JuranBoldenRules

The more coaches the better. Hopefully Bellefeuille takes Buck's feedback into account along with that of the other offensive coaches when they gameplan, and hopefully Buck is willing to give his opinions as a guy who faced live fire in the league.

Very possible. I think Sears will have more of an impact elsewhere in fewer snaps if he stays healthy. Hopefully Sears is 100% (or as close as he can conceivably be given the injuries).

Candidate for the boundary WR spot. Interesting the types of signings the new regime is making. More of a lean towards highly touted guys from big NCAA schools more than under the radar guys from smaller schools, and guys who spent time in the NFL. Watching those Arena football highlights also make me wonder why people pay to watch that but won't support minor league outdoor football in the US. Arena football gives me a migraine.

Reminds me a lot of another guy Danny McManus brought into Hamilton for a quick look, Mitch Mustain. Great athlete, big recruit, checkered NCAA career. The fact that he hasn't played a whole lot means he's likely behind the curve in his development, and each time he did get the opportunity to play he wrecked a knee. If anything he's a stash on the 9 game type of project.

New post is up. http://2ndand10.blogspot.ca/

Desjardins basically has a gun to his head now. They won't be getting much.

Old Dutch in the US is drastically different too. I always catch flak for my fascination with the difference in junk food between Canada and the US. For instance, stopped at an A & W in Wisconsin last summer, and it's a completely different restaurant from what it is in Canada, mostly hot dogs and no burger family. Apparently I was supposed to be more fascinated with the tall buildings in Chicago or the Mall of America, but this is what I still talk about.

We should start training camp early to prepare for Ottawa's 3 QB/2 FB formation.

Simply put a "three technique" defensive lineman is one who typically lines up on the outside shoulder of the guard .. Yes .. there are others .. think of it like this: Starting at the C - a zero (0) technique would be head up on the center with a 1 being on either outside shoulder. At G you have 2i, 2, 3 (2i being inside shoulder, 2 head up and 3 outside shoulder) At T you have 4i, 4, 5 (4i being inside shoulder, 4 head up and 5 outside shoulder) In formations where a TE may be present you have a 6, 7, 8 and 9 technique .. and this breaks from the convention established but 6 is with a lineman lined up head up with the TE, 7 inside shoulder, 9 outside shoulder. An 8 technique is used to describe a wide defensive end alignment (wider than the 9). Yep, the gaps for the DL are all odd numbers for the most part. You'll rarely see anyone line up head to head with a OL, and if they do 99% of the time it's on top of the centre. When a DL lines up, you split the OL into inside and outside halves as you line up to understand where the gaps are. After you've played DL for a couple years, you don't really think of it like that, but that's how you teach a grade 9 or 10 kid playing on the line for the first time. There's also a lettering system that is used more generally for the entire defence. A gaps are between centre and guard, B gaps between guard and tackle, C gap is off tackle. In a gap control defense, a DL or LB will be accountable for each of those 6 gaps. So a one-technique is on the inside half/shoulder of the guard, essentially the gap between the guard and centre. Three-technique is outside half/shoulder of the guard, gap between guard and tackle. Five-technique is outside half/shoulder of the tackle, gap outside tackle/between tackle and tight end (if one is in the formation). Outside of that, every team has different terminology, some teams call their rush end a "seven" or a "wide-seven" meaning that they line him up basically one gap wider than the five-technique would line up in against a 5 man line. It gets somewhat complicated because a lot of fronts widen out depending on the gaps created by the number of blockers the offence puts in the box, a five-technique might become a seven if the offence uses a tight end. This is done mostly to combat the off tackle run, force everything inside, contain runs from getting outside. The defensive gaps always change based on the offensive formation. Those three are the basic categories that DL are divided into. You'll hear it a lot during the NFL Draft stuff, "he'd be a first-round pick but teams don't think he's strong enough to play a one-technique in the NFL, and he's too slow to play three-technique in the NFL like he did in college." Stuff like that.

I posted it on Twitter yesterday through our site account and I plan to do the same thing every time he posts a new entry. CFL_News is a good account to spread the word too, they have over 10k followers. Thanks for that.

It's just a little less detailed than the offensive line post. http://2ndand10.blogspot.ca/

Especially if Goltz wins the starting job in TC from Willy. Start planning the parade, it's a done deal. Did we hire a QB coach, or a QB coach/Miracle worker?

