17to85

It was a 2nd round draft pick, and given where the Bombers finished the season it was an early 2nd rounder... Here's the problem I still have with the trade: Walters had all the leverage in that trade. Riders wanted Hall, one of if not the best DE in the league for their playoff push, they were likely to lose Neufeld at least to the expansion draft anyway. Walters jumped the gun and paid too much. Hall and an actual late pick would have been one thing, but Hall and a high 2nd? That's an overpayment for a player the Riders were just trying to get some return on.

Do you think WIlly would have done OK here last year? Honest question.....

There is no such thing as an easy win in the CFL.

When the head coach doesn't believe in his players you get what we saw last year, a team that had no heart, no desire and an amazing ability to just give up you know why? Because the head coach had given up before the game even started. Look how different it is with O'Shea? He believes in the players, he lets them go out and make plays to win football games, he never uses excuses. Ravaged by injuries and getting really deep into the depth chart.... doesn't matter the coach thinks they should all be able to start so it's just next guy up make some plays. That trickles down through the entire team. Any one who doubts just how bad Burke was as head coach after seeing what O'Shea has managed to do is just flat out not paying attention. There haven't been THAT many changes to the roster you can pin it all on that.

For sure. He played a bit of halfback here in 2010, I think, and he wasn't very good at it... but that's 4 years ago. I'm not sure how he has been doing in Hamilton so far. Stewart was always one of those big athletic guys here who seemed to have trouble grasping the intricacies of the postiion. Not sure putting him in a more difficult position is the way to go.

How can Higgins do his job when he's already got the axe hanging over his head before the season even started? What a clusterfuck of a situation.

Teague Sherman being a good example of this. Guy is coming along quite nicely. I think the biggest thing the CFL needs to look into is better ways for teams to develop NIs without having to keep them on the roster if they're not quite ready to play.

under rating Spezza or over rating Schiefele? I don't like that comparison one bit. Neither. Spezza had three great seasons. IMO Scheifele's top end is what Spezza was over the rest of his career. The rest of Spezzas career was pretty ******* good too though except for injuries...73 in 82, 57 in 60, 57 in 62, 84 in 80, hell even 66 in 75 last year. This is a guy who had a few seasons over PPG and then hovered around or just below PPG the rest of the time. I don't see Scheifele reaching that level for more than a short spurt.

under rating Spezza or over rating Schiefele? I don't like that comparison one bit. But here's some other interesting names for people to consider since Toews and Kane like to get brought up because of the Hawks winning ways... Kopitar was something like 11th overall, Bergeron was a 2nd round pick, Mike Richards was a later first round pick (though that was a freakishly good draft year), Getzlaf was a mid-late first rounder (but again stupidly good draft year) Claude Giroux was a late first round pick. We could go on but I think the point stands. You don't NEED the really high draft picks to get top players... it helps no doubt but if you have good development you can get good players anyway.

Duncan Keith was drafted in the 2nd round.... Outside of Doughty and Peitrangelo how many top defensemen are actually taken in those top spots anyway? A hell of a lot of them come from the middle of the first round.

hey we've all been victims around here... victims of Tim Burke, Mike Kelly, Jim Daley... etc etc etc

Look at it this way, Bryant was on the roster to replace Kelly, Kelly is now back so he takes his WR spot back, but Moore goes out with injury so Bryant replaces him at his slotback position. It's continuity. Quite frankly I don't see Kelly as a slotback type anyway. Use him to be big on deep routes one on one, it's what he's good at, I think Bryant can be more versatile in the middle.

teams are stubbornly trying to play 4+ NIs on the OL still, they gotta look at using more in non traditional places. Teams are bringing in too much good american defensive line talent the OL are getting outmatched.

They should have just left Winnipeg in the East this year. If a team is going to fail it'll be an Eastern team so if that happens god forbid it would mean yet another division switch for the Bombers. But I guess they want the playoffs to have eastern time zone teams...

Did he not play a lot of slotback when he was with the Bombers the first go around?

Well considering the one throwing the ball has been studying the playbook since he was traded/signed here, he'd probably have a good idea where the route was suppose to go, nevermind that he was seen afterwards on camera and suggested post game that Romby had run the wrong route. but it's still just the one play. The biggest problem with Romby that we can see right now is that he and Willy have absolutely 0 chemistry. Not worried about him in the slot, I'd rather he be there and Kelly go on WR than Kelly to SB. Hell maybe put Kohlert in the slot instead but I suspect they want some more speed there?

Is it even mathematically possible? The East plays each other so you'll have at least two teams in the East with records that should be better than the worst team in the West. Not to mention the western teams all playing each other as well. You aren't going to see every western team with more wins than losses. either they'll split enough of them or someone will come up on the short end of western matchups.

Whitaker for me as well.

How so? He was one of the biggest me first players we've had.... yeah he was damned good as a player for a few years but that was several years ago and he wouldn't do whatever the team needed him to do so **** him.

career in jeopardy, terrible signing by Walters, should never have went all in on a fragile player like that.

my favourite part was the Jake Thomas sack. Just no giving up pure effort.

Does anyone know when this wasn't the case? I've been following the CFL for at least 35 years and I don't remember a year when the East wasn't weaker than the West. 2001

Grigsby didn't really look all that bad on Friday night. The tackles for big losses really hurt his stats. He was also asked to convert a lot of short yardage. yeah he did look that bad. He did too much side to side running rather than taking the ball upfield and not getting much he ran sideways and lost more.

You think there's any chance the Riders wouldn't just back a dump truck full of money up to him?

If they could get Kelly back I think that would help. It's painfully obvious that Willy and Bryant are not anywhere close to being on the same page and they do seem to like having that big tall receiver as an option.