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I think its time to move on from Jefferson. He's going to be 35, he's had declining production the past two seasons, he takes plays off and he costs too much money. Too be honest, he seems to get a pass from many here, while other players don't.

If we don't allow players the chance to go south as soon as they're able, they just won't come here in the first place. So we're still ******.

First question, that's why I think we are in this situation where he hasn't resigned. I think he will need to go to free agency to see, teams are willing to overspend on ends coming off career years, not ones off multi-year career slumps. Now, he and his family are deeply entrenched in Winnipeg. I don't think they want to leave. The initial knee-jerk reaction of "I'm not taking a pay cut!" gives way to the reality that his career is soon to end, and his family is cemented in this area. He likely has some cushy post-playing gigs lined up here, leaving now to chase some cash could really cost him in his post-playing life.\ We did the exact same thing to Jeffcoat. He thought he would get much better offers and didn't, despite coming off a strong year; his limited games scared teams off. He chose to retire rather than play for cheap. We also played hardball with key DL free agents like Sayles, Nevis, Stove, Kongbo, etc. I would take any of those guys and Jeffcoat at the point we let them go, over WJ today. I'd pay more for those other guys than WJ, and WJ earned more than any of those guys would get. For the 2nd, I can't say for sure, as much as I would love to know the answer to that. Previous to this year, the thought of us walking from Jake and Kola was a pipe dream. The DL is on a rebuild, we need to bring in an outside FA, and we have some hungry young talents. Also, when our D was at its best, WJ was on limited reps. 19/21, we rotated the DL more than anyone does currently. We carried essentially 2 full DLs, and they all played meaningful snaps. And that is how the rest of the league runs their DL now. We built the paradigm, then lost the keys. Really, we lost the bodies, and our staff decided it's better to carry 7ol and a FB for short yardage sets that we never struggled with, rather than carry a full DL and rotate those guys in to take meaningful snaps.

I think if he weren't cut out to be a DL coach, they would've put him in the SnC room. Mos loves his gym stuff. Most kids who come up here were 3-4 star in HS at best, with size or athleticism, who went to a big school and didn't play. Then transferred to a small school, played heavily in year 2, and finally found production. Then, immediately came out thinking they'd go to the NFL. It's most often that, or the same path in reverse. The ones that come up here normally need consistency and reps. Not just game reps, but 1-on-1 too. dl/ol and wr/db are the positions that by far benefit most of 1-on-1s at all levels of play. It's hard to improve at doing 1-on-1s at other positions. But even without pads, linemen can grow endlessly with more reps against someone able to challenge them. DL is one of the most well-supported positions for development, though. Both lines have a tremendous volume of very high-quality camps for any level. Which is why its also important to support it with a good position coach, but having an extra body to support jake in his first camp would be a good idea. he should be fine after that.

Personally I wouldn't be as critical hiring any existing coach but sitting through a season with an unqualified OC is currently affecting my opinion on inexperienced coaches. If Thomas had retired and coached at a lower level for a season or two before getting the position, i would have zero issues with it but I also can appreciate that a DL coach is nowhere near as impactful as an OC so it's not an apples to apples comparison.

Dinwiddie is well known for being an elite CFL quarterback of course. And lets not forget the incredible play of Danny Maciocia, who's play undoubtably propelled him to his first CFL HC gig. I won't even begin to mention Scott Milanovichs fantastic career as an NFL QB where he completed 66.6 percent of his passes for a total of 9 yards.

Yeah, you're right. Thomas isn't going to be a make-or-break for us at Dl coach. Howard was very solid here, though he had spectacular results a bunch of other places. Young too. But in general, we have really struggled to take talented kids and turn them into highly effective DL. And this is over a long period of time with many coaches. We've never gotten back close to having what Richard Harris brought. Jake won't be any significant down grade over the past couple years.

It's not that they aren't important at all. But the way people are talking about Thomas and acting like the DL has no hope now is over the top. The biggest factor to how well the DL will do will be the talent that is or is not on it.

Yes, last year was his 5th season. Glenn young coached the DL and Lbers before that. 17 and prior for a couple years was todd howard. But Richard Harris was the last time we had a great Dl coach. also worth noting is that Craig Roh was at least a half player half DL coach while he was here.

Edit - too early and not capable of reading.

The overwhelming majority of position coaches in our league are ex-players who retired and had zero coaching experience beforehand. Your complaint is unfounded. Jake's not our DC for cripes sakes. You can count the winning HCs of 4 out of the last 5 Grey Cups among them Osh, Mace, and Dinwiddie all retired and went straight into coaching.

