Colin Unger

Agree with this. I think its more easily explained by Mike O'Shea giving incumbents several games to lose their jobs. I don't think he wants vets looking over their shoulders for having 1 or 2 bad games.

I think this is a make or break game for Wilson. He's going to have to show something or it will be next man up. Its probably a make or break game for several struggling players TBH. Going 0 and 3 and losing at home to BC is a pretty strong "change something" signal.

Generally speaking and dating back to last year. All the late NFL cuts in the world brought in by other teams have been unable to outperform BO. And they wouldn't be coming in with leadership and Canadian passport. Id be more worried about it if we had paid Ouillette more than half the money we paid BO. The only american runningback really worth spending up to get right now is James Butler. If a good all around runningback who can do it all like Butler and like BO were so easy to find why do teams spend on players like Ouillette?

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.

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?

I can't for the life of my make sense of why Eli isn't starting. He's probably the best Canadian offensive linemen we have at this point. The pass protection has been horrible. Zach isn't as mobile in the pocket as he once was and has a history of getting shell shocked when he's got no blocking in front of him. With our wealth of Canadian starters Id even be open to starting Eli at center and an American at right guard. No excuse to accept the currently level of play from the centre/right guard positions.

Im not convinced that Haba and Fox getting hurt won't end up being a blessing in disguise. I'd love for us to be forced to bring in some outside talent and put Woods back on the roster.

Its not a terrible comparison. The main difference was Ray being younger. Its so rare in the CFL that a team will trade the top QB in the league that you had to make up a hypothetical situation to provide a comparison. And no you can't exactly compare Dru Brown to a guy like Lulay. I think Dru Brown will probably be a good starter but he hasn't yet proven that.

Its all together possible that that move would have payed off. But its also pretty risky. Edmonton tried something similar when they traded Ricky Ray to the Argos and it didn't really work out so well.

Lets face it.. Ottawa fielded the vastly superior offensive line, runningback and receiving core.

Not to mention that Wheatfall is our leading receiver.

I'm glad we didn't lose by having the league call the game with 2 minutes left. Now we only have ourselves to blame. I think we will be ok once the offensive line gel's. I think they offensive line played pretty horribly last season through 3 or 4 weeks before pulling it together. I'll never forget the week 3 game vs BC last year. Nothing this year has quite rivaled that level of inept pass blocking. The roster management is certainly poor. Which i'm ok with when we are still winning the majority of our games. But right now its pretty frustrating to see Zach getting lit up because we think starting a guy like Augustin is acceptable. We need a dynamic running back starting all games to keep the defense honest. No reason not to have an american running back around for games where Brady isn't able to play. One plus with all the injuries is that its got players like Wheatfall on the field. He looks like a real keeper. Looking forward to him continuing to develop with an enhanced role and see him in a core of Lawler, Schoen, Demski, Wheatfall, and Woli down the stretch. Lets sign Kongbo to be another Canadian starter and still ride it out with Augustin at RB and Thomas at DT

And yet we have managed to the grey cup 4 years in a row in the more difficult division. And the Argos were basically one and done. I don’t disagree that there’s been some poor decisions made at times regarding playing injured players in the cup and how many of x position to dress for x game. But that’s basically where the shortcomings of this organization ends. The team went to the grey cup 4 times and won 2 over the span of 5 years. Now they’re doing a mini rebuild while more than likely remaining competitive. Cry me a river. Who else is even going to the cup twice in a row these days?

