wbbfan

I feel like they’ve already cooked their own goose.

The big differences for me is 1, obviously a hof career as a player, and 2, mos was a bigger part of a more liberal coaching staff vs being a much smaller part of a very controlled coaching staff. Killiam became the ast hc just as the stamps decent into dumpster fire began as well. I think the only way you hire killiam is to be a figure head while keeping benevides and maksymic plugging him in as hc/sts co with one of the cos becoming ast hc. And that assumes killiam would want that kind of role. With the coaches cap now, it’s much harder to balance a staff around a hc whose hands on section is special teams. You are gonna be hamstrung paying both cos more, and struggle even more with position coaches. (The situation we are in, only we’ve developed both our cos in house)

I don’t get maksymic. He’s run offences that struggle to protect the ball, run the ball, and get the most out of his QBs. They basically chuck the most and score some of the fewest tds and struggle in the red zone play the big games. Also, doesn’t make sense to consider him for hc along side buck. You aren’t gonna keep him and bring in buck. Benevides has slowly been back sliding in his career for the past 11 years. From hc, to ast hc dc, to dc, to teams co and spent a year out of football at least. qft. this is an ugly list of hc candidates for a team that wants to compete right away. Atleast buck has modern rings, and has run offences that have lead the league with the pass and the run. He should have a big advantage on this Job. A veritable who’s who, of people I wouldn’t hire or interview for that job lol.

Yeah he was a great find and again is a guy in that slimmer more athletic modern linemen mold that we excel with. To change topics a bit looking at other teams free agents here’s guys I’d love for us to go after. Mcinnis. If he hits cfl free agency, I’d offer him Brady money. Even if it means we’d lose lawler. Mauldin. Feel like he’d be the perfect complement to wj. Ceresna. Replace one Jake with another. Would be a terror along side our imps and Lawson. Give us a ton more ratio flexibility. Similarly betts would be a good pick up but I like ceresna much more. Mcmanis, and Pickett. Picking on the rbs and Argos here but both are modp type guys and among the best at their positions with tons of versatility. Some thing we lack on D now. Leake/grant. Prefer Leake for his offensive fit as a Swiss Army knife as well as a dangerous returning but either would be a big win. A vet back up qb with starting experience. Couture. Won’t happen, but I’d throw a bank at him if healthy. Ol has not been a shell of what it was since he left. We’ve treated Canadians and ol like they are replaceable but not done a good job of replacing them lately. haggerty (failing that, zema, or grace) replace shanky with a much better punter. Haggerty might be too old for an nfl look too. Shouldn’t be real expensive to upgrade p.

Randolph is a good project, he was damn good at G. More legit of a T prospect. It didn’t work out well swapping Lofton and Randolph it seemed like they’d be better playing LT and rt than switching both guys spot. Randolph should be a prime candidate for a T spot even LT when Bryant retires, especially if he takes the year two step forward. But we need a guy to raise the level of competition in camp at that RT spot. When you have a bunch of prospects you tend to get the least bad of the group. When you have a good player you tend to get the best every one has to offer.

We did have other guys working the front office, most were coaches doing double duties. Bob Dyce was a huge part of that front office for instance while being a wr coach as well. He did more in the front office than coaching imo. yup. Old Dave early on handled a lot of the gm duties and taman assisted him. This is how the team and league worked back then. Khari and most QBs called their own plays, not the oc. Coaching staff’s were your scouts etc. some teams had it better, but it was basically the way things worked from hs to college and up to the cfl at that time.

For 10 plus games Dobson was in the top 2 best performers on our ol. Kola is in a tier by him self. After that, at worst Dobson is better than most all of nuefs games this year, and 2nd worst is handily Lofton. Lofton has no idea how to gauge the distance he needs to cover. Hes repeatedly kick stepped him self out of plays and right into zach butt tackling him. He struggles greatly with speed off the edge, and only wins pass pro battles if some one bull rushes directly into his frame. And that’s despite the fact that holding calls have been out on a shelf. In run pro, he doesn’t have the ability to drive ends, get to the next level or wall guys into his double partner so he or they can secure the gap and one can get up to the lber. He has all of the physical tools to play line very well. But seemingly none of the cerebral ones. When you can’t win locked up one on ones consistently against guys 70lbs lighter than you you just don’t have any where to go. It’s hard to find develop and upgrade Canadian spots. As jbr said, it’s not likely that we will be able to find a FA NI guard who will be better. But for imps, we can find better at T with our too much effort or money. Imo, if any one wants a bidding war on Dobson you let them take him. Then you flip to an imp guard, maybe slide Lofton back to his natural spot. Bring in a real RT and replace kola. If Dobson comes back, I’d still favour that change and slide Dobson/eli in for Lofton unless we hit on a rookie C like we have in the past.

