Colin Unger

Winnipeg and BC should be fined for not adhering the same deadline as the rest of the league

It was a poor decision to go into the game without either Zach or Chris but I also think that we dealt with a fragile Dave Dickeson ego. He hates losing to the bombers so much because of how badly he's been dominated by the Canadian mafia that he kept a lot of vets in in for most of the game. I hope he enjoys this. Maybe he'll frame a newspaper article about the game and put it on the wall of his office. Also a punter! I think Chris-Ike might be on the roster because we don't have another fullback.

If Kramdi is no longer going to start at SAM i have to wonder how long we keep paying him 130k.

My view of the situation with O'Shea and the handling of the ratio is as follows. The team essentially identifies which are their 7 canadian positions and they dedicate to keeping those positions Canadian and draft depth to make sure they won't have to change their ratio in the middle of the season due to an injury or two. Those positions are 3 OL, 2 Rec, RB, and DT. When a Canadian player is the best player at a different position like corner and sam linebacker then the best man starts. But since those positions are too difficult to draft and develop a flow of Canadian starters they will never become long term Canadian positions for the team. It's also considerably more difficult to re-sign quality backups as these positions if the team starts an American at those positions every time there's an injury. And at that point you're not really developing the younger backups into future starters either. I believe this is the appropriate context from which to view the decisions the teams makes over the handling of their roster. However, in the case of the Cam Lawson injury and the combination of the lack of experience (Sampson) and pedigree (Schmekel) of the Canadian players behind Jake Thomas i think the team should make an exception and at the very least utilize an import as a part of a rotation with Jake Thomas.

My view is Arbuckle was brought in to back up Dukes. In that division I could see the Argos still winning close to half their games with Dukes and then they get their start back for most of the second half of the season. The Argos are a good team and Dinwiddie is a great coach.

Brown has more talent than Arbuckle. I wouldn’t compare the two. Ottawa also has amassed quite a bit of talent around the qb and could be a force in a weak East division.

I was disappointed too. But nobody really flew off the page. So I’m going moreso off the role that the bombers gave him.

Its too bad Rod Black isn't still around if a guy named Moses ends up patrolling the bombers defense. There's a lot of material there. I can't imagine Barriere has any way of winning the number 3 job after that game. Both the fact that Wilson looked solid and in control and Barriere while showing some athletic flashes looked rather awful in the the passing game. I would imagine most of next game will be dedicated to getting Zach ready and giving a few extra reps to Streveler. How much opportunity will Barriere even have to redeem himself? At this point i think Cruickshank is probably in line for the return job. He didn't do anything on returns but nobody else flew off the page. I love Cruickshank's college highlight package and the bombers used him on offense. He got a sweep and a couple catches. The main separator right now is that he seems to have the potential to do more than just return kicks or at least the bombers seem to think so. Chauncy Rivers has to get some credit for making a sack. I like his size and lets face it his number of 56 at that position might be an omen. In terms of potential dev roster guys i thought Hackett looked pretty good to me if there's still room in the CFL for 5 foot 7 dbs.

Its interesting how many rookies didn't make the trip. I wonder what that means for them.

There’s not much point. Rourke is still going to exhaust his nfl aspirations and then he will come back and play in the cfl on a contract that fits within the context of the salary cap. did teams not have the ability to pay Flutie, Garcia, Dickinson and Burris whatever they wanted when they left for the nfl? I’m not a fans of the changes. Special teams is a big part of the Canadian game and gives great opportunities for Canadian players to make the team based on their special teams acumen. I would not want to see the cfl alter or diminish the return game.

I was viewing it as his smarts are a real asset in the CFL. On paper a lot of CFL greats don't have any one skill that flies off the page for NFL scouts. Even Milt or Arland Bruce probably would have been categorized like this by NFL teams. In Milt's case it was really his smarts that make him such a good CFL receiver. His measurables alone would not have made him standout verses half of the receivers in the CFL.

From what I've gathered about Josh Vann, he appears to be a solid CFL prospect. He doesn't posses a singular skill or physical attribute that flies off the page and I believe that's why no NFL team is bothering to develop him on a practice roster. He posses good smarts and vision and this helps him to read the defense and put himself in a position for a catch plus yak yards. Despite facing challenges with drops early in college, he's managed to overcome them and establish himself as a reliable pass catcher. He's 5 foot 10 which i think is fairly average in the CFL and has good jumping ability and body control. He's a guy I think we could develop. Unfortunately I don't see him making much of an impact at WR and is more of a slot type of guy in the CFL.

O'Shea general strategy is vets don't need to be injured to miss practice and vets don't need to be healthy enough to help the team to play. I think you're right its 10. I got a bit mixed up counting the fullback as the 11th. But that fullback won't be on the field that often.

I stand corrected about Houston. It was Parker on the 3rd and 5 and Houston on the game winning touchdown. I still believe that some of the poor play from our secondary in that game was as a result of the decision to dress Bighill ahead of an extra DB. We had db's getting injured in that game and playing hurt. Could have had Rose available. I wasn't intending to blame the whole game on Houston/Parker... Im just saying that despite the coaching mistakes to play Bighill and Scheon we still were in a position to make one stop and we would have won.

If Gautier starts at MLB by my count that's 11 Canadian starters in week 1. I wonder when was the last time that happened in the CFL. Would be kind of a neat achievement to see them start 12 Canadians and 12 Americans.

Crazy to think if Houston makes one play we still would have won.

Wish we could see what milt could do in a scrimmage

Who is the other one? Manu and?

https://3downnation.com/2024/02/22/antonio-simmons-looking-to-make-cfl-comeback-after-mental-health-break/ bombers apparently expressed interest in him. Potential defensive end replacement at a discount.

They did make a coaching change on special teams. Hopefully there will be an impact from that. The lack of depth last year stems largely from probably the weakest recruitment class we've had under this regime. I'm hopeful things will be back to normal in that regard this year with half as many jobs available in the USFL/XFL.

I imagine we’ll get back into the habit of drafting an offensive lineman early who can at the very least provide instant depth and then draft another developmental guy later on in the draft who will go back to school. We’ve discovered quite a few starting calibre lineman outside of the first round. Wouldn’t be surprised if we drafted an offensive lineman, wr, and linebacker with our three picks in the first two rounds. It’s crazy to think that we could have 10 Canadian starters if Ford ends up starting at corner.

https://3downnation.com/2023/07/20/winnipeg-blue-bombers-flex-late-on-winless-edmonton-elks-12-other-thoughts/ I was able to find verification of it. It wasn’t reflected in the bombers depth charts. Scroll down to the segment called hog shuffle.

I remember during the season they gave Dobson a start for Gray for one game. I think he made a couple of mental mistakes early in the game and was pretty solid as the game went on.

Without seeing salary demands it’s hard to comment. Also perhaps Gray after being here this long was told he would have to compete for a starting job here and decided to move on based on that alone. All other things being equal Gray might have made more sense then kola.

I would count him. He was released because they had cheaper alternatives. Most of whom are not as good as a healthy Rhymes.