You sure about that one? 🤣

If they had hired Derrick P. Jenkins from Paloma Tech University would you be as critical? or does the name “Jake Thomas” just make you feel things

wonder how much holm got? i’m mentally preparing for it to be kramdi level pay. Despite a few heavy over pays, a solid free agency period and draft will have us in A grade off season territory imo. Based on the addition by subtraction I have us on the fringe of an A minus/B plus. We need a cfl calibre qb coach, and need to address atleast two of wr/ol/dl in free agency with legit cfl starters. Then we need to have a solid crop of draft picks while adding depth with real upside also at wr/dl/ol.

The Stamps in one day lost DL Jaylon Hutchings, Rec Mario Alford & LB Jason Roberts to the NFL. That's brutal. I don't care what people say about how great it is for our players to make an NFL team, this just kills interest in the CFL. And really hurts a team like the Stamps struggling to find relevancy in a local market where barely anyone cares anymore. It's like the Stamps are perpetually rebuilding. NFL teams need to compensate CFL teams if they sign anyone under a valid CFL contract. This system is unfair the way it is. It could be us next time. Hate it.

Clercius has been exceptional in his extremely limited role. I've got no concerns with him pencilled in as the last wr and 2nd Canadian for this year. Now we do certainly need to draft some Canadian WRs behind that, preferably guys who can outrun slow offensive linemen. I think we can address this either with quantity picks or a quality pick. We could also take some swings on guys in free agency, bumping Clercius to a rotational role. Guys like Brissett, Gittens, maybe Ungerer, or Nield. We could take a flyer on Baker for depth. He hasn't been healthy, but that means he should be dirt cheap, and as a last wr/back up thats great value. We could bring back Bolo, again a low-cost guy who could slide back and forth between the last wr and the backup. I'd love that. We could also jump into the full-on reclamation mode pile with Bruggeling. He still has a tremendous combination of size and athleticism. Didn't we just go through this discussion, too? Am I crazy? Way more guys succeed in coaching who failed at their positions than all-time greats. Jake also wasn't always some awful mess of a player. He was a very good rotational guy and fringe starter at one point. Being as effective as he was at bullrushing and playing the run, in his prime, requires a lot of technique. The problem has never been his trade craft. It's been that he is so slow for maybe 3 years now; he is lucky to get in contact with an OL on a deep pocket when pass rushing. He's not reggie white or von miller or some thing, but those guys seldom become great coaches at the position.

lol. Name one. Honestly. One. Just one cuz I can name 50 who weren’t. including some of the greatest coaches of all time like bud grant John madden and some dude named Vince Lombardi who played never played pro football. I mean really. Buck. Dinwiddie. Steinhauer millanovich macoica. I mean 90 percent of the coaches In both pro football leagues were just average to below average players or not at all even. Andy Reid sure was a hell of a player eh, I mean really.

We haven't seen disciplined WJ in a long time. But when JJ was here with the support inside both needed, WJ struggled when JJ wasn't on the field. Media types tried to invert that, because WJ was the guy who got credit and MODP nods. But post JJ, wj has been the worst version of him self, save for 2-3 games. Jeffcoat had 8 sacks in his last season here, where he played 14 games. WJ had 11 that year. Since then, WJ has played 35 games and totaled 9 sacks. Wj has always struggled with discipline. Once the ball is snapped, he relies heavily on instincts and gambling. This is most visible in how frequently teams have run read option off him and just torch him routinely, also his inability to get contain on most QBs, and how frequently he misses tackles on the QB when he gets into a good position. Despite his age and success, he has always been low on field discipline. When he was most effective in the past, he wasn't allowed to play rover. But seems to have been able to do it as much as he wants the last two years. What he has always needed to succeed is 1-on-1s. With guys like Sayles/Stove/Drake and Jeffcoat in the past, WJ didn't see a ton of double teams here. But ever since we moved on from Sayles and JJ, WJ has been the focal point of blocking schemes. And teams have realized that if you double him and get him roughed up, he will stop driving his rush lane. You can't put that genie back in the bottle. Teams are going to run read option on him in the run game, and double him with the pass. The way to make him the most effective he can be is to take away the other team's ability to game plan for him. The easiest way to do that is to take him out of the starting lineup. Rotate him as the 3rd end, and move him around. The only other way would be to surround him with ideal talent that requires double teams and support blocks. But that won't release him from his deficiencies in the run game. Could he be effective as a standard DE? I don't think so. He could've when he was younger. But I don't think he could now. He doesn't have the motor you need to fight through and keep pursuing disruption in the back field. We could make a useful role that is not a rover with him. It would have to start by limiting his snaps, though. This is really late for WJ not to be resigned. I suspect it's going to be a Jenarion Grant play. Let him hit FA, see where the market is, then try to get him back on a discount.

