wbbfan

Sounds like a real miser trying to make a buck off sports. Does he pay a reasonable lease fee for the stadium and arena?

You do have a point. And it is entirely possible that Thomas could be useful as a limited rotational piece in the proper role. However, he has 0 efficacy as a nose tackle, and is playing by far the most snaps of any DL on our roster. If he was playing 1/4 of the defensive snaps at most, as a 3 tech (which is where most of his contribution here has come) he would have more to offer with out question. WIth a full healthy DL he'd still be at best our 4th DL. Leadership and intangibles etc certainly have their worth. A guy like bailey has shown that. The big issue with keeping a guy like thomas around for that role, is we have Willy. Who is also the highest paid player on our D. He should be the one leading, teaching, and setting the tone. If it doesn't come from him, It simply won't mean nearly as much. A rookie imp DL fresh off NFL looks isn't going to take a guy like Jake nearly as serious as a guy like Willy. I agree on schmek. I think he should be groomed into a super utility guy, and really an OL. His motor, ethic and drive are superb. Keep in mind, stove was a young inexperienced imp in 19/21. So were guys like brandin bryant, poop johnson, and casey sayles. Experience, isn't a big requirement for performance on the DL. To date in their snaps woods and adams have been our best DL. Much of the year we haven't need the canadian DT. Its also not adaptation or evolution. We didn't adapt to teams defeating what we ran, and what we are doing isn't progress. Its devolution, we run far simpler less effective line schemes plus handicap our self with the guys we run out. All while having the pieces to fix it. Keep in mind, what we are running in the secondary is not long term sustainable with out pressure. Down south the fangio 6 scheme is not a base for any team, not even vic fangios. When the argos ran the similar drop 9 match cover scheme it didn't take long for teams to adjust either. At some point, we need to be able to stop the run with out run blitzing, and get sustained pressure. We will need to evolve to be a more dynamic 2nd level team at some point as well. I think if lawson was healthy and 100 today, woods would go onto the PR and we'd cut a DL. Lawson replacing thomas would go a long ways, but the rotation needs to be better and the best players still need to be on the active roster.

Our drop 9 really puts teams in a position where the fronts impact is minimalized. You can only block guys for soo long and when you have 9 guys sandwiching 5 targets, it takes a lot to make a play. Teams are also deathly allergic to the run these days, and to be frank the quality of qbing in the cfl is at atleast a 30 year low. Yeah, while I don't agree with the decision not to keep him, it worked out very well. The real issue is that we moved on from stove and sayles with out any decent next man up.

We were running cover3 with him coming in for the wil. It’s a look we’ve shown some through out the year. The drop 9 coverage we use subs the wil for a db who plays weak side mid field wall, which is griffin who has been excellent in that usage. (This is the same concept as the Vic fangio cover 6, which is a cover 2 but flipped so the 4 dbs cover deep quarters and the lber/nikel play medium depth zones.) So we must’ve not liked that match up / wanted to focus on taking the deep ball away more with the extra deep man instead of an extra man on the medium wil area. This would likely come down to wr splits and the seams the riders choose to attack. normally in the drop 9 we’d play That said, we would’ve been much better off with griffin in, in either role. When it’s a 2 by 3 wr spread we often play that split field zone with 4 dbs boxing the 3 in match zone and the 2 by side is more like man with one guy taking deep the other taking medium to side line. Then you get help over the top from the S if it goes to the deep middle and the wil/nickel if it’s medium and over the middle. Defending routes that cross and rub a lot, that spread far apart or start really bunched up, use motion to try and make the switches hard, splits like 4 by 1, and 3 by 3 are harder to use this coverage on. We used to use that iowa state type 3 deep safety look with Hallett, ba, and one hb more, but he sure struggled in it. Even though he was the mid field guy who has the least ground to cover.

Doesn’t sound like the new owner is willing to kick in in Edmonton though. Should atleast match dollar for dollar with govt money.

Guessing both are done. Lawson coming back will be a big help. Hubert was very solid early, they like schmeck and are hooked on Jake. Plus we have Samson on the pr who is a legit prospect.

Yep. He has game changing burst and versatility. Woods + Adams with one on the nose and any other end is easy success on the front. I’d love to see Lawson on the nose and woods + Adams out side once Lawson is 100%. That line would be mash city. Throw in Willy as a jack some and you have about as scary a 4 man rush as it gets.

