ShyGuy

This is from last year but I imagine its more of the same for this year https://3downnation.com/2025/04/04/winnipeg-blue-bombers-contributed-930000-to-amateur-football-in-2024/ I generally see those types of articles "Bombers donated $X worth of helmets". They also run the try football camps all the time... usually 4-5 sessions that are free of cost and draw around 100 kids. I sign my kids up for so many Bomber activities I don't even have to spend any money at Save-On-Foods anymore, they just keep giving them gift cards that I use.

What about Powell screams 7-8 year starter? He had a fairly unremarkable rookie season. Did well in the one game in 2024 before leaving the field in an ambulance due to a concussion and has thrown 12 passes since.

Football highlights are usually needlessly cruel https://imgur.com/a/jefferson-long-td-vs-atl-EEKhxb8 Alford is not the guy you want on JJ 1:1, he obviously thought he was releasing him to a safety, realized there was no one behind him so he hauled back and instincts took over and he want to the corner instead of the middle of the field

Is there a team in the CFL that is known for developing quarterbacks? It seems like more often than not the recipe for success is to pluck a backup off another team and then ride them until the wheels come off. What are the home grown QB success stories this century? Ricky Ray, Bo, Lulay, Rourke, Darian Durant? Seems more like lucking into a guy than any protracted strategy.

Seeing "Haters hate to hear this" all I could think about was this Hulk Hogan tweet

Mauldin played for Hamilton in 2021 and had 5 sacks in 6 games in the COVID shortened season. He signed with Ottawa and wasn't among the top 10 highest paid defensive ends. He won MODP in 2022, and his contract was 200K in 2023 after he re-signed and he was the second highest paid defensive end. He was also 30 at this point. He did sign before the window opened (Jan 18th)... maybe Calgary would have signed him to replace Orimolade, maybe the Argos could have signed him instead of Orimolade. But you can't get much higher paid than the second most salary at your position. He had a down year in 2023 and his salary in 2024 reflected that, but he was still top 10 paid. He bounced backed in 2024 and was almost 200K again in 2025 and that didn't go super great for all involved. If he wanted a better shot at winning a championship, it would been in the East, the Bombers didn't have room on those teams (as constructed) for another 30+ year old d-lineman making 200k, I don't think he would have pushed any of the West teams over the Bombers. Maybe he could have taken a deep discount to get onto another team but that is not a thing that happens very much tbh. The problem really was that he broke out at the time where he was on the wrong end of the aging curve... and really his production showed that and teams aren't dumb so good call. You can point to Willie Jefferson as an argument against the DE aging curve... but he has a very specific skill that makes him a bit of a unicorn and the Bombers deploy him as such

Would he have been paid more elsewhere? Dude got his bag playing in the NFL, then two grey cup appearances with Hamilton, moved to Ottawa, Won MODP in 2022 and got paid, down season in 2023, bounced back in 2024 and then whatever happened last year. There was really no one for him to sign and be guaranteed a grey cup... He was never going to fit in here and Argos and Montreal were the only other reasonable teams in the East and who knows had he fit there. He was one of the highest paid defensive ends year over year after his MODP campaign.

Have their been any other NAT drafted players who have flirted with the UFL/XFL? AFAIK with Elgersma the only link is that they drafted him, I haven't seen any indication that that is where he is going to end up either.

I get it's exciting because there hasn't been a lot of Canadian QBs in this era of the CFL, and then this decade we have Nathan Rourke, and then Tre Ford was looking good for a bit... and then we get Kurtis Rourke who had some Heisman heat, and the Elgersma who did well in CIS and had some scouts thinking he was something but people definitely need to settle down. I think Kurtis Rourke almost has less of a chance to make in the NFL, being 25 years old and having torn each of his ACLs, but you don't hear Rider Fans wondering wtf he is doing up there.

Rourke played 2 seasons on his ELC in the CFL and then had a full season worth of PR and Active Roster cheques so per section 9.03 of the CBA his contract was fulfilled.

I wonder if they might try to review section 9.03 of the CBA in the next round of negotiations. Kurtis Rourke is in a similar situation, probably CFL bound eventually but because he was on the injured list all year that burns a year off his ELC. Because Elgersma was chasing a PR spot it doesn't look like he is in the same boat, so if Rourke ended up on the CFL next year, he probably has only 1 year on his ELC, if Elgersma waits until next year he still has 3. Apparently the Birmingham coach is saying that the plan is still to have Elgersma play for the Stallions, which is interesting because it sounded like the UFL wasn't on his radar

It's funny to be the NFL got so upset at the NFLPA for their member body grading the teams, but the NFL doesn't have any issue trotting out independent people grading players performance on a play by play basis (PFF) and having their broadcast partners blast it all over their coverage. I don't think its reasonable to expect anyone to be able to parlay a career in the CFL to 7 or 8 million dollars... once he is off his ELC he'd be 27... so it would take 10 years @ 700K AAV to get him to 7 million... and that is if one of a million different things that could go wrong to derail a career doesn't go wrong. To project someone who spent 4 years in CIS ball and had one half decent NFL preseason game to end up the highest paid CFL player ever post US-Expansion seems... pie in the sky at best.

