johnzo

A huge PI call on Anderson would be cool, but I find his trademark 20-yard double-objectional-conduct meltdowns more entertaining to watch.

I love this crazy league of ours and this is the final game for six months. Plus it's my birthday and a bunch of people are taking me out to the Canadian bar here to watch the game. Plus I'm entitled to an entertaining Grey Cup after a year of shitty Bomber football.

People who don't want Tom Higgins: why not? He's got the exact track record we want. He's a Grey Cup winner (2003) and he cleaned up Matt Dunigan's mess in Calgary in 2005, going from 4-14 to 11-7 in one year.

Re: Cortez: imagine how good his TiCats could have been if his DC wasn't Casey Creehan. It's not often that the top-scoring team in any league also has the worst record in that league. I prefer Higgins but I'm definitely intrigued by Cortez' offensive skills.

Really? What would you have changed about how Austin called the game? Would they have won by more than 12 points if you had been in charge?

Finally saw the games on TSN video on demand tonight.

Yeah, that's my thought too -- especially with Ray getting the final week of the season off. Is he still gonna be in sync with his receivers after all that downtime? I just hope that both teams compete and the game's well-played. I've watched so much shitty Bomber football this year, I feel kind of entitled to some good CFL playoff games.

Here's the ones I can think of: Dunigan Lancaster Milanovich Hufnagel Jackie Parker Trestman (a QB in college) Any others? Dunigan was a failure under bad circumstances and Lancaster was initially a disaster but became a Grey Cup winner in Hamilton (edit: and Edmonton). The others all have been pretty good, though Parker didn't win any Grey Cups as a coach.

I've got a feeling about Hamilton. Burris has played well vs. the Argos this year, the game is indoors, Ray hasn't played in three weeks, and the Argos have zero rushing game without Kackert. The Western final is gonna be the game of the year. The Stamps are the class of the league, but Durant looked fantastic last week and I think Cortez is the best OC in the league. I think both road teams will win and we'll have a 1989 rematch -- Hamilton vs Saskatchewan. Austin, Burris, and Fantuz ... that's a lot of ex-Riders to boo.

In other Eastern playoff news, the Argos have opened up seating on the upper deck of the Rogers Center due to high ticket demand. Bluto has often said that the Argos' poor attendance is due to crappy scheduling of home games. This is a playoff game on a Sunday afternoon against a regional rival so it'll be interesting to see just how much the Argos' attendance climbs under these more ideal circumstances ... though I wonder if Saturday would be a better day for this game because it's not against the NFL on TV and in Buffalo? http://argonauts.ca/article/argos-to-open-additional-seating-in-500-level-for-sundays-eastern-final

His last two games for us, he was playing with a pretty severe injury too -- his shoulder, I think. Dude got a raw deal. Was rooting for him to come back into a better situation, but can't blame him for wanting to move on.

The 2010s Blue Bombers are starting to resemble the 1980s Ottawa Rough Riders -- especially with the stories making rounds of neglist players refusing to play in Winnipeg.

+1 for Casey Bramlet. Similar level of cluelessness to Boltus. Mike Quinn stank too. Sammy Garza would've been a Grey Cup winner for the Bombers if you subtract a couple of Blaise Bryant fumbles that put us in a huge hole early. He was no star, but in an era where we won Cups with Sean Salisbury and Tom Burgess, he was certainly good enough.

Wow, there's a good measure of how messed up this season has been; we've been so bad this year that by the end of the season 17to85 had a kind word for Mike Kelly.

"If you were wondering what it would be like if Tim Tebow came to the CFL, Goltz is doing a hell of an impression right now." - Doug Brown (@DougBrown97) https://twitter.com/DougBrown97/statuses/376838158823866368

The Argos blitzed 7 men only three times during the whole game. They were rushing 5 or 6 about half the time, but we were protecting with 6 the majority of the time, so it was rare that the Argos brought more men than we had in protection. Hall was completing passes at about the same rate regardless of how many Argos were rushing him.

You keep saying he was inaccurate -- how many passes did he throw that were off the mark during the first half? You seriously think our second half pass protection was above average?

Well, there was the one drive where he bounced a TD pass off of Corey Watson's abs... I don't know. How many passes did he throw that were way off target? What was his completion percentage in the first half, anyway? What about the first drive toe-drag sideline pass to Watson? That was perfectly thrown ... as was the slant pattern to Watson that got us out from under the goalposts later in the first quarter ... as was the quick out to Edwards with three rushers in his face, just before the three-minute warning. Look, I'm not saying the guy is the second coming of Danny McManus or anything and I have no idea what his ceiling is, but Hall was a hell of a lot better than dreadful. He did a bunch of good things out there.

okay, this season is no longer mere tragedy, it's now gone all the way to comedy.

Dreadful is too negative. I'd say his first half was a mixed bag. Hall did some good things, with the biggest blemish being the fumble.

Kohlert is a free agent. If he were signed for 2014, I'd definitely agree with you. There's probably no use in protecting Suber and Stewart. Since we can only lose one import, it's not going to be a free agent. Maybe substitute Ford and Mainor in for Suber and Stewart. Mainor makes little sense to me. We bring in DE's off the street, let them practice for a week and they are as good or better. Yeah, our ninth and tenth best imports seem like they're awfully replaceable, which is why I was thinking of putting free agents there originally.

Here's the play-by-play I put together: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AiLFGLZnbIP9dHhRT29DV3ZkbnJQZC1xVnVlUEJfaHc&usp=drive_web#gid=0 Here's how I bucket the hits on Hall: 2x Argos pass rush outnumbered Bombers protection, a blitzer came untouched and Hall ate it. 3x Bomber protection outnumbered Argo pass rush, but a Bomber was beaten one-on-one. 2x Bomber protection and Argos pass rush were even, but a Bomber was beaten one-on-one. 2x Ford was in pass protection, guarding one side, but the Argos blitzed on the other side. 1x January got distracted by #6 Argos, who was not blitzing, and let #92 come unblocked to obliterate Hall. This one looked awful, it was at 2:53 of the 4Q. 1x Jones helped inside and let two rushers go by him, leaving Ford in a two-on-one. Yeah, I noticed that Hall didn't take any sacks at all. He doesn't like to eat the ball, looks like. If I could stand to watch this game again I'd take a closer look at Hall because my impression is he didn't move much laterally during the game, he just stood directly behind center and completed pass after pass while the Argos teed off on his ribs and jaw.

Kohlert is a free agent. If he were signed for 2014, I'd definitely agree with you. There's probably no use in protecting Suber and Stewart. Since we can only lose one import, it's not going to be a free agent. Maybe substitute Ford and Mainor in for Suber and Stewart.

Non-imports (1st group) H.Muamba* Watson Greaves Neufeld Swiston Pencer Non-imports (2nd group) Sorensen* Renaud* Kohlert* Etienne* Labbe* Morley* Imports Washington Wild January Suber* Turner Denmark Sims-Walker Stewart* Sears Dunn

Maybe the BB know what they have in Etienne and want to evaluate Foster at game speed so they can make an Etienne vs. Foster expansion draft decision?