you keep saying this

true...and a bit false...How can a guy with minimal technique....zero hand skills and limited athleticism show guys the intricacies of line play.?...That's my issue...sure...read a book...watch other coaching resources ..etc...thats fine and dandy but anyone can do that and doesn't translate to success....If he hadn't picked up anything or refined his skill set with a guy like Roh here who was elite in that regard and ran an ultra elite DL program...how would he be good at transferring any knowledge and skill to others, as when he was a player...couldn't pick anything up from one the best resources he played with?...Nevis too...he picked up nothing from him....Not a hate on Jake as a person and positional coach shouldn't make or break a season.....but man o man...what a lazy choice, and when yu really look at it....there were tons of better options...I sure there other "smart" guys out there and he's not the outlier Considering JT still wanted to play they should have Kolo'd him too and seen if anyone offered him a camp invite...and then if nothing panned out find a role for him if Osh missed his pet End is probably the easiest DL position to migrate into for an Import coming up here....and the athletic ones and ones with elite hand skills and technique can eat right away as they not contending with nads on them instantly

If starting 8 Canadians elsewhere then yeah that would be an ok scenario. I just don’t want to see them have to trot out jobbers like Corcoran or Cobb to be every down starters, and as much as I like Demski and Clercius the chance of both of them playing 18 games is slim.

I think my complaint is legit. Osh's priorities make no sense. A real weakness was our DL play. Solution? Bring in a guy who just retired has never coached. Who was the big reason the DL sucked so much to be the new position coach. I've said this before. There has to be coaches who have more experience in U Sport that could coach at that position. Why bring in a retired player like Jake when we could have brought in someone more than qualified from the Canadian College ranks? These guys deserve a shot as well & seem to never get it.

Our interior is more of a problem than our D Ends. if we had two guys who could push inside controlling the run & pressuring the passer I;m sure our Ends play would improve greatly. Instead we had this Cheeto defense witha 3 man front featured with jake Thomas. He's gone now sort of. I have hope they actually want to see an improvement.

I'd watch a show with Matty , Walby, and 2 other drunks gabbing about the CFL. Sign me up!!!

Flat out, does anybody here seriously think that WJ is going to take a cut from $200,000 to say $120,000-$140,000? Secondly does anybody see the club actually limiting him to 50% of the snaps if here?

Those guys also had coached previous to their HC gig...for yrs...Dinwiddie was also trained in the U.S in the NCAA under more experienced and legit systems than Acadia U....bit of a difference Umm....guys coming from U.S into Canadian Pro ball do have a lot of learning and technique refining to adapt to how to play the Canadian game...especially in the interior...and yea a lot of guys too in the CFL and NFL for that matter...a lot of times moreso in NFL, come in very raw and have relied on their god given talent against lesser talented guys in University to overcome technical weakness....hand skills..etc..So technique drills and refining skills to adapt to the new game are pretty key on the DLine How's a guy with limited at very best skills in that regard teach it, by showing, and or critiquing what they doing wrong, or how to correct it?

If we're relying on guys who need to learn how different pass rush moves work, I'd suggest that's a scouting problem more than a coaching one. Guys are learning those techniques in Highschool in todays world, never mind college. Sure there are tricks to the trade but he's not there to develop guys from the ground up.

One of the pieces I read after his retirement announcement had a quote from someone (maybe Osh?) saying he wouldn't be surprised if Jake is a future CFL GM. Just a really super smart dude.

I'm assuming it was a small sample size but last year when WJ did play a traditional attack DE role was he a) being disciplined to that traditional role? and b) if no he wasn't be disciplined, why not? and c) if yes he was be disciplined, was he effective? I'm not convinced that it was all on Younger in how he wanted/asked him to play.

NO reason whatsoever really to start 8 Canadians if you dont have to...If that 8th Canadian is heads and shoulders the best player available sure...if 10 canadian are elite and best players...have at er We start...and or at times play more than the minimum with guys who had zero business being on the field in that capacity....and thats a direct effect of Osh and his Canadiana crap he likes to peddle to excess...and that needs to be nipped in the bud yup...I'd like to see WJ in camp and in games next yr playing a traditional attack DE role...for 50 to 60% of defensive snaps before making the he's lost it assesment. And when you are asked to play a take 2 steps and then contain and try and take away a passing lane...for sure its gonna look like a giy is taking plays off...And even in his prime WJ was never a real good run stopper and gap filler kind of end mucking it up inside the box... Rotated as the augment guy with 2 real good studs...and another guy like Bailey as your rotation with Lawson and hopefully 2 legit interior imports....we be just fine Should he be payed elite DE end top defender money for that...no...and sure he knows it, and could be a good motivator to up his play again in 2026 and show he still has it and up his dollars for 2027...