NIL definitely isn't helping things here. The baseline for a power 4 QB has to be around 500K/yr for NIL at this point? Tough sell getting those guys to come up here for 2 years making peanuts just for a chance to be able to make almost as much as they made in college.

200k+ for a DB who's gonna be 33 at the start of the season seems crazy, even if he has the right passport

Is there a specific metric you are taking into account here? Brady had more 20+ yard rushes on 49 less carries, so he's by far a bigger threat to to bust a big one than Mills. Mills was busting a 10+ yard run every 5.5 carries or so, whereas Brady was about every 6.5 carries but even that isn't a huge difference. Brady also had a bigger YPC than Mills. Would have been neat to see what kind of stats Brady would have put up had he not missed effectively 4 games. Would have probably have had 2000 yards from scrimmage for sure.

PFF scores are fun when you want to support your own narrative but IMO you have to take them with a grain of salt. According to them, Willie Jefferson played the best football game of probably anyone ever at any level in week 9... he graded a 99.3 overall

Elks spent like drunken sailors on defense last season and it didn't work out great for them. Lions taking a similar approach on offense

https://www.sportsnet.ca/cfl/article/wr-keon-hatcher-signs-contract-extension-with-lions/ The B.C. Lions have signed star wide receiver Keon Hatcher Sr. to a contract extension through the 2027 season, the CFL club announced Wednesday. Financial terms were not disclosed, but a person with knowledge of the contract said it exceeded $645,000, with $630,000 guaranteed. Hatcher was slated to become a free agent in February.

WR Market is off to a Bonkers start. 25 year old Philpot who has played one full season (his rookie year) and had only one 100 yard game in the regular season (tho what a game) is the highest paid Canadian receiver. 31 year old Hatcher with an Achilles tear on his Injury record is the highest paid non-QB and his deal is almost entirely guaranteed

It definitely comes down to roster construction and paying year-over-year to keep the team together. Hopefully some hard decisions are made this off season and there is a bit of a soft reboot. There are definitely some players who are being paid above market value compared to the results they give on the field and there is a correction. Collaros shouldn't be the 3rd highest paid QB in the league. Willie J over 200k doesn't make a lot of sense. Demski being the 4th highest paid receiver in the league at 33 probably doesn't make a tonne of sense.

RIders chose to make Hardrick [one of?] the most highly paid Offensive Lineman in the league, at age 34, coming off just his second All-Star season. The Tiger-cats chose to make Lawler the highest paid receiver in the league, despite 3 consecutive seasons he played 2/3rds of the games and only having one 1000 yard seasons to his name If we want to keep going on 'players who wanted to stay here'... the Elks made Tyrell Ford the highest paid cornerback in the league (and its not even close). Liam Dobson is making over 200k in Hamilton. Drew Desjarlais is making over 200k in Ottawa The downside of being successful for such a stretch is that these players are going to go out and they are going to get paid. The Bombers have made some... questionable decisions roster construction wise but it is literally impossible to pay everyone what they are going to be worth.

Apparently I need more sleep and better reading comprehension I was remember this article from last year https://3downnation.com/2024/11/26/kyle-walters-mike-oshea-unlikely-to-sign-long-term-extensions-with-winnipeg-blue-bombers-this-off-season/ and snippets such as "as of now, Walters expects to work next year without a long-term contract in place, while O’Shea said last week that he hasn’t “put one ounce of thought” into his contract status", and "O’Shea has always waited for his previous contract to expire before signing the next one, though this is highly unusual." and quotes from even before that like https://www.sportsnet.ca/cfl/article/blue-bombers-coach-mike-oshea-unfazed-about-being-in-final-year-of-contract/ "``If you look at the history, I always play out my contracts and figure it out at the end of the year,'' O'Shea told reporters. ``I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it, to tell you the truth.''" have swirled and combined in my head in the past year and formed into "Walters and O'Shea have operated on rolling 1-year contracts" so yeah, I'm the idiot. So my idea of... O'Shea operating on a one-year contract and if the Bombers tank in 2026 doesn't really make a lick of sense

I'm guessing O'Shea sees the writing on the wall a little bit and has to realize he is on fairly tenuous ground. By all accounts, he seems to really like being here and this is something that he has built over the better part of a decade. I'm guessing he uses the leverage of having the Argos sniffing around to have a bit more stability than the usual 1 year open contract he seems to have favoured the last little bit. Will re-up in the next couple days for 3 years... maybe with some more formal GM duties... maybe Walters is completely gone, maybe he moves up the hierarchy a bit and is less hands on in the GM side of things. The way the roster is currently constructed their almost has to be a fairly significant shake up... multi year gives him at least 2 seasons presumably to get something going again, if he were to come back on a 1-year deal and miss the playoffs... or even be in the cross-over again, that would probably be the end of his time here.

What about Marc Trestman? Chris Jones? Maybe CRAIG Dickenson? On a serious note, Khari Jones might be a fun candidate

But O'Shea isn't under contract for 2026 is he? So presumably when the league year ends he would be a free agent