He did good at part of his job. Dismal at others. Trades, good. Bringing in rookie talent, good. Free agency, worst ever. Managing a team, not good. Canadian draft, not good.

I believe a big part of it is they highly prized his role as the 6th ol and back up centre, strange as it sounds they are crazy about our back up being a C, which is why we double switched twice at guard in games we suffered injuries and ran with rookies. Eli isn’t a great guard either, but you can go back to previous ols and they put great importance on having 7 and the 6th guy who comes in for package work is a big deal for them. Eli would be plan A for me. Then sliding over Dobson, then neuf, but then also depending on what we find in the draft we’ve found good ones all over. Also worth considering is bringing back Cody speller. Who I think is only 30. He got derailed by injuries after he left here and went to the Argos but he was a gooder.

Ideally you want your most mobile ol to be the C. A lot of what I see with him is hesitation. He isn’t actually plodding, he just isn’t sure enough to commit early and hard to his assignment. He looked real good in his 2nd game at C in ps. If he could get to a legit playing weight of 295-305 it would probably be a good fit. Neuf is taller than I like Cs generally to be. And he isn’t the most mobile. But his decisiveness and instincts plus patience would be big. And if he’s gonna play another year, he might have an easier time holding up at C than G. Not nearly as many guys lining up on the nose, especially with him there. It up and down is a lot though. Really depends on what bothers him physically. Wallace is too damn big in every direction. A sleeper pick is drafting a rookie. We have a tremendous knack for finding undersized Cs who are able to contribute very quickly. And at developing that type of ol. We haven’t really had much success developing ol who are over sized. Which is no surprise given the heavy zone scheme we run. Smaller more athletic ol with nasty attitudes we’ve churned into all stars with ease.

It’s been said 10,000 times and it probably won’t happen, but kola is the big problem. Every guard we’ve had has struggled next to him. Change him and what we see from the rest will improve drastically. Honestly, I’d be open to trying Dobson or Neuf at C, or going imp, or ofc Eli. The guards struggle covering and working with kola soo much. Everyone will improve with that change Wallace is gonna steal some ones job imo. If he takes half the step forward next year took this year he’s gonna be our best interior ol. We really need to bring in multiple legit imp tackles and more Canadian interior ol depth. We can’t keep hoping a former guard is gonna become the next big thing at T for us.

For me they all have major knocks. Mbt has the same level of performance team to team and it never seems to impact the out come. Cf loses you as many as he wins. Masoli is the best of the bunch but miles away from what he used to be. Schlitz has the best upside with a chance to achieve it but he’s be 32 before the end of the year. I can understand how people don’t value Strev as much as a starter, but he can contribute the most as a qb2 by a lot, and I know he can achieve a high level of play with a decent offence to run. Value wise I don’t see any separation. Mbt isn’t gonna get a starting job going into the season. No one is gonna give him starting money. As we saw in bc even if you spend all the money, you just can’t balance a team with a 250-300k back up qb. I don’t think any of these guys gets 200k. None of them are signing for under 125k either.

125-150k base, ability to make 300k ish if he takes back the starting job. Same kind of deal I’d offer to mbt, strevy, schlitz, crum, Masoli etc. not saying I want all those guys or any specific order to them. They are all in the same tier and have the same kind of value imo.

he played well since he came back from injury. Our ol struggled in the gc with some run blocking assignments, but it was an over all problem with the spread of the dl and the way they played gaps. If we doubled and skipped to the second level properly on 2-3 plays Brady probably has another 50 yards maybe one more big bust. Crazy as that is. The Argos fought off our run game by the skin of their teeth. before injury paddy was as bad as he’s ever been. Which one shows up next year? No clue. But the chances of the best version showing up and playing a whole season plus off season is slim and none. It’s a gamble with him. Definitely needs to be an open competition in camp.

Best vs best, passer vs passer I tend to agree. Attitude, leadership etc, hands down win for Nichols.

