wbbfan

yep, you never know when a guys rope will run out as a tc body / pr arm. Some guys fall through fast others like mbt hang around forever. Ufl might make more sense between nfl seasons if he continues to get interest but not an offer.

I hope for all involved that elgersma doesn’t fall into a trap of waiting around and not playing, or being a tcf usual down south. With his pre season play and tools though I think the interest in him right now is legit. If he gets pr time down there it will be good for him no matter where he ends up. I hate seeing guys sit who aren’t getting a call or real shot. Qbs are odd though and benefit more/ take more time before playing. For a guy that didn’t play high level competition, nfl tc type action is a huge benefit for him.

If Eiben shakes free i wonder if mos and jy consider him to come on here.

argos get quick to be the new dc. I like quick, but he’s pretty old for a guy with soo little dc experience. I’m surprised they didn’t promote eiben.

Chris Jones would be so happy that someone FINALLY understands lol Accountability goes like this; First, Wade, 100% responsible. Then Walters, 100% accountable. Next Mos with 100%. Accountability doesn't break down into portions. Its whole or none. Now, in terms of correcting their mistakes, Walters is, imo, 60% to where he needs to be. He needs an excellent free agent period for the first time since probably before the 2021 season. His drafting has turned back around, as has our rookie-level recruiting. Wade is 30%. He has less direct impact, but I think bringing back both Walters and Mos was soft, unless he's really laid down the law and fixed that whole mess of complacency. Mos is 5% the way there. Now, Walters is facing the off-season and the bulk of his work. Which could look like an A plus and be much worse when the season begins. And Mos won't really begin to start till TC. But I haven't seen anything from him that makes me think he will change course and actually correct anything. I hope I am wrong on that, but actions are needed.

You know those fat guys who seem to defy physics with their athleticism? Like larry allen? Both are like the opposite of guys like larry allen. Some how, they are stunningly less athletic than even their physique would suggest. I do hate that jake is on par with kola, he atleast used to be a very good player. But when you hold on too long that will happen. All comes down to Elgersma. If hes going to be in an nfl camp to start our season we should 100% go after a guy like powell. Perkins, was the mvp of the championship game and most outstanding offensive player for the ufl. Despite that, I’d have him ear marked for qb3. I’d still want a guy like powell to be qb2 who has league experience. I love the idea of having two young high upside qbs competing every day too. If elgersma comes up, I’d be worried about going with him and perkins. It probably wouldn’t be a guy powell, but I think we bring in similar league guys to what we did last tc. Another imp lber replaced by a ni. Wil/mac is the new go to for ratio flips. Hopefully we follow suit.

https://3downnation.com/2025/12/11/five-finalists-for-2025-jon-cornish-trophy-unveiled/ This year's nominees for the Jon Cornish Award. Featuring the son of David Benefield, Ty Benefield. Antawn Raymond is a really good one on that list, too. He has such a great mix of power and speed/quicks. Both of them, plus Mesidor and Elad, will be NFL-bound, I'm sure.

He brought in the pieces to fix the issues. Mos didn't use them. Yes, he could've tried pushing Mos more. But he isn't the big boss either; that is Wade. Walters talked about how every personnel discussion used to be a fight with Mos and how it's changed post Grey Cup wins. It sure seems like the power structure from the top down does not go Wade to Walters, then to Mos. At this point, the ultimate responsibility and failure to maintain the contender we had falls to Miller. We hemorrhaged front office types, coaches, as well as players. That doesn't all fall on Walters. We had the pieces to win 2 more Grey Cups. You can't understand justifying a guy who was stuck in the middle, but still producing in Walters, but you can for Mos, who hasn't executed his job with any level of competence in years. Guys like Vaval, Allen, and Woodbey aren't bare minimums across the league, nor are all the other additions you chose to omit.

I think if the CFL got the top QBs to pay up to a million bucks, it'd be great for the league. As it is, we can't get the backups to shake loose from the NFL anymore. No fringe NFL QBs come here for a chance to play anymore, especially if they got good NIL money in college. We can't rely on just hitting the lotto, as a league, to fix our QB talent issue. Great QB play, is the easiest way to grow the league as well.

It's such a silly change. If you want to let teams pay to win (or try to) just do it. Make the top end of the cap a soft cap and make teams pay for it.