I'm not saying that the team has been perfect. I've got gripes about who was dressed that shouldn't have been in the Grey Cup as well. However, there's no gaurentee that we would have won had we dressed Rose and whomever on offence its our anger for O'Shea making the wrong decision that leads us to think a win would have been gaurenteed with Rose on the roster. He could have got lit up just as much as anyone else. Maybe more. Who knows. I was reponding to several different messages. One of which suggested our veterans were going to be costing us more games than our young players this season and I was responding in disagreement to that. TBH on this subject I think its you guys who are ranting not me. Day in day out its the same sky is falling stuff we used to have on these boards back when the team was legitmately bad for decades. I thought that some of that stuff would heal with 2 Grey Cup wins and 4 Grey Cup appearances in 4 years. My main issue is that people are not comparing this organization to something realistic. Like another franchise or somethjing. You're comparison is to perfection. I think they've done a pretty good job over the coarse of time of replacing players and having succession plans. They've had to replace more outgoing players then anyone else for the last 5 seasons. At least half the roster has changed since the 107th Grey Cup. Did they have replacements for Andrew Harris, Couture, Chung, Goosen, Gray, D Adams, Sayles, Salyes, Alford, Nevis, Medlock (Yes Leggio failed but he was a reasonable succession plan), Maston, Richardson, N Taylor... How often does any CFL team in the salary cap era come back to the Grey Cup 4 strait years? I'm not suggesting that team management is above critcism. Not all their moves have been correct. I'm just laying out the reasons why I'm not "yet" worried. I think we can remain competive while doing a mini-rebuild this year and next.

I don't disagree that there's been somewhat of a decline since the team peaked a couple seasons back. But the bombers still went 14 and 4 last season and came within one 3rd and long stop of winning the Grey Cup. That's not a significant decline. The focus has been on winning the Grey Cup each of the last 4 seasons and would have been 5 without the pandemic. There isn't a single season in the last 4 this team didn't legit compete for a Grey Cup. They probably should have focused on replacing more of the vets sooner. The result of that is that we are going to suffer this season more from the inexperienced younger players in the lineup than aging players. Had we replaced more of the older players sooner we wouldn't be in this situation now but when you factor in that they were competing for Grey Cups year in year out a small step back this season is likely worth it. I still think this team has the potential to be pretty good and the younger players are going to be better down the stretch than they are now. I don't really see that many aging players on the roster who are hurting the team. If we are complaining about Zach.. which other starter in the CFL right now we would not be complaining about? Micthell, Harris, Fajardo, MBT? You can argue that Bighill is hurting us as the funds might have been better spent elsewhere. Jefferson and Bryant still look good to me.

And by right now you mean that you're basing everything on one week 1 cfl game? Don't get me wrong I think the potential exists for Winnipeg to seriously decline this season. Especially with so many younger players in the starting lineup this season. I count Dobsen, Loften, Wheatfall, Mitchell, Wilson, Bonds, Ford, Fox/Bryant, and Haba. There's bound to be some growing pains. I just don't see any reason to panic based on one week 1 football game. I wouldn't even panic if i was the team that lost to a quarterbackless Toronto team. A toronto team that most on here were expecting to be horrible. We will know a lot more about this year's team after the next game or two.

I wouldn’t be that down on the team yet. Week 1 of the regular season is an extension of the preseason especially for a Mike O’Shea coached team. I also don’t know who’s going to want to retire the year we host the grey cup.

If this was the offseason I think we’d sign him at a discount. But now with Woods and Adams it it’s super logical.

If Chris Smith is close to returning I would just let the cap savings build up and give chances to the players we already have and keep evaluating. The longer we wait to bring in veteran reinforcements the more vets we can bring in essentially. I would like to see what Pokey Wilson does with an expanded role.

I'm more worried about Strevy getting hurt because "he" decided to tee off on the defence.

I wouldn't be against bringing back Marcus Sayles at the right price. Seems to be several decent defensive backs out there if we run into trouble.

That makes more sense.

From ChatGTP "Yes, the Canadian Football League (CFL) used to have something called a developmental roster. The developmental roster was a list of additional players that teams could keep beyond their regular roster limits. These players were typically younger or less experienced individuals who were considered to have potential for future development. The purpose of the developmental roster was to allow teams to retain and develop promising talent without those players occupying spots on the main roster. The specific rules and number of spots allocated for the developmental roster could vary over time, and the concept itself might have been adjusted or renamed as the league evolved. The concept of a developmental roster in the CFL was officially introduced in 1995. This was part of the league's efforts to foster and develop young talent by allowing teams to keep a set number of additional players who did not count against the main roster limit. The developmental roster provided a space for younger or less experienced players to grow and improve their skills with the team while not being part of the active game-day roster." My God was it that long ago when it was brought in? That's one year before ourbombers.com went live.

Did they get rid of the dev roster or something? I remember when they brought it in and don't remember when they got rid of it.

I believe the active roster includes the dev roster which are players who don't dress but we protect.