That’s pretty standard. He wants the guy to get surprise and enjoyment of hearing from the nfl team directly. I suspect that is actually Wilson. As it would be old hat for a guy like ford. Even holm got calls last year. Bonds played in the nfl, but could be him. Griffin could be the guy got a look but just a camp invite. Ayers could be a sleeper pick as a teams and development guy. He made some exceptional solo effort plays on teams and D last year.

People will hate this, but I think he’s a lot like Matt Nichols. Has played some of his best football late in the year, not great with the deep ball, very reliant on a couple basic concepts (timing routes at seams vs check downs and screens) etc. Nichols didn’t have the last play chokes, but the 19/21 Ds we had were some thing else. If Fajardo didn’t run into us, he probably has atleast 1 more ring and two more gc games. if reasonably priced every team in the league would take him as a back up. That’s what he is at his best imo. Really good back up and stop gap solution. Let him run the short yardage etc, develop a better passer like Wilson behind him.

Last year we all talked at great length on how much Brady was worth. I think that’ll be the thing again this year. He’s really young and should get an nfl look. I think he might get a top of the market pay day if some one is desperate for the ratio breaker. But they will need a back up who can go in if he’s hurt at the same time. But only one db got more than 159k last year. Pickett got a maximum of 171k. for us, we gave kramdi almost 140k. Cam Lawson got max value of 141k. I think we chase to a maximum of 160k. Maybe a tiny bit more if he locks up for like 3 years. If hall leaves you probably see ott go after him. But we might see other cfl teams not want to give him elite db money, just based on questioning if he’s a systems guy here. Can he succeed if half his drop backs have him in man coverage? Or if he has to play a different role in a split field zone coverage? Can he succeed in that scheme without the guys he had around him? Some of those are yeses but not all. pretty much. They always play out the contracts now. It just makes the most sense. Changing coaching staff's partially is really hard to do especially if it’s the top half. I don’t think it means any thing, other than they figure out that cap every year as they have to. I had a feeling mos would want to go back to Toronto previous to dinwiddie turning them around. At this point, I can’t see him wanting to be any place else. I also don’t think walters n wade want to make any change in the brass. They want to keep what they have for better or worse.

Really wonder how much Alexander got.

I could see ford getting an extended look down south. He got a look off our bench the previous year. He certainly deserves it for his play this year. In that case I’d go hard after brown to come back.

He did heavily insinuate that. And that they are happy to see guys like him and desjarlais leave for big pay days. 🤢

Thing is, strevy made a max of 120 ish K. That is not a lot for a qb, especially one with his amount of experience. You simply aren’t finding many imp QBs cheaper. Dole was on the same type of deal in Sask. fine too. And Schlitz. Combine that with him sitting for the first 6 games on the ir, that means you’re looking at 80k against the cap. It’s not likely that swapping him with any of our other back ups to the pr will cost or save us any money. Hes basically a free flyer. poopkup doesn’t bring any bit of value over any other qb on our roster this year. They can all do the short yardage as easily as can a dozen other guys. He’s got zero chance to develop into any thing else. He’s less than replacement level at qb in the cfl. You’d have to try and find an imp qb with less value. qft. If it’s a Paul or buck, value be damned it’s just a waste of time. Other wise, you bring him back on the same kind of deal as a low risk high reward lotto ticket type player.

Honestly, we need to add atleast one or two premium ol for zach. I think we could lose 1 wr but not two. And this group isnt likely to stay healthy.

19/21 was a long time ago. Especially in football years. The same people who are content with 5 cups and 3 straight losses were the same ones mad at getting no respect in 21 and forward because cf/this team that team were past it. We were Hamilton in 19/21 the last two years. Now we’re struggling to maintain that level. And the same people who won’t be happy when we are at best the 3rd best team going into next year in power rankings. 19/21 team is never coming back from this squad. The only way back to that level is building up. We can’t maintain the status quo and expect to do better or as good any more.

I feel like in general coaches contracts will come up then be renewed with the way the cap works now. To min max things. pretty wild we have 2 ast coaches up for a total of 3 jobs, and 2 front office types up for gm roles. We’ve had one here two there now and then. With half the time the guy declining or pulling out. Never before have we had 4 guys taking interviews at once. Makes me think, is this the exodus? We’ve struggled to retain and regain guys with out over pays. It’ll be really some thing to see how we do retaining guys, and luring in new guys on the field and off. We should be in the market for new cfl vet players coaches and front office types.