Yes but it's JAKE THOMAS. JAKE. THOMAS. Sorry my PTSD kicks in when his name is raised. Seriously all the best to him, I'm really glad he's staying with the organization and really really happy it's in a non playing role. Maybe he will move up the ranks like Wade Miller.

Yes and no. Some positional coaches are far more important, like QB coach. The 2 closest after that are both Line coaches. Line play is the next most important after qbing, but the adjustment to the game up here is big and we don't get polished blockers or pass rushers from the ncaa any more. Pretty much every imp T and pass rusher is a project of one sort or another. Having a sub-optimal DL coach when we have JY and Hall running the D isn't the biggest deal. Thats part of why I'm not really worried about Jake. The bonus from him not being on the field any more is way bigger than any loss from having him coach the DL in the worst case. Player success doesn't directly translate to coaching success or failure either. A lot of great coaches have played but couldn't perform at the highest levels of their position group. I would love to have a great DL coach. I would even go more modular with the defensive coaching staff, have a Coverage coach, a front coach (Jake) and a pressure/pass rush coach. Even bringing in some one like that just for camp could be a big boost. Some one who can coach the finer points of rushing and winning battles with technique and athleticism.

Haven't they made the playoffs 20 out 21 years or something? Perpetually rebuilding is a bit of a stretch. Losing guys to the NFL does suck, but it's unavoidable. Compensation won't solve the problem you're talking about and will just result in less americans who are on the brink of the NFL signing up here. It's not like the NFL is begging these guys to come to camp. They'll just wait out CFL contracts or move on to the next player rather than pay for a CFL guy.

And just now Schiefs gets mugged and pulled down right in front of the ref and no call. That's b******* And of course Vegas scores to tie it up. Vlad passes up a golden opportunity to shoot.

To be fair, the Jets are a big reason why Vegas is off their game. Stone interfered with Schenn off the draw, then ends up scoring. I wish officials would pay more attention to that type of interference…. It happens a lot and it’s rarely called.

i think cheaping out at DL coach by hiring Thomas is a mistake instead of finding the best available coach was a bad decision. Just the Old Boyz Club recruiting a new member. That's a major downer for me as far as off season grading goes. It takes away from an A off season so far down to a B or B minus.

Agreed. I also don’t think he’s a great veteran leader. Being loud doesn’t mean leading. Dude takes plays off every game.

Yup...We need the veteran and a guy who can still play in a nice rotational role....I dint think he has declined to the point of uselessness and over pay...and heck...we do that ad nauseum here so anyway....so why stop I wanna see him perform outside the stupidity that they had him playing last yr to determine the value....of he looks cooked in camp...surprise cut or trade Nichols...WJ...Lawson...Holm...Kramdi is a good core group to build around with youth, guess you can toss T .Jones in there as well so so 6 2nd/3rd yr guys and rookies to that mix will be an esy transition The ability to field 4...5 imports with Lawson and Bailey on the dline with the fact we should be able to have one of or more of Kramdi....Shay...Smith and hopefully Makonzo at any given time will have us light yrs away from last few yrs with slugs like Thomas...Korn...Gauthier...Scmeck (tho he has a role now)....Hallett flailing at ball carriers

That is a closely guarded secret. Keeps 'em guessing. And he needs to start throwing the words "crikey" and "billabong" into his jargon and mention how much he likes Helen Reddy.

Lifted from the Winnipeg Sun: “I don’t think I’ve ever been in a situation where there’s so many guys having slumps at the same time,” Niederreiter said. “I went and backtracked and I’m always slumping around the same time, which is this time, so it’s nothing new to me. The only new part is that we lose a lot of hockey games, which makes it even harder.” I find this such an odd thing to say, like yup it's that time of the year I go into a slump nothing out of order here, no biggie, nothing new. lol

This team is a dumpster fire. Something has to give.

Imagine this crew as the CFL panel. You could rotate the two drunks every week to ensure you're getting fan representation from all CFL teams. The panel would be moderated by Bob Irving and Luke Wilson to help fuel the fireworks. TSN has no idea what it's doing.

I remember when Holm was one of Booch’s original whipping boys.

Holm is outstanding... A worthy All Star recipient. Stoked to have him back.

Noeller and I call dibs.

Speaking of that I heard McKenna currently makes approx $700,000 dollars playing for Penn State.

I don't know why they don't just let Castillo do it all

If we actually let our Canadain LB's we drafted play...then the DA spot used on Castillo is moot and we can get the extra DA on roster in a "backup" capacity...I would tho draft a global....or find a Canadian kid to groom into doing all 3 tho....that should also be a priority this off-season

Honestly. McKenna and the Swede center would make us better instantly. Nodak D would also probably. So not the worst time to be bad.