17to85

yeah, to me it was all about having a guy kicking around with a little bit of experience should disaster strike.

hmm but is that because he's really the 3rd best or because Lulay is young and doesn't get hurt much so the Lions want a younger project taking 2nd string reps so they have a future plan for after Lulay? Where Elliott actually stands with the Lions will only be seen if something happens to Lulay this year. To me he's there as insurance in case their project guy isn't able to step in should they need to turn to #2

that was huge after all the trouble they've had in the redzone the last few seasons.

I think people are just looking at the PI penalty and carrying over their opinions from last year to Johnsons game last night. He was solid, I thought all the dbs were truthfully. Sure there were some mistakes buy guys, but overall the defense did a good job.

quoting because it needs to be said.... They left a lot of plays out there last night, they gave Montreal a lot of chances with turnovers, they took some ill timed penalties... but despite all that they had their chances to win. This roster is good enough to win, time to clean up the mistakes in a hurry and start making more plays when they're available.

There were lots of positives to be had out there. The defense looked pretty good, yeah they made some mistakes and msised some plays (should have at least knocked down the ball on that Green td and probably should have come up with the pick) They had Calvillo rattled from the get go and that's very encouraging going forward. Dunn looked real good at sam, didn't notice parker a lot but that's probably ok at this point, the d-line I thought was very good, Secondary was pretty decent too. People like to rag on JJ for that PI, but even though he did get his hands on Bruce I think it's bullshit to single out the defender when there was that much fighting going on between the two. Bruce was interfering with Johnson as much as vice versa so while JJ did interfere I think in that situation you gotta let em fight or call the receiver for his interference as well. Offensively there were a lot of good things too, but the elephant in the room was Pierce. He flat out needs to be better. Noeller has been trying to tell me all morning that it's just rust it'll be fine, I just saw too much of what many of us were worried about leading up to the season... that being that Pierce is not the guy to be a consistent pocket passer. If he doesn't step up his game bigtime and become a dangerous passer I'm sadly going to be rooting for an injury to the guy so we can at least get someone with potential to get better in there because right now it's wasting a lot of talent. There were a lot of plays left on the field out there and the patented Pierce int on the sidelines showed up on the first throw! Pierce has been throwing too many of those balls to defenders the last couple seasons and it puts the team in a real bad spot.

yeah those are the issues I mentioned that PIerce had. So terrified of getting hit that he feels the heat and he can't do anything. I will say this too, that non called PI on 3rd down was absolute bullshit. They still had a chance to be heros and make a late play there but the refs botched it.

I disagree, the bombers didn't have any sequences last year like they did in the 3rd quarter I don't think. Pierce has some issues in his game and it showed, but there were some good things in there that we didn't really see last year. They clean up the turnovers there might be something there.

I'll just leave this here: http://www.cfl.ca/video/index/id/60105

Honestly though I think everyone in that pool wound up getting pretty solid teams out of the deal, going to be some interesting matchups throughout the year.

It's not a gif but here's a little primer for the season kickoff.

Good good... Without Matthews the receivers definitely lose a lot of size and I always like to have that aspect in the lineup somewhere just to give you more options. Speed is great, but size is a different beast entirely.

well yes, the problem is more with the way the roster was picked. It winds up being too heavy on DL. could have used some of the DL picks in other areas to shore them up a bit.

I agree, that video is one of the best promos the CFL has put out.

SRS BSNS

The chat was actually not too bad for the last preseason game... got a little bit sour in there but I guess you expect that when the score was what it was.

Let's find out and send Edwards on the patented Milt Stegall post route.

"don't get paid" rich uncle pennybags in montreal will make sure they get their compensation for sure.

Your Hamilton run down is my favourite of the ones you've done so far. Good stuff in there and touches on a lot of points no one seems to want to bring up.

and braley was probably pretty unhappy he had to shell out cash to the bombers last time they moved divisions... #OnlyBraleyGetsLeagueHandouts

The Bombers might well have had a Grey Cup if they'd stayed in the east last time.... I mean the renegades and ticats both absolutely sucked at the time, the argos were no screaming hell and the bombers in 2002 and 2003 were actually solid teams but the west was so tough those years and in 2002 especially the esks just absolutely killed the bombers by injuring Stegall at the end of the regular season and roberts at the start of the west final... that's a real big what if year to me because I think the 02 team was actually better than the 01 team, just got put in a ***** of a conference. and to expand on that... I don't see the redblacks being great off the start since they're an expansion team, I see Montreal taking a step back once Calvillo retires and that's coming sooner or later, Hamilton hasn't made any significant progress in the win/loss record lately. The east is where I want to be in the next few years cause the west is still tough and there's poised to be a softer conference in the east IMO.

It's the only sensible thing to do. With Ottawa having folded as many times as they have it's best to keep the bombers there rather than constantly flipping them back and forth. Plus who doesn't want to pick up the easy wins against an expansion team rather than slugging it out in the tougher conference?

I think it's still up in the air but upgraded from questionable to probably.

That's really the biggest thing, Taman was the local medias best friend. He told them so much about what was going on and Mack runs things in his own way and that doesn't include keeping the media in the loop as much. It's funny really. Kelly and Mack do have one thing in common, they both want to control the message rather than letting things out in the media first, the difference is that Kelly came out brashly stating it while Mack just went ahead and did it without announcing his intentions.