That has become so prominent across North American sports these days. NFL teams, especially with QBs carry dead years on the back of contracts in order to stretch out the term and pay more, knowing they will end up eating it. We see the same in MLB and the NBA, where if a guy has 2-3 good years left, you have to pay 5-6 to get those from him. I wonder if it's going to wind up better for him or the cats. Is it bonus/guaranteed money he will walk with if he retires after next year? Or is it just a lock in that if he decides to play the 2nd year that he will get paid what he wants for it. In the CFL, I could see having a guy like that sit the final year on a 6-game and get his base without hitting the cap.

Idk what to expect with Qbs money. If Brady is going to get 250-300k, and many non-QB get low-end QB money, will Rourke be he new normal?

wilson and lawson back is big. Hopefully on reasonable deals.

Walter’s who brought us two extremely strong draft classes back to back, a couple great canadian talent trades, and a bumper crop of rookies like vaval, allen, woodbey, and the rookie ends who dominated in their one game. The same who already has us with the next group of high end imp ol in rando, who would’ve been an acclaimed all star on any other play off team maybe gotten nfl looks, and vanterpool who barely played but was our best ol when he did. The huge majority of the problem lays at the feet of mos. Walters hasn’t been perfect by any means, but we’ve seen him have the best free agent periods in the league while here when he has money to spend. He’s handed out some over pays for sure. And we’ve lost guys. But the team from top to bottom was in a maintain stage. If we are really in a re tool phase and it sure looks like we are, I wouldn’t pick any other gm in the league to do the job over him.

As far as competitive balance on that schedule, just for us, I really like that schedule. No stupid short weeks, no home and away back-to-back series (other than LDC/BJB), good spread out balance of bye weeks, and we aren't ending a season series super early in the season again. Best competitive balance schedule (For us) in many years. Personally, only 3 weekday games all on Thursdays, which is great.

It's a combination of factors, and a big dose of good luck. Not having had catastrophic type injuries, especially to your knees and hips, goes a long way. Because you aren't cutting at speed or running/jumping nearly as much as any other position, you don't get the no-contact injuries very often. What really gets guys in a bad spot for their career is when someone rolls up on the back or side of the legs. That kills careers. But also, if you are the hammer far more often than the nail, you will play longer. By playing on more great teams, especially ones that run the ball, instead of constantly absorbing hits, you are the one dealing them out. And you are far more often playing exhausted DLS late in games. If you are a road-grading type, you are also able to play longer, even when you lose a step and can't dominate pass reps anymore. It doesn't hurt that, in football in general, the OL prototype has changed to a far more sustainable model, and the gap between replacement level and all-star is so vast. You can backslide a very long way without playing your way out of the league. Ol also has some of the best resources for off-season training. The level of trainers available and the camps out there are extraordinary. It's only beaten by QBs, and has passed DL imo. Teams and trainers at every level are so used to taking big kids with upside and a severe lack of polish, and trying to turn them into useful players, that not much scares people off linemen. Most young guys would prefer to play DL over OL as well. So the kids who want it will always find their way to help. But it also means that older guys who have been hurt, like Yoshi, have an endless string of resources and chances to fix what's wrong and get themselves where they need to be. This is a big part of why the CFL focuses the ratio on the OL, and why it is the cornerstone of every team's ratio. The normalization and modernization of Ol builds have made a huge impact on longevity. We don't see guys having to constantly go up in weight for TC, or see teams pushing guys to be bigger and bigger. Guys 6'3 walking around at 295-305 with an athletic build are just a whole lot healthier than the old standard of 325+ lbs guys on squat frames. The growth of the importance of wingspan is wild, but those long guys often have a much better frame to carry weight.

I'm sold just based on the name alone. Someone call Key and Peele with that one. If he stays healthy and keeps him self in shape, He will make a serious run at it.

Right? The highlights, too. His build, especially in college, before leaning out, but also the way he rides guys into the ground and never gives up. If he ends up being half the player Yoshi was, or half the teammate, that would be a huge steal for us. But wow, they are dead ringers for each other on the field. We always muse on here about former great players becoming coaches, but Yoshi is the guy, more than the rest from the GC era, that I hope goes into it after he retires. That guy is such a fantastic person, leader, and field coach; he is exactly what the sport needs in the next generation of coaches. As much as I would love to have him end up here coaching linemen in the future as well, he could do so much good back down south coaching kids. The Tait article on Yoshi from years back is still my favorite of those articles. Such perseverance from him at so many points.