Thus far Adams is still on the pr but I sure hope they get him off it. Don’t think bridges has return xp. But they could throw any one at it lack of experience stopped them before.

Too much ratio not enough quality for sure is a big part of it. Hansen and Kongbo brought a lot in reserve reps, Jake next to a nose with heavy rotation was solid too. Now we’re leaning on the ratio no matter the production. We’ve run out a considerable amount of underwhelming imps inside and out as well.

For sure, tbh if I’m another team I scoop up Adams fast. Way too much production and upside to sit on a pr. Biggie and both lbers need to be gone for sure. Ba has steadily improved and is even selling out for hits less. But we have a lot of talented young tweeners vying for a spot. I legit think schmeks best use is as an ol/fb/teams/ both heavy sets. By next tc he could replace the 7th ol and give us a ton more versatility. Then we can polish mci into more rb stuff and have a scary heavy set on offence with 6 ol, schmek, mci, and clercius with woli.

Thanks. Yeah it’s frustrating. I thinks it’s a trap we fell into based around the expectation that we could endlessly replace all star imp dl with rookies of the same calibre. After two years of failing to do so and making do with what we have it’s back slid into mediocrity. We struggle to move on from old vets and that makes it worse. Crazy how guys like nevis, stove, and sayles weren’t afforded that luxury. Going into the season the coffers were bare but we found a few gems to polish. Now we need to get past the old boys club and keep cycling through some young guys to pressure those gems to become the best they can. Haha sooner or later it’ll happen.

Not a big fan of bridges. Hubert off sucks but if we continue to use schmeckel in heavy set he can’t really come off and 3 ni dl with little Production is tough. No kr move is strange. I really hope they don’t intend to put holm on it again. Honestly I don’t see why you’d even put holm on it over ford. Bowers just such a strange move to bring in.

Haha yep that’s the goal! yeah im a big believer in cross training with other sports, and that every one can find some thing they’d enjoy playing, and it makes kids much better people. He’s done swimming and gymnastics which he loves too. Some hitting pads and grappling with me which he thinks is the funniest thing in the world.

Absolutely. I intend to coach my kid as he gets to that age, doing baseball, basketball and soccer now with him. Really hope he takes to football. If not that’s still in the future for me. Thanks for the heads up.

Accurate. I think you need to have a severe team bias, and middle school calibre writing skill. Tldr, married to mediocrity. Wouldn’t matter what front we run. went from maximum effort scheming to minimum. Kept letting premiere dl talent walk while doing worse in replacing them.

Dehydration can really mess you up. Could’ve pulled some thing, or some thing pulled might not be recovering because of it. You can get concussions really easy when dehydrated too. It’s scary stuff, seen some awful side effects from fighters cutting weight. Wonder if they are keeping him on an iv and actively keeping him hydrated. Critically dehydrating can leave you getting dehydrated for days after.

nailed it. Our coaches favourite concept to run is handicapping the team. Not joking even a little. In this case I think buck is really incapable of game planning around QBs, or defenses. Complete freaking joke. Took till Thursday too lol. Surprising that wade hasn’t been fined yet. I bet he gets it tomorrow, they probably waiting to fine wade till after the hit.

lol. I think they’d rather light it on fire than do any thing constructive.

Thanks. I was actually musing about contacting them the other day, my work schedule has opened up a lot. Might volunteer for a local football team instead. Reading the post ldc game articles on 3dn actually made me mad at how bad they were. It makes the reffing in the league look semi competent this year.

I'd love to see a heavily renovated commonwealth host the game in 26. Calgary though, yikes, the league doesn't need to high light that mess.

