TBURGESS

GBill... It's a 150K raise, not $50K. I'd give him a $50K raise to sign him to an extension and I'm sure Walters would too. It's not just amount, it's also about how much is up front money, how much is base and how much is bonuses. Mike... You and I both know that Marve doesn't have a hope of making the NFL next year unless he plays a significant amount of time this year AND plays lights out football. IF those two things were to happen, we wouldn't want to pay Willy 400K to sit on the bench AND we'd want to lock down Marve, not Willy. BTW:Brohm's the #2 guy so he'd have to fail before Marve got playing time too. mbrg.... We aren't talking about last year so Max Hall doesn't have anything to do with this thread. We are talking about this year and we are all hoping (but don't know) that Willy will be better than he was last year. This years Willy isn't a known upgrade over last years Willy. Are folks really worried that if we don't sign Willy to a big contract this year, some other team will want to pay him even more next year and we will lose him or have to pay him even more? Seems to me like a lot of very good things for Willy will have line up to make that scenario work out for him.

That's just a silly game to play. If we played that game 2 months ago, why sign Stanley Bryant, cause he might get hurt. Go with the smart money, start Taormina and save 80 grand. What a silly answer. Bryant is a known upgrade over January and we sorely needed O line upgrades. Well worth the money especially over a guy who shouldn't be starting in the first place. Willy's a sophomore starter who was great for the first 5 games then looked like a rookie for the rest of the season. If he was one of the top 2 QB's in the league, we'd not be having this discussion. BTW: The point I was trying to make, which went over your head, is that we have a lot more on the line if we give Willy his 150K raise, 100K of it as a signing bonus than we do if we simply wait and let him earn his raise.

A few things to ponder: Pay WIlly a $100K bonus and it's gone from our SMS day 1. If we don't extend Willy there's zero gone from the SMS day 1. If Willy gets hurt early in the year, would you rather he was making 400K or 250K? (Not sure he can even make that if he can't make his bonuses). If Brohm or Marve are outplaying Willy in practice, is it harder to replace him for a game if he has just signed a 400K contract? If Walters thought he was worth what he's asking, wouldn't the deal have been done already?

The crux of the matter is... 'Is Willy a franchise QB'? If you think he is then you want to lock him down for as long as possible no matter the cost. If you think he's a JAQ (Just another QB) then you don't care if he's signed or not. If you're not sure (Me) then you want him to prove it before you give him the big bucks. Your argument would be valid if contracts were guaranteed, but seeing that they are not, the worst thing that happens is that we pay him top dollar for one year and if he doesn't pan out, we cut him. If he is the real deal, then we are getting exactly what we are paying for. So this is, in my opinion, a small gamble, compared to the potential big payoff. Your argument would be valid if it was a binary situation. Either great or bust. The reality is that there's lots of shades of grey in between. We may still want to keep Willy if he's progressing even if he's not great this year. That becomes harder to do the more you pay him. It also forces us to start Willy otherwise it looks like Management doesn't know what they are doing by paying him as the franchise QB It's a huge gamble either way. Put all our eggs in the Willy basket in the hope that he's the QB we've been looking for forever. If it turns out he is, then great, we made the right move. If it turns out he's not, then we've lost time, money and spent our SMS poorly which we could have used to upgrade the team elsewhere. We take on all the risk of any injuries that Willy may have and the risk that he's not the QB we've been looking for. OTOH, if we wait to see if Willy's the guy we run the risk of having to pay him more next year. He takes on the injury risk and the risk of not being the QB we're hoping he is.

The crux of the matter is... 'Is Willy a franchise QB'? If you think he is then you want to lock him down for as long as possible no matter the cost. If you think he's a JAQ (Just another QB) then you don't care if he's signed or not. If you're not sure (Me) then you want him to prove it before you give him the big bucks.

I'm still firmly in the 'Let Willy Prove Himself Worthy' camp. I don't believe in paying big bucks for potential. I don't believe in paying a guy like a top QB until he becomes a top QB. Willy's a mid-level QB right now. In fact not many outside of Winnipeg would pick him as their starter over their current starting QB. I'm all for working out an extension that pays Willy for what he's accomplished to keep our starting QB in the fold. Playing out his contract has both advantages and disadvantages for Willy. Get injured or have another year like last year and he won't get the big raise he wants. Play light out and he'll cost even more than he's currently asking. $150K raise? $100K signing bonus? In your second year? Based on last years play? Doesn't add up for me.

I don't expect our top draft pick to be a starter this year. Best choice for a part time starter this year is Waud as a rotation player. That would give the other two DT's some needed rest and allow us to use a DI to replace either the NI WIL or the NI CB when Waud rotates in. Probably the best long term use of our #2 pick to solidify our O line. Greaves and Picard are starters. Neufeld and Goosen are penciled in as the RG and 6th O lineman and Neuf is a huge injury concern. Everett and Griffiths are complete unknowns. Might be good depth. Might be TC fodder. Using our top draft pick on a OL would make a lot of sense because it's more than likely that our pick would be better than either of our backups and might be needed on the game day roster if Neuf goes down yet again. I'd love to see either Demski or Durant in Bomber blue, but I don't think using the second overall on a receiver gets us good value out of it. Sure, we are razor thin at NI receiver, but that's an easy place to hide a player that's not up to snuff. Just put him wide on the back side and say Rookie go long. Unless there's a run on receivers, there should be at least 1 good one available when we pick in the second round. We don't need an NI receiver to start this year. Pick a youngun in the 2nd round and give them a year to work their way into the lineup.