I actually like the pick up of Stewart. He projects as a strong run-blocking RT. He hasn't played in the CFL in the regular season yet, but hes a big, mobile, nasty, strong pedigree in the run game, and is still young. I see a lot of Yoshi in Stewart, which I'm sure the other teams who've brought him in and had him around saw too. Love bringing this guy into camp to work with Marty. Maybe you look at sliding Rando to LT if big stan retires or moves inside. Probably means Lofton is done here. Sure makes it look like the OL will be more of a battle than it's been in a long time for camp. https://www.thedraftnetwork.com/2023/12/22/tairiq-stewart-scouting-report-nfl-draft-2024 https://ncataggies.com/sports/football/roster/tairiq-stewart/3801

Smith is making 276, and Betts is making 266. Then Ceresna was at 246. The next highest paid defensive player in the league is Ford at 236k. If you pay him as a top 3 DL, I think you are in the range. Which is equivalent to a top 3 defender. I actually think the chances of him taking a fat deal up here are pretty good. He's 6'0, he had major knee surgery after he completed his college career, and he's 300lbs. He is very fringy in terms of size. We saw Stove go through the same thing, though Stove was a solid inch shorter and a handful of pounds lighter. Stove couldn't catch much interest down south after 19/21, but he did miss the start of the 21 season. His dominance down the stretch of 21 was 100% NFL-worthy play. Average DTs in the NFL are around 6'3, and they target 310-ish for weight. Some guys play under that, but it's rare to be short and light. If a team running a 30 thinks he can play the 4i, or a team running an aggressive 30 thinks he can translate at 3t, I think he gets a camp invite. But I don't think anyone is going to give him guaranteed money going into camp, especially off 1 year's success. I would offer the guy a 3-year deal, with a 100k signing bonus, and a 100k roster bonus out of camp the following 2 years. Then I'd give a base salary of 160k a year, and incentives of 40k each year. Something like 10k for 9+ sacks, 10k for divisional all-star. 10k (555$ for each game where he starts) and 10k again, split in 555$ per game where he takes the most snaps at DT, or more than half the snaps. That way, if he hits the NFL window, you don't burn off-season bonus money. He earns 260-300k a year, and everyone is happy. If he gets hurt, you recoup even more bonus money than just the base from 6 game stints.

ni db is a rare ratio breaker especially out side of S. But you can always get canadians at other positions. Or going down to regular roster usage. Last year was not a great ni fa period out side of our guys. That’s pretty interesting. Kinda lazy on their end imo. Hamilton is gonna end up filling the spot with a guy no one else would have doing that job otherwise.

and who knows maybe he will toss away a ton of value on a bad trade to us again

Yep. Won’t be enough for every guy to get a premium deal. Could easily be more guys looking for elite money than elite money is left to pay. could be a big levelling of the free agents playing field.

Yeah, I agree. dumb money is probably going to be the main theme of the off season. I’d rather not throw the dumb money deal at rb. We certainly need to save the money from some place and it’s hard to see improving and not using stupid money on either line. Yeah, we really need to remove some of the existing dumb money. I’ll be really interested to see what dbs get in this market. Qb, Wr and line. That’s where it’s easiest to excuse making dumb payments. Rb lber and db are the hardest. I wonder if a lot more premium free agents go to market this year now that we’ve seen some crazy spending out of the salary increase. Could be a wild year

100%. This is the best contract situation he's been in in ages, and very, very likely his last ever contract. But I don't think he will end up with a stupid deal. This whole off-season is gonna end up like the wild west anyway. Montreal is maybe the most frugal of the successful teams today, and they just spent like drunk sailors. I think every premium FA that hits the market is going to get silly money, and every team will likely have a none qb earning nonesensical money. I don't know why I ever thought teams would do anything different with the cap increase. It's the CFL, of course, they are going to spend like drunk sailors on leave. Previously, I thought Brady should be under 220k-ish. Maybe a bit of incentive money on top of that. I'm starting to think that line should be around 235-245k, maybe 250k. Still much more than I'd like to pay for an RB, even if he ends up being the best Canadian back ever (and I think he will.) But I think the market for guys like that is going to jump. If Philpot, etc, reset the market with the increased cap, someone may well offer Brady 280-320k. If he hits free agency, I don't think he will be back. Really makes me curious to what guys like demski, kramdi and allen will get.