JY has lead us to running a 30 base front in our defense, but we also saw large changes to our scheme in 2023 as well. I've seen confusion and angst towards the front in many GDTs and else where on line. So I wanted to start this separate discussion around our front, mainly the changes we've made the past couple of years, and why we have gotten less and less pressure since 2021. First I'll throw in a rudimentary break down of the alignments and techniques. 5-4-4i-3- 2-2i-1-0-1-2i -2 -3-4i-4-5 DL technique TE LT LG C RG RT TE Position D C B A A B C D Gap identification Note obviously the TE is used sparingly in the cfl, though heavy sets are becoming more popular with 6ol, its mainly academic having them in as most defenses don't have DL who play a counter role to that other than in short yardage. Down south they also have Techs 6/7/9. With 6 lining up right on the TE, 7 on the inside shoulder of the TE, and 9 outside the TE. An 8 tech comes in when a team lines up a 6th OL beside a TE, also a short yardage type of set. You also see a Wide 9 alignment down south which is generally an even front, where the edge is far outside the furthest blocker on his side. The i alignment means inside shade, and has the DL lining up inside shoulder to out side shoulder on the opposing linemen. So a 1 and a 3 tech are right in the gap equally between the two OL, a 2i and 4i line up half in the gap and half on a linemen. Roles: 0 Tech = nose tackle/nose guard. Their primary role is to push the Centre back, and create pressure opportunities for other linemen. They almost allways draw a double team when executed right, and good ones will play both A gaps (2 gap player.) They generally push the centre to one side to body block it, and if the rb comes to the gap they are standing in, will disengage to make a tackle. These are your Stoves, Drake Nevis' etc. Most often, a 0 tech is seen in 30 fronts. in a 40 front, you see more 1 tech play. 1 Tech. Similar role to a nose, but plays only 1 gap in the run scheme. generally a guy doesn't need to be as much of a thumper or as heavy to play the 1 vs the 0. Its more common in 40 fronts, where you might use 1, with a 3, or a 2i. An advantage of shading the nose vs playing straight up is it can be easier to twist with the DT in a 2/2i alignment, and vs 5 man blocking fronts it basically prevents the offense from doubling your End on the shade side. So if Woods is in 1 alignment, and Adams is in the 3, where ever willy jefferson lines up on that side, hes sure to only be facing 1 ol. Woods is smaller than our previous noses and is really good at both that and 1 tech. But we generally use 1/0 interchangeably. 2i/2 These are the most common alignments in a 40 front, This is primarily a run stopping tech, unless twisting with another DL. Or some times it will be paired with a 1 shade to the other side of the line, in order for the 2/2i to shoot the gap in pass rush, or when the centre/guard is slow/sloppy with footwork and crossing the face of the guard alone creates pressure. 3 Tech, the inside pass rusher. Mainly this player will shot a single gap with the goal of creating pressure/disruption and making a play. Casey sayles is a good example of a 3tech. Lighter than most DT, but heavier than a DE. A bullrusher with a single gap in the run gap, but who mostly plays the same on every snap. Beat the guard, inside or out, get in the back field and tear things up. Usually a good 30 front team will have 1 or 2 3 techs. 2 3 tech guys with a nose tackle. This is often what happens when you see a 30 front get a sack. The tackles pinch in to help, but you can only block soo long before one of the interior get home. Either the nose is getting a 1v1, or one of the 3s gets a free pass to the qb. When successful a tackle is often left upright and unable to get in on the play. 4i. The other common end alignment in a 30 front. This is generally more of a run stopping alignment with a primary goal of turning a rb side ways and denying the B gap. This position does not start in the gap as much as a 2i generally. They tend to scrape into the gap and play that spot no matter the blocking scheme. Previously we used Jonathon Kongbo with great success in the 4i alignment. 4/5 Tech. A 4 tech alignment is often more of a bull rusher in the cfl, like jackson jeffcoat, or you might use a 4 when you send a blitz (like our DB delay off the edge package) off their side. 5 tech is the prototypical pass rushing spot, think Willy jefferson on most of his edge snaps. We havent made a ton of use of wide alignments, forcing the Tackle to reach and possibly over commit to the end. It is also a bit dependent on the pass rushers moves. Our ends currently mainly try to curl around the edge of the tackle, rather than trying to sprint on a dart. We have seen some of that play from Montreal, and BC in the past. In the earlies mafia days we started bringing in, and excelled at finding, Nose tackles. We pretty much fit our DL scheme around the nose. Often in 0, or some times a 1 tech, with a 3 tech DT and 2 4/5s. In 19 we used nevis and stove with jake rotating inside, two guys capable of playing nose and 2 guys who could play 3 tech. We let Nevis walk in 21, and stove missed a chunk of the season, so we let him walk in the off season of 21. Late in 21 we started working in more Cheetah front as well. where all the guys put on the DL can all pass rush especially with speed. Some times this would include stove on the nose with 3 des, other times it would be 4 Des with hansen, kongbo, jeffcoat, and willy, or 30 fronts with 3 of those guys on, often with willy on the nose. Though willy aligned on the nose in this front, he mainly played like a 3 tech, trying to shoot the inside gap on the centre. This is especially effective if the OL gap spread is wider than normal, or if you have a good combination of a quick end and a slow/sloppy centre. At the end of 21 we let stove walk, and made another wholesale change to the strategy of our front. We put jake at a 1/0 tech frequently, with casey sayles playing a 3 tech, and willy/JJ on the 4/5. It was kind of a hybrid from our cheetah pack, with the goal of jake drawing a double and forcing teams to block the other 3 one on one. But Jeffcoat missed almost half the season and dipped in his production. 22 Ended and again we let our prized FA dl walk, casey sayles left, with the spot filled internally by Ricky walker. We moved walker around a lot in 23, tried him in the 3 tech spot to modest success, then as the extra end rotating inside out, this to more success. But still the interior was a fraction of the force it was with stove, and sayles etc. JJ and WJ enjoyed a good year doing the same as usual, but better and a bit healthier. Cam lawson took a big step forward as the rotational piece, providing us with the most impact in the fewest snaps along the interior. But JJ still missed a good chunk with age catching up and we let him go in the off season of 23, also letting walker go. Lawson has missed all of this year to date, and we have tried to again fill the gaps internally with garbutt and habba, to very little success. This year we saw the largest shake up on our DL in a few years, between loses and the change to much more 30 front. We've had success with Adams and Woods, but both have seen stints on the PR sitting behind Jake, garbutt and habba. We've at times tried garbutt and habba in 3, 4, and 5 techs. Habba has been worse than his limited play last year and garbutt not much better. Jake has deteriorated to a fraction of his former self, and WJ has struggled with oppressive double teams killing his drive and his motor. We also got away from the no-thrill-for-bighill package that certainly shortened his career. Frequently sending Biggie on a "blitz" into a guard to try and force on on ones for willy. It seldom succeeded, as Jake doesn't demand double teams in side. And bighill rarely got pressure or disruption in the face of 300lbs guards. We have seem glimpses of all import 30 fronts, with woods at 0, Adams at 4i/3 and WJ in 4i/4/5 alignments. Which has done a tremendous job of creating pressure and closing gaps. Hopefully this is more of what we will see in the future, especially next year. We could easily succeed and disrupt the back field with that unit and a rotation including a healthy lawson, a second year Hubert, and the better of habba/garbutt or a new end. We could weave in 40 fronts with mainly different guys playing different alignments. Hubert could play some 3 tech, lawson 0 through 3, and adams just about any where. Those snaps have been far too few though, as our once vaunted pressure packed front has gone from the forefront of our defensive scheming, to an after thought. JY has done a tremendous job with the secondary, and limiting the bleeding of wasted snaps with edges who cant get pressure and blitzes that only waste a man. Taking the DL front to the next level is the key to our long term success on D, as we saw in the LDC, you can always get openings and create offence in the CFL if you have time to pass.

