17to85

What? Did you watch practice or preseason at all last season? All I hear about Marve is how well the guy can throw. Marve was the Bombers' best QB in training camp, and maybe even in practice, last season and was very good with limited reps in the regular season. The offence performed incredibly well with Marve at the helm, considering the circumstances (down by 16 against the best team in the league in the first game, awful weather in the second one). They scored 29 points (should've been 36) in the 53 minutes that he played. He was only sacked once during that time, did not throw an interception nor fumble the ball... He basically did everything necessary to win games. Marve has excellent potential, and frankly, I think it's stupid to suggest he might not stay on the roster. I agree that Marve has a lot of upside and possibly could be better than WIlly in the future. I don't think JBR was disputing that, nor do I see anywhere that he thinks he will be cut. However, there is more to throwing than just arm strength. Last year Marve did not show the ability to recognize certain coverages and did not get the ball out in a timely fashion. While this made for some tremendous excitement when he scrambled, these were broken plays. Until Marve learns to read coverages, can take a 3-5 step drop and deliver the ball he will not be surpassing anyone on the DC. Marve looked decent last year in limited playing time. A quick look at his stats will show that he was far from incredible. I get it...you're stoked about what could be a good young QB, however, I think you are overstating things right now concerning Marve. And the most important part, is that when teams know about a qb they can game plan for him. See it all the time, young scrambling qbs come in look good in year one, then when there's film on them and teams just take away their room to run and force them to win with just their arm they struggle. Casey Printers is a great example. If you kept him in the pocket he was terrible, you gave him room to run he could be dangerous. Marve needs to show that next step of being able to hurt teams with just his arm consistently because relying on the ability to run isn't always going to be available.

Bloggers are the most self important people out there. Really hard to read.

is that a fat joke?

There was another SNL sketch that had CFL footage in it too. A lot of the football footage in movies and TV is CFL, I assume because they don't have to pay jack **** for the rights to it.

Yeah the size of the balls is the same now and growing up the football I had was one of the big fat ones, I had to re-learn how to catch the damned ball because of that when all of a sudden everyone has these wee little balls we toss around.

You truly are the best insider around Mike, we all appreciate how hard you work to keep us informed.

Exactly....and when he starts catching everything that Willy throws his way...there'll be a few people trying to choke down some of those black feathers of that infamous bird AND I'll be here to add a little salt LOL nah, everyone will be crowing about how they knew all along he was great.

No we had a meeting, everything is blamed on the NDP now.

Surprised with the release of Tim Brown, he's a great return man. He's 30, or almost 30. He's primarily a return guy. Surely anybody much less Wally could find a younger guy to do the same. So you're saying Taman is going to sign him...

Really? Etienne couldn't even play special teams. Basically useless for a game day roster And yet I still remember him making more of an impact at receiver in more games than Poblah ever did. Like I said, Poblah had that one good game vs. the Riders and a whole lot of nothing.

Poblah played a grand total of about 1 good game while he was here. Guy might be a good athlete but as a receiver he leaves a lot to be desired. I'd take Etienne back before POblah.

What's so hard to understand that a young team was improving until Eakins showed up and then they started regressing? It not only makes the record worse but it lowers the trade value of players you do have and you wind up giving away solid top 4 defencemen like Jeff Petry for a bloody 2nd round pick while tools like Franson are getting first round picks back. Eakins was the worst thing to happen to Edmonton since Gretzky was traded.

The team was making progress before Eakins was hired, why is this such a hard concept to grasp? It was getting better but Tambellini sat on his hands and didn't make moves to improve the roster. he was fired because he refused to make a move to even try and improve. McTavish at least did make some moves to improve the roster, unfortunately he bungled the coaching hire in a way that was so bad it set the team back. When building through the draft the key is to show progress and that was happening until Dallas Eakins showed up. Jets fans should understand how slow the process is, and that's if you have the correct people in place. I just grow tired of reading all the bullshit that gets thrown around from people who don't take the time or effort to look at the situation that team was and is in and just assume it must be because the players they drafted aren't that good.

