ShyGuy

This is a big improvement on WR depth from last year where WR injuries meant that Streveler was out there playing WR

Geez confirmed concussions for Milligan and Ouellette on Thursday and they are practicing on Tuesday.

PFF ranks the Bombers Linebacker Corps 2nd overall https://www.pff.com/news/cfl-ranking-every-cfl-team-linebacker-group

See, Ouellette is always confusing to me because everyone talks about him as a power back but he is pretty tiny for that. Riders listed him at 5.09 and 210 going into last season. Then there were reports of him ending the season at 225. And then apparently he lost 35 pounds and put 10 back on to start the season at 208 this year.

I'm not sure if replacing a 30 year old, injury prone running back with a 32 year old, injury prone running back on his 3rd team in 3 years is a big an upgrade as people might think it is. Although Carey did manage to dress for a full season last year after being dumped by the Stamps due to injury concerns.

That last drive against the Bombers in the West Final in 2022 was perhaps the worst 2 minute drive I have ever seen. He got off what? 5 plays while needing to drive the entire field?

The Riders are just as desperate for a capable punter as the Bombers. I'd imagine if Sheahan got released outright the Riders would have had him on the horn as well. They should be even more desperate, they had by far the most punts last year. Its not like the Bombers were desperate for a punter to kick them out of trouble last year either. As everyone is aware they let up the least amount of points and they were third in opponents average field position. Even though they didn't have a guy crushing the ball, it worked out more often than not.

Collaros had an absolute disaster class of a beginning of the season because the Bombers big-brained themselves into giving pretty much all the veterans training camp and preseason off. Collaros goes into the season with no time to gel with anyone and an injured Brady. Then he immediately loses Lawler to a broken arm and 2 games later Schoen blows out his knee and then in week 4 he actually gets hurt. If you measure the stats for Collaros and Harris from when Harris came back from his injury (and Zach was working into somewhat of a groove and finally learned his new receivers names) they are almost statistically the same. The issue is that Collaros is dealing with regressing from being a perennial MOP candidate and Harris is pretty much what he always has been. Harris has always been known for moving the ball between the 30s. The Riders managed to take a super impressive turnover ratio and turn it into a really impressive number of punts and field goal attempts.

I mean if at any point in the season the Bombers are trotting out someone like Patterson at QB they are ******, and it doesn't have anything to do with the fact Patterson is on the roster. It's not a new phenomenon that GMs in sports have a "but I can fix him!" attitude either

One thing that needs to be mentioned about the Riders is... they were a 9-8-1 team (so effectively .500) with a +26 (!!!!!!) TO Ratio. A team with that kind of Ratio you would expect up above 13 wins, so they WAY underperformed their TO Rate. You have to think that Ratio comes down this year... even if they end up at an Above Average of say... +10, how much worse would their record have been at that Ratio?

What sounds better? The Edmonton Arlks or the Edmonton Elgos

The Riders tampering to inflate the Receiver Market on player who is fantastic but has been effectively injured for 18 months and no one knows if they would be ready for training camp let alone the season would seem very on brand

The best ability is availability

Houston had lots of picks because he had lots of opportunities to get picks because QBs would throw to him. Ford had some of the best metrics for DBs, it was just when QBs forgot themselves and decided to throw to his side of the field he was as likely to catch the ball as the offense was.

The Bombers have definitely played with more NATs than required the last few years so it's not a given the backup DT has to be Canadian. You can throw a dart at the draft board and probably find someone who could give you what a Jake Thomas in his 13th year would give you, nice guy to have around or not. The fact of the matter is... if he wasn't in Winnipeg where else would he be? In case of emergency you could always kick the tires and bring him back