Dascow

The tough choice is between Flutie and Moon. Allen is not in their class.

I don't think anyone is saying that NO progress has been made. Unless I am missing something. The question here is; To what degree has progress been made? Is the team a little bit better, or a lot better than last year? It's a good question. How do you measure progress? By wins? By the fact that at least they are in every game to the end? (Excluding the debacle in Ottawa.) Or do you measure it by looking at player stats from this year to last? Last year was such a gong show of a season that it makes this season feel that much better. It does seem like the players this year are not giving up so quickly. They seem to fight until the end every game. Sadly, for the Bombers, that's progress... At this point I personally don't know if the team is a little better or a lot better than last year. It's really hard for me to tell right now. I think that after the season it will be easier to digest everything and make a conclusion. 2 things that make me hopeful is that I believe we now have a QB for the future and a kicker for the future. Those are the 2 most difficult things to find it seems. I will say that despite the progress that has been made this year, I think there is still a long way to go.

I don't care how he deals with the media. I don't care if he yells at his players or if he is buddy buddy with his players. I don't even care if he throws his players under the bus or not. As they say, there are many different ways to skin a cat. Just get results! That's all I care about. Don Mathews was a guy who would yell at his players, be short with the media and on occasion throw a player under the bus and I would take his winning record any day. Mike Riley on the other hand was the complete opposite and he was also a winner. What concerns me is that it seems like Coach O'Shea is acting like he is still a player, one of the guys, rather than a head coach. The Bombers have lost 7 of their last 8 games and in that time I can not think of anyone from the starting line-up that has been replaced due to their performance. (Not to say that there isn't at least one, but I just can't think of any.) Kuale is kind of the poster child for this problem. Kuale has not been stellar this season and on top of that he takes at least one, if not more, 15 yard penalties a game. That in my mind is unacceptable. O'Shea has also made some odd in game decisions, for example, when there is 10 minutes left in the game, and you are down by 8, you don't need to go for 2 just yet. But I will caulk that up to rookie mistakes. Hopefully he learns from them. I still have hope that O'Shea will learn that sometimes he is going to have to make the tough decision and be the so called bad guy.

No Matt Dunigan? That seems like an oversight.

First Jeffrey Bannon, now Jim Bell...interesting.

That's where your wrong mbrg. If Reebok put out a royal blue jersey, people would praising it and praising Reebok for finally listening to the fans. (Just to clarify, since there is a royal blue jersey done by Reebok and everyone HAS praised it. So much so that lots of people would like it to be the full time jersey.) This current jersey is : a. Not Bomber colors, it's Argo colors. (Kind of a slap in the face to over 80 years of tradition?) b. Kind of bland. For an Argo uniform it's ok, but for a Bomber uniform, it just doesn't make sense.

Keep the divisions for the 2 teams in first place. Let the first place teams in each division get a bye. Generally speaking, the first place team in the east is on par with teams in the west. Then take the next 4 best teams in the league, whether they be in the east or the west and let them play each other in the first round. Then in the second round let the bye team with the best record play the first round winner with the worst record. That way you still get the best teams in the CFL in the playoffs and you don't completely alienate the eastern time zone.

Replaced by who? Tanner Marsh? The only difference between Smith and Marsh is the color of their skin. Both of them can't do much but erratically throw the ball deep. I'm a little surprised Neiswander was never picked up actually. Alex Brink...

Let's not forget that the offencive line was a complete mess against Edmonton. They were having some serious issues. When you couple that with the most predictable play calling north of the 49th, you get the kind of running game we saw last week. I can't put the lack of production in the running game all on Grigsby's sholders. Let's also keep in mind that Andrew Harris, the leading rusher in the CFL, rushed for only 37 yards with a 3.4avg against Edmonton and against Montreal he only rushed for 26 yards with a 3.7 avg. Grigsby's style of running almost reminds me of Fred Reed's style of running. (I think Grigsby is a little bit shiftyer.) He'll run for 2 yards, 2 yards, 2 yards, then break one off for 15. That being said, I do like Cotton better and would like to see him in there...lol

I think it was Marcel Bellefeuille that was exposed yesterday. He called a terrible game. I really can't blame anyone on the defence this time. They were on the feild what, 38 minutes of a 60 minute game? (I think that's what I heard on the post game show.)