What you just described are a group of people who are paid to cover pro football in Winnipeg, but who really aren't fans of the game. You can tell when a reporter is actually a fan. He/she doesn't have to be a homer, but to be any good, they do have to understand and love the game. Growing up, outside of playing for the Bombers, a dream job for me was writing about them - and getting paid to do it! What an incredible job! Being paid to write about something I love so much. It wouldn't even be a job to me. I don't see anyone in the media in Winnipeg that truly loves the game of football, which is why they are going to spend as little time as possible in the stands, studying the players, and instead finding distractions on tablets and personal devices to get through their boredom. Give me a reporter who is also a fan, and try to be as unbiased as possible, and I'm happy as a Rider cheerleader at a family gathering. I'm not sure why that's a lot to ask of our current professional writers in Winnipeg, because it wasn't that way in the past. Vince Leah and Jack Matheson are proof of that in spades. Those guys just plain loved the game, and it showed. Agree 100%. And I don't understand the endlessly crummy attitudes from some too, that goes for a few reporters at the FP who get paid to watch Jets and Bombers games. If it truly brings you misery to do the job you have, find something else. There's a way to be critical and ask questions without being completely adversarial. One guy I really like who covers a CFL beat is Drew Edwards from the Hamilton Spectator. You can tell he enjoys the job, he's not a huge homer, and he doesn't act like a jerk either. He'll ask Austin a tough question after a bad game, but he doesn't do it in a way where he sounds like he's verbally rolling his eyes like some of the guys working the beat here when you watch a press conference. To me, he's an ideal beat guy.

Banks, Randle, Washington, Sears, Suber, Markett, Dunn. Starting 2 NI DB's means 3 of these guys aren't playing defense. Can't see it happening.

I wouldn't expect to find any accurate or relevant scouting reports, this guy is 27 years old and hasn't played meaningful football in almost 7 years. I'm not even 100% convinced that he's signed a contract. Sounds more like he was invited to another free agent camp or to the mini-camp down south. I'm surprised the media isn't complaining yet about the mini-camp being held in the States...Edmonton sure got raked over the coals for doing that last year. Wasn't the biggest issue with what Edmonton did that they didn't even tell the media about it until it was already over? Could be. Still doubt they would have paid for reporters to travel and stay in Florida either way.

At the training camp sessions I've attended over the years, I notice they mostly watch a few minutes, enough to satisfy the blurbs they need (best catch, scrap of the day etc.) but don't really watch enough to know what is going on beyond what they are told by coaches. I've been to training camp sessions where a guy literally makes one nice catch but drops everything else, slow out of his breaks, quitting on his routes, basically everything bad a receiver can do, and he's touted as a guy who should be in a battle to make the team because the reporter was watching for the 3 minutes where the guy made a great catch and didn't have any drops. The one I went to last year when I also picked up my tickets, I saw a number of media guys hanging out around the entrance of IGF and kind of watched for them throughout the practice, they didn't really come in and pay attention until they started scrimmaging, missing all the positional groups and 1 on 1's (2 on 2's and 4 on 5 pass pro) between OL/DL, REC/DB's, and the pass skelly, important stuff if you are going to actually look critically at guys.

I wouldn't expect to find any accurate or relevant scouting reports, this guy is 27 years old and hasn't played meaningful football in almost 7 years. I'm not even 100% convinced that he's signed a contract. Sounds more like he was invited to another free agent camp or to the mini-camp down south. I'm surprised the media isn't complaining yet about the mini-camp being held in the States...Edmonton sure got raked over the coals for doing that last year.

That would depend a lot on what Bellefeuille needs. His primary job should be to work with the QB's, but Bellefeuille will probably involve him somewhat in his offensive gameplanning, much like he would with all of the positional coaches on offence.

He's a positional coach. It should take him about a week to figure out CFL coverages. He'll advise the QB's and work with them on mechanics, which don't change a lot on either side of the border. Who knows, he might be the Bob Wylie for QB's. Wylie didn't work in Canada until he joined the Bombers in 2007.

With Higgins and his experience I really don't see the need for Popp, other than as a US scout. This must be sarcasm. One of the best GM's in the history of the league should be a US scout for a guy who has basically been blacklisted out of working in personnel and management?

Smells like desperation. If Wetenhall doesn't like what the team does for the first 3 weeks of the season, Popp will be back on the sidelines.

Wonder how many seasons of them being empty it will take for that to be figured out, particularly the corners. Give those away to kids or sell them for $15.

Quite a bit. The combo of our QB's both holding the ball too long in the pocket (Hall and Goltz) and leaving the pocket early (Pierce and Goltz) made the OL look a lot worse than it was. Hall probably had the best pocket presence out of them all, but he needs to get rid of the ball quicker. The QB scrambling too soon really makes their job impossible. As a tackle, you force that end wide, and all of a sudden your QB is bailing from the pocket right into that rush lane, when you're thinking he's back in the pocket about to throw, at that point it's just a free for all. On that theme, it will be interesting to see how Montreal's OL holds up without Calvillo and the quick strike offence, he made many good OL into great OL.

Thanks, should be fixed.

I don't have much knowledge on the prospects in the upcoming draft outside of Canada West, where there isn't much of note. The top OL prospects in this draft are out of Quebec and Simon Fraser, NCAA D2. As a child with large bones I was blessed with the experience of playing offensive line pretty much since the first time I put on shoulder pads at age 7. I played offensive line/defensive line and tight end (like 4 snaps when I was in grade 9, still wonder everyday why they didn't call my play and trust my sweet hands ) for 15 years, then started coaching it. I took my Level 1 NCCP through Football Manitoba, which is the positional coach level, I studied OL/DL. Most of what I learned is from my own coaches, and studying the game to make myself a better player, cause I sure as hell didn't like hanging out in the weight room.