JuranBoldenRules

I'm noting of an expert on this upcoming draft but I wonder why some people rank Smith ahead of Gill based purely on his combine?... Gill's tape should put him ahead of Smith on every level I don't think it is JUST the combine. Quinn Smith has long been on the radar of CFL teams, but was never in the spotlight thanks to being on a Concordia team that got blown out in almost every game. Evan Gill had a solid season at 280 lbs and then added over 20 and didn't show as well as he did. Gill has a slight edge in upper body strength, but Quinn Smith's quickness and agility is unmatched for a man his size at over 300 lbs. Factor in his 4.82 40 time too. What were the splits on the 40s? Smith was pretty low on the jumps. The jumps give a bit of a look at what kind of initial surge a guy gets out of his stance and where their core/lower body strength is, more important than the cones for the interior guys IMO, if you get beat off the line and lose leverage quickness ain't gonna help you.

It's absolutely newsworthy. A major public project that was built despite a flawed or incomplete design, one of the results of which is now flooded "weather-protected" areas. Flaws or important pieces not considered in the design were well known by the architect, builder and everyone overseeing the project. You can bet this will end up litigated like crazy from all sides. The builder lost money on this project all ready, they won't be eager to pay for fixes and damage caused by a flawed design that was rubber stamped by BBB stadium and the provincial government, they will be battling in court to recoup losses. Where are the people responsible for the design now? This stadium will keep lawyers busy on the civil docket for many years. In other places less willing to allow fraud, criminal lawyers would be busy too. A project that was touted as having a guaranteed final cost that just keeps escalating, literally every time there is a news story on the stadium the quoted cost is higher, now $212 million. It's news and rightfully so.

Shaw Park had terrible drainage issues at the field level the first season after it opened, which IGF had as well, some were addressed when the field was installed. IGF has water seeping through concrete from the upper deck and concourse into weather protected areas. I'm not an engineer, but I think the amount and severity of these issues are quite unusual and significant. The seepage into the visitors dressing room was known last winter too and left unaddressed. Just the sheer amount of concrete work they had to do last minute for egress from the field for Taylor Swift (apparently they didn't think of that when designing) and work they had to do in the seating area to bring it up to code is amazing. Hard to believe someone paid millions of dollars for a design that didn't even hit the basics. Wonder if they have a plan for expanding for the Grey Cup, or if they'll just figure it out.

There were a half dozen photos tweeted by an operations manager of the Saddledome. They didn't let reporters in, how would they get in, swim?

That's all I can say about Evan Gill. If Ottawa takes Lavertu, and they are really sour on Goossen, maybe take Gill or trade down for a later first and a second if anyone is interested? I really don't see Foucault fitting our needs for 2nd overall either. He's a pipeline pick, and we already have some guys in the pipeline. Coombs is one hell of a gamble for a team like the Bombers to take IMO.

First thing that comes up when Googling "Kevin Prempah" is a Toronto Sun story about a gang bust in 2011 with a 20 year old by the name of Kevin Prempah among those facing charges. Same guy?

New blog post is up. Takes a look at Bombers needs and wants heading into the draft, as well as some prospects who might be in play for the Bombers after the well-known possibilities at 2nd overall. Check it out and discuss. http://2ndand10.blogspot.ca/

Who says it's a design flaw. We just had the worst winter in over 100 years. A building can be designed to withstand weather much worse than normal but not a lot are designed to meet once in a century conditions. It's a design flaw, and partly due to the cheapness of both the design and build. Corners were cut all over the place to come even close to the amount BBB Stadium was willing to pay as they added more and more features to the design to make it functional for a football team, but at least we got the sweet arches! Every part of the stadium has problems with drainage except for the concourse.

Meh...not worried about the baseball. Slightly better than a guy who spent the last year or so on a couch, slightly.

Ottawa overpaid Burris, but I doubt any of the veterans they've signed since have a base salary higher than the league average. Ottawa is the island of misfit toys, with 8 teams most of those guys are out of the league.

Standardized scouting system is probably one of the more oxymoronic things I've ever heard. Basically what they've described is a computer program where they are entering scouting reports and prioritizing players based on their perceptions of them, which is what GM's and scouts have been doing on paper, magnetic boards and whiteboards for the last 100 years. What's standardized about it? Are all 9 CFL teams sharing their scouting reports on prospects, and then this program generates a grade for each player? Nope.

The rotating spot between DL, WIL LB, Dime.

Pretty much, and that's not a whole lot different than the NFL or NHL. Ideally a guy has both, but you're going to draft a receiver who was good in 1 on 1's at the combine and ran 4.6 who had 300 yards last season over a guy who had 1000 yards but ran a 5.0 40 and had trouble getting separation from the best CIS DB's in 1 on 1's at the combine. Thibault is enough of an athlete that he might be able to play field corner if he can't figure out safety, but teams will have some idea of his football IQ from the interviews.

I'd love for Thibault to drop to pick 20.

That deserves a "LOL wut?"

