TBURGESS

Have the Bomber played better of late with their backups in? You bet they have. Have they done it against backup QB's, sub .500 teams and got bunches of turnovers? You bet they have. Them's the facts, but some folks only want to discuss the positive and call anyone who looks at both sides of the coin negative, like that's something bad.

Your'e half right. I don't care when we almost win because close doesn't count in the standings, but I'm not 'clearly making excuses for teams we beat' and we haven't "almost lost" either of the last 2 games. I'm simply looking at why we won and that includes the backup QB, the turnovers and the sub .500 teams we've played as well as the way our team played.

I don't care if it was a close loss or a close win. Wins are the stat that matters most. In fact wins are the only stat that really matters. I've never said that I don't care how wins or losses happen tho. Folks love to go on and on about 'if we'd just done "A" we would have won" or "If the refs hadn't screwed us" we would have won or "If these 3 or 4 plays had just gone the other way" we would have won. I don't buy that any more than I buy "Them playing their backup QB doesn't matter" or "The number of turnovers didn't make the difference" or "It doesn't matter that we played below .500 teams". It's all talking about what happened in the game. None of it changes the fact that we won or we lost. I am cautiously optimistic. I expect us to win 3 out of the next 4 games to go 7-5, because we're better than Regina and Montreal and should be competitive with Toronto even with Ray. I expect us to win 1 or 2 of the last 6 games to end up with 8 or 9 wins because 5 of those 6 games are against the top 3 teams in the league.

I never once said or implied that we should apologize. I was simply trying to discuss whether we are for real or not. Kinda the whole point of this thread. Looking at who we beat and who they had at QB is part of that process. I didn't use 'but' in my post at all. I didn't negate any 10 yard runs or anything else for that matter. Not sure what you're reading, but (there's one) it's simply not there.

What the heck do you think that has to do with the conversation? I never suggested that we give back our wins. Arguing that we are playing our backup QB when anyone whose been watching the Bombers knows that Nichols is our starting QB is just playing silly buggers. Willy was our starting QB due and he played himself out of it. Nichols took the job by the end of his first game and has been our starter ever since. Context: The title of the thread 'Is it real?' Vacuum: I posted several facts about our wins, not nothing. Logic: I left folks to make up their own minds what the facts meant. Failed to mention: Yup, no need to repeat what others are repeating. Freaking backup QB: Nope he's our freaking starting QB, where you been for the last month?

Nor does it change the fact that choosing to go to another better QB is way different than being forced into play a vastly inferior QB. Just sayin.

Different situations. We chose Nichols over Willy. Toronto didn't choose Kilgore over Ray and Hamilton didn't choose Masoli over Calaros. No one in their right mind would.

Lots of folks around here have posted all good things about the Bombers. No one questions them. BTW: It's just a bunch of facts, not logic. I'm well aware of our issues and there's no need for me to repeat them as others have already covered them. The question was 'Is it real'. How does only discussing the yes side of the question make any sense? This isn't the Riders Fan forum.

It's as real as a .500 team can be. We've beaten 1 above .500 team and they didn't have their top 3 receivers, started a rookie center and a QB in his 2nd start who threw 5 Ints. We got 6 turnovers in 3 out of our 4 wins. We lead the league by a wide margin in takeaways. Not sure if we can keep this up for a whole season. Kind of reminds me of the first half of the season in the swaggerville days. We beat backup QB's in 3 out of 4 wins. All of our 4 losses came against starting QB's. We play 3 below .500 teams in a row with their starting QB's and we should be favoured in each one of them. After that it's going to get tough and we'll really be able to gauge how good we are against the top half of the league (And Edm).

Thanks. I guess I should have kept looking after I found the first answer.

Source: http://www.cflapedia.com/Players/b/brown_doug_c.htm

We gave up a 3rd rounder for Doug Brown in a similar situation. We used a 3rd rounder on Bilukidi. I'd ask for a 2nd rounder and settle for a 3rd.