4 #1 picks but 2 of them were lottery wins. and again, no one is saying close, only that they were better than they showed under Eakins, which is a pretty ******* low bar to set.

see this is the ignorance that I'm talking about. Here's how it went down, They were bad the year they got Hall, last in the league by a metric **** ton of points. The next year when they drafted RNH they were still last in the league but only by a few points. Then the following year they were 2nd last in the league, they won the lottery and got Yakupov. The year after that they drafted 7th overall. That was the lock out year with Ralph Kreuger and at the trade deadline they were actually in 8th spot before falling off the pace at the end of the year. Then you get Dallas Eakins. Prior to Eakins they were improving their points, climbing up the standings. Slowly yes but progress was being made. Goals for were going up, goals against were going down. Eakins first year their goals against and goals for were back to the levels they were at when they were finishing last in the league. All this while appearing to have a better roster to work with on paper. So you had a team showing progress before Eakins and then a team going backwards after Eakins was hired.... Eakins gets fired and the Oilers are playing at roughly a .500 pace until they traded Petry and had a couple other veteran D get hurt and they had to use an AHL defence and the pace fell off a bit. Now look at that and tell me that Eakins wasn't a ******* huge problem. No one is claiming the Oilers were a playoff team with a different coach, only that Eakins halted the progress being made and reversed it while making players look worse than they had in the past. The best comparison and I know it's one that Bomber fans can understand, is that it's like the difference between Tim Burke and Mike O'Shea. Except Eakins was far worse than Burke.

No just not under Dallas Eakins. It is abundantly clear that a lot of people don't really appreciate the turn around that team had after Eakins was fired and how far they fell off when he was hired. Kreuger and Nelson aren't even the cream of the crop in terms of head coaches either. Eakins will go down in history as one of the worst coaches of all time. It is criminal that he was allowed to ruin the players on that team for as long as he did. Eakins wasn't just a bad coach, he was an all time bad cancerous coach.

The absolute bottom line is that gay or straight or anything in between doesn't matter a bit if the guy can play football. He's not in the NFL because he's not a good enough football player, we'll see if he's a good enough football player to play in the CFL or not. I just hope that if he isn't good enough that people don't try and make it sound like he was hard done by simply because he's gay.

Depending on where you live, Koodo may be an option. I am not hyping Koodo because I am getting anything out if it, but we have been with Rogers, MTS, and now Koodo, with Koodo being the best experience and fit. The Koodo website has coverage maps if you want to check them out. Might work for you. Koodo and Telus are the same thing, only difference is you can get better phones from Telus. I'm on Telus because their coverage is the best in Alberta and I need the coverage in bum **** nowhere for work. Fact of the matter though is that in places like Manitoba and Saskatchewan where there is competition the big 3 companies have lower pricing and that just bugs the **** out of me. Governments built all the infrastructure these pirates use and now they bend us over a barrel and show us the 50 states when it comes to charging for using said infrastructure. I'm not a socialist at all but I'd love a government to go bust up that oligopoly.

We imported the NDP from Manitoba when all along Alberta should have been importing MTS.

I call him under rated because of all the talk like the above questioning things about the player that aren't even questionable. Great attitude, great work ethic, great drive and passion. Oilers forwards are better at D than people think as well, the biggest problem in the Oilers defensive zone is a group of defencemen that was not good at actually getting the puck out of the zone. Leads to more time spent in the defensive zone and more potential for someone to get beaten. Give the Oilers a capable puck moving defence and the opinion of the forwards defensive play will change, much like Calgary. The young forwards in Calgary ain't all that defensive either, but between Giordano and Brodie and Russel and Wideman they can get the puck moving in the right direction.

Is that where people drink as much alcohol as they can until they vomit? bolded confirms, but doesn't specify which sport.

So did Tillman. Everyone had him rated as a top draft pick if he had been in the draft. Just goes to show the uncertainty of scouting and why draft lists shouldn't be taken as gospel.