Morley was more of a when, not if IMHO, but surprised by Vega's release and surprised that Peach wasn't given his release too. None of them are difference makers anyway.

There are 6 good O lineman and 3 good receivers, but only 1 available DL (Waud) in the top 15. He should be ready to rotate on the DL pretty much right away, which is why I'd choose him with our first round pick. I expect, however, the Bombers will go with Demski or Chungh at #2.

Overpaid for Williams if Sweep's right about his numbers. Huge signing bonus too assuming CFL News is right. Still... should be good for a few more wins for Ottawa this year and they really needed the star power. I'd love to have Williams on our team, but not at those dollars.

Once again, the usual whiners doing the usual whining. Just covering for Tburg - it's 6am on the coast. I agree with Mike. The level of reporting isn't exactly insightful and I'd like a lot more out of our reporters on the scene. BTW: I'm in Calgary now, no coast anywhere near here.

Ahhh the regular whining about people whining about a guy who is seen as a whiner.... I wish we could all be as enlightened as you and above such pettiness..... Yah... Me too.

I'll bet the new rules mean most QB's will get more passing yards. 1000 more? Probably not, but it's not outside the realm of reason if everything goes right.

In fairness, I get it right more often than the 'popular opinion' around here and when I agree with the popular opinion, (Signing Bryant, Picard, Hall(DC) for examples) I'm just another voice in the crowd."...right more often then the popular opinion"? You serious with this drivel?? Im one of the few who gladly admits his mistakes but I've rarely had to go that avenue in discussions with you... Smh. talk about delusions of grandeur.. You want to talk Pencer or Etienne or Mack (Before he was rightly fired)? All backed by popular opinion. Most posters who argued with me ad nauseam agree with me now because popular opinion has changed. Tons of other examples but no need to beat a dead horse.

Wiecek isn't a good reporter, let alone a fine one. In fact, I'd suggest there aren't any good Bomber reporters these days. It doesn't matter though because he's right. The media should be able to talk to the coordinators on a regular basis. Yes.. I know other HC's do it. I disagree with them too.

Pretty sure Tburg's created an app that notifies him if there's a complaint about the media made here. I worry that he's trapped under something heavy if his standard "complaining about complainers" line isn't delivered within an hour of the first post. First off, it's whining about the whiners, not complaining about the complainers. Secondly, no app needed. I usually watch these boards a few times a day.

In fairness, I get it right more often than the 'popular opinion' around here and when I agree with the popular opinion, (Signing Bryant, Picard, Hall(DC) for examples) I'm just another voice in the crowd.

The regular whining about a guy you see as a whiner. Good times. Mike... I'd take that bet. O'Shea wouldn't allow anyone to interview his coaches.

Even though he's a one year rental? I think Austin would jump at that in a second. Wanting to try the NFL again and making it in the NFL are two entirely different things. Most players would love to take an NFL shot at the end of their contracts. Gaydosh needs starting time to get any chance at all and he won't get that in Hamilton. He'd get rotation time at the least in Winnipeg, but even that isn't likely to give him a great chance in the NFL. Like any other player, he'd have a chance to go the free agent route, but we'd have as good a chance to re-sign him at the end of the season as any other player. Gaydosh is a former 1st overall pick who has a years NFL experience and a years CFL experience. From Hamilton's standpoint he's likely worth more than the 15th pick in this years draft. He'd upgrade our Canadian talent level and would be at least a rotation guy from day one. You can't say that about anyone we'd be able to draft with the 15th overall. I like Floyd's idea too.... Gaydosh for Newman.

I'd give up our 3rd pick for Gaydosh, but I doubt Hamilton would go for it.

He's great PR for the Bombers. Heck they held a presser just to show him off even though he's not played football in years. He's big, strong, Canadian and he has the right name. Mike's right. He'll be on the PR this year unless he stinks the joint out in TC or makes the team as a special teams guy.

O'Shea said they expected Hurl to be ready to be the starting MLB. Not sure why you don't think they are expecting Hurl to be the MLB.

We've lost some good players. We've picked up some good players. We've upgraded our DC so we should hopefully be better We kept our OC which means more of the same from the offense. We did well in FA. Love getting Byrant and Picard, but we're expecting Hurl to be our new MLB, which doesn't impress me much. I don't have any expectations yet though becuase we still have the draft and Import signings and TC to go through before we have much of an idea of how we'll look this year. Best anyone can do is a wild eyed guess at this time of year. I'll go with 9-9 based on the moves we've made so far.

Apparently, 'Hand Fighting' will still be allowed and they aren't going to announce the 5 yard no yards calls, they'll just move the ball forward. It's funny that they know there is a problem with too many penalties which slow the game down, but they don't understand that adding additional things you can penalize the players for is a step in the wrong direction.

It's funny that the only proposed rule that didn't pass was challenging Offensive PI. Why is it OK to challenge defensive PI then? ROTFL because that was the only change I liked.