That was a lot of fun. You can't count the Ticats out anymore now that Collaros is back. He scraped the rust off pretty quickly and played well in the second half. The Ticat defense held the BC offense off the board for most of the second, until they tied it up, then the Lions marched down the field and won the game. Only in the CFL could you be up 32-12 at the half and be tied with 3 minutes to go in the game.

Ton of big plays in this one. It's fun to watch.

It certainly has been more than just the QB change, but WPG/HAM with Willy and 6 turnovers ended up 28-24. Nichols under the same circumstances ended up 37-11 because he took advantage of the turnovers.

The best thing that Nichols did last night IMO was not letting the pick affect the way he was playing. It might be because the defense gave it right back, but Willy has a tendency to go into a funk after he makes a big mistake. We're winning right now mostly due to turnovers (14 in the last 3 games). Nichols has made the other teams pay for their mistakes which we were unable to do a just few short weeks ago. I agree with ISO. He reminds me a bit of Tom Burgess in that he won't win the game for you by himself, but he won't lose it either.

There is no place for Macho right now. We need to start an additional NI because Neuf has been replaced by an import. Best Macho can hope for is a DI spot which will become very hard to get once Adams and Randle get healthy.

TO also has 1 less game played and has played both Ottawa and BC, 2 of the best defenses in the league.

Pretty much what I expected... A fine, no draft picks and no suspensions. 86K is the biggest fine in CFL history, so yah, it is a big one. I loved the speeding fine analogy... Put it in perspective for me.

This one shouldn't have been close. Edmonton owned Montreal for most of the first half. TOP was hugely in their favour as were every other offensive stat. Edmonton fumbled twice on the 1 yard line and had a TD called back on something that wasn't challengeable by challenging something else on the play. Refs should only be allowed look at what the HC is challenging, not the whole play to stop HC's from challenging just to see if the refs find something else in the play. It should also speed up challenges. Pretty boring but close game until a great pick by Sherritt, a great punch out by Montreal then Glenn comes back in an throws another pick to seal the deal. Those are 2 of the 3 teams we need to make the playoffs. We lost to Montreal and split with Edmonton. I don't know if it's just my blue coloured glasses or have I forgotten how badly we looked in the first 5 games, but I gotta say we look like the best team of the three right now.

Pretty interesting. Players who are cut but asked to stay around while they recover aren't allowed to go to meetings, film sessions or even be physically present at a practice or conditioning exercises. I'll go on record as saying that every team has ignored this rule more than once. Furthermore the CFL knows about it and has turned a blind eye for years. 20 players in this situation (Thanks Atomic for some clarity) is way above normal so I expect the CFL to step in and take action. I don't think they will suspend Jones at all, let alone for a long time. I expect they will add the money the Riders are spending (If they are stupid enough to do it on their books instead of through a secondary person) on extra players to their SMS and to fine the club as per section 8 that Mike posted. If that pushes them far enough over the SMS limit they'll have their 1st round draft pick taken away from them.

I picked against the Bombers in the last 2 weeks and for them this week. Does that make it my fault if we lose?

Who knows how many additional players they have? 10 was just a wild guess just like 95 probably was.

It might be 10 players too, cuz even that would be a lot. I believe that Jones is pushing the limit and the number of players is more than other teams are 'hiding' so it's become an issue. Even the CFL admits to knowing it's happening.

I'm saying getting players jobs that they may not even have to show up to has happened forever in the CFL, even Winnipeg has done it. They used to call it the Taxi Squad. You might want to chat with players we cut but asked not to leave town in case we need them to see how they manage to pay the rent and eat regularly without a job. Most of them are US players. It's a wink wink, nudge nudge situation that everyone knows about. Having unsigned players practicing with the team is where I draw the line. They wouldn't be insured if they got hurt. They wouldn't be protected by the CFLPA. They shouldn't be on the field. BTW: I don't believe the 96 players story. That number doesn't pass the sniff test.