Refs didn’t see him playing that’s for damn sure

“I definitely was interested and had every intention to go to Winnipeg and play (that year).” “but I just had my first child and I was contemplating retiring because I just had a baby and I wanted to be there and going to Winnipeg would have took away from that,” These two contradictory quotes were half a sentence a part lmao. You can’t be contemplating retirement and have every intent to come here. Such a clown. Either it’d be mos, or more likely buck he talked to. Football isn’t family friendly. And that sucks. It’s fine to change your mind after your kid is born, and is go so far as to say he made the right call in retiring and staying home with his kid. Stealing the bonus cash however is greasy af. Lying about it now is also greasy. Such a prick.

Tomorrow for sure. man I’m a bit surprised we haven’t seen more shuffling or bringing guys in. Aside from the fact that Adam’s, wheatfall and one of case/smith should be on, it’s pretty ugly. We really need to look at some des, tackles (not guards), lbers, maybe a returner and punter. So far this year habba and garbutt have combined for 11 games 13 tackles and 1 sack. Pressures? No lol not really. Hubert alone in 8 games has 8 tackles despite dropping off a cliff along with his reps the last month. Woods in 11 games has 14 tackles and 2 sacks as our rotational nose lol. Adam’s has had 3-4 stints on the pr, and played every spot on the dl with 14 tackles 4 sacks and a teams tackle in 10 games. The schmeckel 11 games 2 tackles lol. We are burning soo many reps on the dl and failing to develop ends it’s sad. Blink is gonna be here for the induction too right?

At this point, not good. But, once the best available qb on the market is gone in the off season any thing is in play. Unless some one gets hurt. I mean we did pick up zach off the scrap pile in the same way and Toronto picked him up from ssk too on a big deal no one though was playable. I wouldn’t.