In BC

[Wanna-B-Fanboy]

So... anyone else here really worried about a rolling with a raw rookie OC in a Cup hosting year?

 

I am... 

 

Blah.

[Goalie]

15 minutes ago, Wanna-B-Fanboy said:

So... anyone else here really worried about a rolling with a raw rookie OC in a Cup hosting year?

 

I am... 

 

Blah.

I’m actually excited since I think he’s a square peg square hole guy.  I feel he will use the run game more than Buck did. And that’s a good thing with Brady Logan Demski and others. 

Edited 20 hours ago by Goalie

[Noeller]

Jarious Jackson eases my mind a bit. I'm worried about Coach J calling games but I think Jackson will help in that regard. It's a good safety net. 

[Brandon]

6 hours ago, Wanna-B-Fanboy said:

So... anyone else here really worried about a rolling with a raw rookie OC in a Cup hosting year?

 

I am... 

 

Blah.

We have Brady O.... run the damn ball often!   I'm not worried at all. 

[Goalie]

If we are being honest our O last year was more vanilla than vanilla ice. So really it prob improves by default. Our O was 2nd worst to Calgary. It was beyond time for change with the O. I was excited when buck got the BC job cuz if being honest, found him to be a boring coordinator who couldnt adjust in or mid game to save his life. I thought our play calling was **** all year. 

Edited 5 hours ago by Goalie

[wbbfan]

16 hours ago, Wanna-B-Fanboy said:

So... anyone else here really worried about a rolling with a raw rookie OC in a Cup hosting year?

 

I am... 

 

Blah.

Buck was a rookie oc in 21. We also have Jackson to support as well. Not concerned with experience. 
 

2 hours ago, Goalie said:

If we are being honest our O last year was more vanilla than vanilla ice. So really it prob improves by default. Our O was 2nd worst to Calgary. It was beyond time for change with the O. I was excited when buck got the BC job cuz if being honest, found him to be a boring coordinator who couldnt adjust in or mid game to save his life. I thought our play calling was **** all year. 

vanilla ice, hold the vanilla, served lukewarm. 

[rebusrankin]

5 hours ago, Goalie said:

If we are being honest our O last year was more vanilla than vanilla ice. So really it prob improves by default. Our O was 2nd worst to Calgary. It was beyond time for change with the O. I was excited when buck got the BC job cuz if being honest, found him to be a boring coordinator who couldnt adjust in or mid game to save his life. I thought our play calling was **** all year. 

Word to your mother.

[wbbfan]

https://3downnation.com/2025/04/20/tim-white-compares-plays-he-makes-in-cfl-to-nfl-superstars-jerry-rice-randy-moss/

 

I get that he is saying we have stars up here, and that he is in the top tier of wrs here. We do, and he's an excellent wr. He went 40 or more yards twice all of last year. If he played on a better team he would probably be considered more frequently to be among the top tier of wrs in the cfl. But if he did, he would not get 125-150 targets a year. 75 out of 125 - 95-150 aren't great catch rates up here.