As someone without the option of MTS I wish I could get them to give me a cell phone. Hell I'd take Sasktel as well. You guys are lucky, the big 3 have lower rates in MB because there is more competition from MTS.

No you can clearly see that it was the coach. Rookie year Yakupov led all rookies in goals, tied for the rookie lead in points AND he was the Oilers top goal scorer. More than Hall, more than Eberle, more than anyone on the team. How is that not proving he was a legitimate #1 pick? That was the lockout year, I believe his 82 game prorated goal scoring pace was close to 30 goals. Pretty good for a rookie and #1 overall worthy right? Then year 2 hits and Dallas Eakins comes in and Yakupov looks like he's never played hockey before. But then Eakins is fired in Yakupovs 3rd year and his play visiibily improves but the points are slow coming as his shot is off and he looks like he lacks some confidence. The points do start to come though and his game looks better and he finishes the year with 20 points in the final 28 games. Not too bad right? It is plain as ******* day for anyone who cares to look that Dallas Eakins was the only thing holding Yakupov back. He wasn't the only one. RNH, Eberle, Schultz, Petry, they all saw their games turn around hugely after Eakins was fired. The man destroyed the confidence of that team. He was the only cancer in that room and now that they've done an enema of the entire management that hired him and kept him people will start to realize just how spectacularly that held the team back. So you are basically saying he has had one good lockout shortened season and one good 20 game stretch. I'd want more out my first overall pick. I've seen him play, there is no denying he has a crap load of talent. But for me juries out on whether he has the heart or drive or whatever you want to call it needed to get to that elite status in the NHL. And yes, I expect a first overall pick to show progress year to year to get to that status. One possibility is that it was the coach. Another possibility is he is a streaky player who only shows up when he is motivated to. I'm not saying you are wrong, just saying he hasn't really proven a whole heck of a lot yet. Your theory on the coach is just that ... a theory. Time will tell if it is proven right or not. You are a scientist, you should understand that. Doesn't change the point that Edmonton would be foolish to trade him now because they would be selling low. I am curious though, question for you. If Yakupov is a bust again this year under McLellan, will you put that on the player or will you still blame Eakins for ruining his career? I'm sorry but if you think the 2nd then you really haven't seen him play enough and don't know a thing about the player. He is one of the hardest workers on that OIlers team. The point here, is that he looked like a first overall pick under Ralph Kreuger and Todd Nelson and looked like someone who was just picking up the game of hockey under Dallas Eakins. It's obvious what the problem here was because proven scorers like Jordan Eberle looked like crap under Eakins too. Did you know that Eakins would bench Yakupov if he had a good first 2 periods because he wanted Yakupovs game to end on a positive note? How on earth can you sit there and say it was anything but the ******** coaching of Eakins? Bottles the mind that people are willing to excuse the worst coaching I have ever seen because Russian.

No you can clearly see that it was the coach. Rookie year Yakupov led all rookies in goals, tied for the rookie lead in points AND he was the Oilers top goal scorer. More than Hall, more than Eberle, more than anyone on the team. How is that not proving he was a legitimate #1 pick? That was the lockout year, I believe his 82 game prorated goal scoring pace was close to 30 goals. Pretty good for a rookie and #1 overall worthy right? Then year 2 hits and Dallas Eakins comes in and Yakupov looks like he's never played hockey before. But then Eakins is fired in Yakupovs 3rd year and his play visiibily improves but the points are slow coming as his shot is off and he looks like he lacks some confidence. The points do start to come though and his game looks better and he finishes the year with 20 points in the final 28 games. Not too bad right? It is plain as ******* day for anyone who cares to look that Dallas Eakins was the only thing holding Yakupov back. He wasn't the only one. RNH, Eberle, Schultz, Petry, they all saw their games turn around hugely after Eakins was fired. The man destroyed the confidence of that team. He was the only cancer in that room and now that they've done an enema of the entire management that hired him and kept him people will start to realize just how spectacularly that held the team back.