Mike

Can't make it, it's Play On weekend.

It's May and the Riders look to be choosing between Kevin Glenn and Vince Young for the role of their starting quarterback this upcoming season. Happy May Long, Bomber Fans!

Look at Jake Harty in Ottawa. 9 catches for 81 yards in two years as a Redblack, and he's 30 months older than Addison Richards. Ottawa isn't giving up on him. For all this talk about Richards being a third year veteran, many people forget that he's still going to be the second youngest receiver coming to our training camp this year. The only one younger is Thera-Plamondon, who isn't even being viewed as much of an option as anything other than a long snapper. He's younger than Tylor Henry, who we just drafted this year. That makes a difference. His developmental path has to be considered.

Sticking up for him is a little bit different than just pointing out he shouldn't be released just because. We signed the guy to a three year deal, is it really that surprising that some people are willing to give him those three years?

I'm having trouble understanding what you mean by whether he's "deserving". All I care about is whether or not he's better than the guy that he's competing with for his roster spot. If he is, keep him. If he's not, see ya later.

I don't do book learnin so good

FMB is a NFL free agent, not draft eligible next year.

This is the biggest thing, in my mind. If a DB watches film, they'll see him make his break at so many different points that it's nearly impossible to cover it closely and as you said, he loses zero speed when he does it. It's such a fluid, unanticipatable (is that a word?) movement.

That route by Denmark is the single best route any receiver runs in the league.

No, he does not. However when we're such a thin team at CDN receiver, my opinion is that it doesn't make a lot of sense to cut a guy just because he hasn't developed quickly.

But this is the CFL. Plenty of players are here based on citizenship. That's just the way the league is, you don't have to agree with it but we can't ask the Bombers to operat differently just because.

Why should we cut him until someone else takes his place? To punish ourselves in order to punish him?

Quite possible. They do seem to be pretty good at hunting down new defensive backs though. I guess it wouldn't be shocking they found someone they like more than Roberts. It seems like I've heard many a good thing about Roc Carmichael, maybe he's the next one for us.

You have a strange habit of thinking that if Garrett has posted in a thread (or in this case, created a thread) that I participate in, I'm speaking directly in response to him. I don't look at it as I was arguing with him. I look at it as I went and shared something I knew about the topic being discussed. You need to get past this idea that everything I do is to spite, irritate or needle Garrett. It's something we need to work on.

Do I have a source regarding his concussion having nothing to do with retirement? Yes. Do I have a source that Walters knew about this before the draft? No. And that's my fault for wording it in a way that made it sound like it was more than just my opinion.

Surprises me. But I guess the team is pretty high on some of the new guys.

I just so happen to know two things when it comes to the Waggoner thread 1) I know a concussion is not why he retired 2) I know it really irks many, many players when media, fans, public forums, Twitterheads or anybody else speculates about their health and well-being, especially as it relates to a decision like retirement I'm not asking anybody to believe me. It doesn't really matter to me one way or another. But I put that info out there for those who want to take it at face value. For the rest ... that's cool too.

I'm still a bit confused as to why you're so invested in this, other than it gives you an excuse to take a run at me. Odd, because that's exactly what you're criticizing me for doing to Garrett. All I'm doing here is addressing the mistakes you've made on this. You said I jumped all over him, I posted the thread showing you I did not. You then said I made a joke about excluding him from an event, I pointed out I did not. I didn't say all he needed to do was remain calm. I'm sure you've been here long enough to know "calm" is not really a descriptive word for the way we ask people to act around here. There's a LOT of leash that gets given out around here, especially when you compare it to other forums out there. A better way to put it would be that we asked him to stop causing us so much work because he's not able to come to grips with the idea that we're not "out to get him". You want another example of the headache that he caused some of our staff? He literally accused us of deleting a post of his, then when we checked our moderator logs to see what happened, we explained to him that he'd actually deleted it himself (presumably by accident) and he cried conspiracy. He also refused to speak to roughly 47.2% of our staff and would only respond to one or two members when they reached out to him to ask about his behavior. Why should volunteers have to put up with that nonsense? Sad thing is, that's nowhere near the worst of it. I have to admit though, I am getting a bit of a chuckle out of your efforts to egg me on today. Either you're unable to notice the similarities between what you're doing and what you are criticizing me for doing or you're doing some grade A trolling. Well done, whichever it is.

You are aware that when I talk in a general sense, I'm not talking specifically about you, right? Plenty of people are doing this. Is it you? No, it's not.

I "planned" a meetup night and joked about not inviting him? It's funny how you can still read the thread and get it wrong. I never made a joke about not inviting anybody. I made an off-hand comment about how it'd be a cool idea. It would be a cool idea. I've met quite a few people from this community before and they're all really good guys. Hell, now that I think about it, I went to a member's wedding last summer. I've been on vacation with guys I've met through this community. Lots of friendships built from this place. Plus, I want to find out if MOBomberFan is as weird as I think he is. I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that I didn't needle Garrett. Of course I did. If you knew half as much as you think you do about the guy, you'd understand why entirely. You can take his side all you want, that's your prerogative. I think what he has contributed in the past has been awesome. I really enjoyed the camp reports that he puts together and I do agree that if all things were equal, I'd rather have his reports here than not. But what we can't have is the other stuff. The other stuff is why Garrett is no longer here. Without going into detail about it, literally all he had to do to remain welcome here was agree to stop insulting staff members. Pretty much as low as you can go as far as expectations go, especially when you consider he was far and away the most high maintenance member we had from a staff point of view.

Major camp battles in my mind: There are two big ones, in terms of impact on the starting lineup. Faith Ekakitie vs. Jake Thomas - this is more about snaps, as in who is going to get more. They'll both play but how much? Kyle Knox vs. Nick Temple vs. George Stone vs. Kyrie Wilson - this is the big one, as I would imagine only one of these guys makes the roster and one makes the PR but two will go home. Dark horse in my mind is Kyrie Wilson, I think he's got a sneaky chance to win the job. Other than that ... Green vs. Jeffcoat, Apodaca vs. Bell, Stafford (or Denmark, truthfully) vs. Burton/Lowder/Thorpe I think we'll see a surprise or two. But the roster is mostly set. (Obligatory Bruce Johnson vs. the World also)

Never understood the fascination with sitting here bemoaning the what if's of a draft class, especially when we've had the success we've had. We're averaging a starter a year from the draft and we're complaining? This is not exclusive to the Bombers. It happens to every single team. BC chose Mrabure-Ajufo 5th overall in 2015, he's not even on their roster anymore. Hamilton had 8th and 9th overall in 2014 and took Beau Landry and Evan Gill, who have taken (rough estimate) zero defensive snaps for them. The entire first round of the 2013 draft would look a lot better if you reversed the order, because MacMillan (9th) is a far better player than Gaydosh (1st) and there are blown picks all over that round. And my favorite - EVERY SINGLE TEAM passed on Taylor Loffler last year multiple times (except SSK, cuz they suck and give away their picks) It's not a Winnipeg thing. It's a CFL Draft thing.

I went back and looked at the thread. I definitely did jump all over Gbill - let's take a look back at this reckless display of unwarranted aggression:

Wrong. You used the word "schlemiels". What is wrong with you that you couldn't even remember that?

You're more than entitled to your opinion and if you want to believe that's what happened, all the power to you.