Makes me wonder about Woods recovery from the broken bone in his foot. Not bad to have some insurance though in case he struggles with it, tends to be an injury that reoccurs or potentially affects mobility. Will be interesting to see if the Bombers take a look at Garvin as a receiver or DB.

3rd or 4th round probably.

I saw this on Twitter but don't understand why people are freaking out. Who's he...? A quarterback who can't pass.

The Bombers aren't obligated to make any payments on the $85 million loan from the province until after the 2018 season. They have to pay back a $10 million dollar bank loan they (BBB Stadium) took out to finish the stadium construction first, which should be paid off after the 2017 seasons according to their projections. The $3 million the province is putting into the stadium is to insulate plumbing so the stadium can function during the deep freeze. Not going to add any functionality beyond avoiding a disaster at a November football game or an outdoor NHL game...another design oversight/cost cutting move during the stadium build.

Could be a possibility for the Bombers as an OL IMO. Always have to guard against who the competition was though with the combine, it was the other guys eligible for the 2014 draft, not CFL players. Is Smith a really polished CIS player, will he make the jump, how long will it take and which side of the ball are you going to develop him on? There are always a few guys who seemingly come out of nowhere to dominate 1 on 1's and not all of them end up being very good CFL players, if you're lucky you can end up trading the guy for the rights to a free agent quarterback.

Plus OL-DL and receivers-DB's are the only guys who have meaningful 1 on 1's in a combine. Hard to judge LB's on anything but pass coverage, some combines do inside run drills for LB's, but I don't believe the CFL does.

For some reason facemasking popped into my head today as something that really should be reviewable. Either that the penalty was called and didn't actually happen, or that the penalty occurred but wasn't called. Pretty black and white in terms of penalties that could be reviewed. Why not toss roughing the passer into the mix? Camera is always primed on the QB, should have multiple angles on it. Any way you slice it, video review is going to cause more inconsistency on penalties that aren't black and white, like pass interference. Certain officials let certain things go, players play in those parameters, all of a sudden a guy in the booth is making a subjective call on possibly one of the key plays in an entire game, not going to end well.

My thoughts exactly. To this point, the "Command Center" has struggled to even get black and white calls correct. Would not want to see them making judgement calls. They really should simplify the rule, or put up a few points of emphasis, as in if this occurs, the flag gets tossed every time. Start with contacting a receiver while making no attempt to make a play on the ball, as indicated by not turning and tracking the ball at all, or tracking the ball but making contact without attempting a play on the ball. Automatic flag. That's kind of a judgement call too, but anyone who has watched 2 football games in their life can tell when a DB is trying to play the ball and when they are just taking the receiver out.

I don't think that's a huge concern if we are only talking about adding, say, 4 players to make it 46/50. One extra linebacker isn't going to kill the LB coach, same for most other position groups. We're also seeing more teams bringing in extra coaches who serve as defensive or offensive assistants. For example, last year Saskatchewan had both Barron Miles and Richard Kent coaching their defensive backs. I don't think coaching would be an issue. Meaningful practice reps are possibly a legitimate concern, but the fact is right now there just isn't room to develop enough players. Imports come directly off the practice roster and start when there is an injury. Surely it would be better for them to get into games beforehand and get some rotations on offence/defence and participate on special teams. I don't buy the argument that "Having more players who barely practice and never play won't help player development." It is better for a player to be working out with the team and sitting in the film room and learning the team's system than it is for him to be sitting on the couch at home, even if he is only getting a few real reps per practice. I don't think that teams need a huge expansion to the rosters, but I do feel like they are just a bit too small right now. Expanding to 46 active players (3 QB, 21 Imports, 22 Non-Imports) and 50 total, would give teams a little more latitude in deciding who to keep around and increase their ability to develop their young players. The 9 game IR is functioning as a spot for developmental players, particularly QB's and Canadians. Most teams end up carrying 60+ players in the regular season. They could change what the roster spots or lists are called, but I don't think teams would want to carry more than that, and if they could that would mean that players who would potentially be able to play as fill-ins on other teams due to injury are not available, unless something drastic changes to make those kinds of players available more easily. Players just aren't developed into professional talents at the top level of any pro sport, players who are good enough to be on the roster get better and adjust to the CFL and develop in that sense. They are practicing to win a game at the end of the week, not develop players and IMO it doesn't matter how many guys you let hang around, that's not changing and not a benefit to those guys unless they are ready to play pro football. If you add 5 NI's onto every team, you are adding guys who aren't, and they won't get the chance to develop, it would just be a waste of money from the team's perspective. If you create some kind of semi-pro league (they already kind of have one in Southern Ontario that CFL teams sometimes pluck guys from), that would be a better development ground for those borderline, bottom of the roster type of NI's. For imports (other than QB's), teams aren't going to spend a lot of time developing someone, if a guy is that far behind or can't figure it out they'll bring in one of the other 5000 NCAA grads/NFL cuts looking for work.

2 issues beyond money. Who coaches all these players? When do they get meaningful practice reps? Even with the current roster size, the non-starters get very limited reps outside of positional groups. Having more players who barely practice and never play won't help player development.