Colin Unger

You're making assumptions that other players didn't get any raises. You can be that Winnipeg is viewing it the cost with Westerman in the cap and the cost without Westerman in the cap. 200k is a lot of money for an aging player who had a season ending injury last season. Signing him would have cost more than both Fogg and Clarke above rookies and Clarke and Fogg give the team much needed depth. There's also the opportunity that not all the veteran DB's we have under contract will make the team. Perhaps if you take Gaitor, Clark, and Fogg they will battle it out and only two of them make the team.

Westerman wants 200k per year though.. That's what 140k above a replacement level player. So when you have guys that make like 140k that's 70k above replacement level. So for one 200k player you need to replace two guys making 140k with league minimum players.

But who are you willing to subtract in order to pay for that easing? Fenner and Bowman?

The only problem is that this assumed Chung and Goosen will be healthy all year. We definitely need to draft another offensive lineman in the first round IMO.

If things don't work out on the offensive line we can still look at starting Corney/Faith on the defensive line. But i don't think it will come to that as I have faith in Couture if Nuefeld gets injured.

We will probably cut our major penalties in half without Westerman. I like Jackson Jeffcoat.

On what planet? I was expecting we had to pay a lot more.

Nice.. Good price for such a talent. I would imagine Heath wanted a lot more for doing a lot less.

Perhaps Ed Hervey wants to blow this team up. I wouldn't be surprised if Fenner was paid north of 150k. But who knows how much money Heath wanted.

I wonder how much more Heath wanted....

Fenner is exactly the kind of guy i was looking for. Somebody who can help replace Heath but also can fill in for Leggett if he gets injured.

I would like us to bring in a veteran as well but maybe not the highest price guy. Wait a couple days and if there's someone out there still who could help us then go after them. There's zero doubt in my mind that Santos-Knox would be a significant upgrade over Sam Hurl though. He's got a year under his belt and he's a natural middle linebacker. I would sooner spend on defensive backs and canadians.

We need at least one more solid DB IMO. We need a defensive halfback who can start and also potentially play SAM if Leggett continues to struggle with the injury bug. I doubt that Gaitor is at or near league minimum but still much cheaper than Heath who may be looking to be the highest paid DB in the league.

Personally I'd rather have two very solid DB's than one TJ Heath at this point. We had the all-stars we had the front end talent but your secondary has to play as a unit and it is only as strong as the weakest link.

True. But right now we are one Trent Corney injury away from having to play Faith as a nearly every down player. We need more depth there IMO.

I still would like to have a proven veteran National defensive lineman on the roster. I imagine we will sign somebody who is less expensive and younger than Westerman. Zach Evans would be high on my list.

This is why its better for players to have bonuses before free-agency starts.

I wonder how much the signing of Bowman impacted pending free-agent receivers. Perhaps Winnipeg was seen as an reason to hit free-agency but they may have informed certain agents that they are no longer going to be going after top receivers in free-agency.

I think role may have played into this and having to be on the same team as Duron Carter may have been a deterrent as well

It will be interesting to see if we can have 2 guys join the 10,000 receiving yards club in the same season. Bowman is at 9024 and Dressler is at 9491. If they both end their careers in Winnipeg it will be interested to see which guy ends up on top.

This is exactly what we've been missing in our offense. They would have liked to see Thorpe or Givens take over that role but now we have a guy we know can do it. Hopefully this reduces the hits that Dressler needs to take.

Stamps really starting to get thin on the offensive line! http://calgarysun.com/sports/football/cfl/calgary-stampeders/stampeders-offensive-lineman-federkeil-retires

This guy also has upside...

I'm not as worried about the track record with QB's. Winnipeg hasn't really dedicated to developing a QB. Bennett looked like he has some upside but we went with 3 veterans this past season. The problem with developing QB's is that you don't find out what they are worth until you risk some wins by starting them. I'm more concerned about finding import receivers at this point. I still think that Thorpe was a good find and Washington and Givens have potential. Not to mention Flanders.

We can cross Spencer off the Bombers wish list. https://www.cfl.ca/2018/02/07/redblacks-sign-extensions-spencer-macmillan/