No... Not in a million years. That panel that you despise so much helped to popularize the CFL to a level no one here thought possible just 5 years ago. Those guys helped to rejuvenate a dead product. Think back to the late 90's where the CFL was back then. Couldn't sell out a Grey Cup, abysmal ratings. Look at the league now. The panel is one of the reasons the games are popular now. You'd rather watch baseball or soccer highlights instead of even a 15 or 30 minute post game show? Not me. I dissagree iso. I think think the popularity comes mostly from the fact that now they show every game. Letting every fan of every team, (Not just the Ontario area teams.), watch every one of their games on TV is what helped create this eximent that we see today for the CFL. If TSN up and changed every single panel member for the pre game show, I don't think the ratings would change one bit. People are tuning in for the game, not the panelists.

On more than one occasion he was able to make not just the first person miss, but the second and third as well. He had a solid game and at least he made the decision as to who should start next week a hard one for the coaches. It's a nice problem to have. I

He was fairly awful in the preseason game against Toronto...

I'm sure the Free Press isn't far behind.

Grading a draft 2 days after the fact is somewhat of a useless act. We won't know what grade to give Walters until at least 3 years down the road. I am optimistic that he did a good job, but time will tell really.

"The Bombers lost starting centre Justin Sorenson in free agency, so Goossen fills a need. He’s not on the same level as Lavertu mentally, but physically he is ready to play." - Justin Dunk That’s an interesting comment by Dunk, being that it was something that was being discussed yesterday in this thread. It kind of lends credence to why the Bombers would have brought Goossen in for a closer look. They needed to see if he had enough of an aptitude on the whiteboard. (Again it’s an aspect that I did not think of that was pointed out to me.) I still wonder though if Goossen is a guy that could be picked up further down the draft. Is he not a little bit of a reach at #2? If Hamilton was impressed enough with Quinn Smith, they could swap their first round pick with the Bombers and maybe they would be willing to give up one of their two 2nd round picks. (Possibly their 17th overall pick.)

Rider fans...

Most definitely. Do you think he is good enough to start at tackle though? I am sceptical. I thought he played well in Sask at RT... and terrible at RG. But, that was before the injury so we'll see. I guess I am unfairly basing my skepticism on some of the opinions of my Rider friends. (Having Rider friends is my first problem…I know.) I haven’t actually seen him play myself, so the nervousness about Walters abilities may not be fair, it’s just that I have had more than one person tell me that Newman wasn’t that great. Maybe they were referring to when he played at RG. Newman is not an OL. Hes is a DB. You might be referring to Neufeld. ...AH CRAP! Well, now I feel like a jerk.

These new unis are pretty uninspiring in my opinion. Black on Black on Black for home and White on White on White for away. It just feels lazy. I can’t wait until someone in the Bomber office gets their head out of their ass and gives us our Royal Blues, full time.

I think there's a lot of misconceptions about what a private workout entails. They're going to go over his stance, they're going to go over his footwork and they're going to get him up on the whiteboard to see how he calls protection for their scheme. They're not going to have him line up against Zach Anderson and take reps. At the combine, you get 15 minutes to speak to a guy. In a private workout, you get what, 4 or 6 hours? You can learn a LOT. That's fair. I did not think about the "whiteboard" aspect of the work out. I know that they were not going to line him up against Zach Anderson, I just figured for things like footwork, stance and strength at the point of attack, they would know everything they need to know from game film and the combine. They are not going to learn anything new about those aspects of his game in a private workout. You are right though, they could learn quite a bit about what's between his ears in terms of football smarts and in terms of what kind of person he is. But if they are at that stage, where they want to know what's between his ears then it would seem that they are very much considering him for the 2nd overall pick. So if you follow my logic, which is admittedly based on speculation, picking Goossen at #2 is a reach. If they wanted Goossen they could have traded back a few spots and got him while adding another asset. But now that everyone knows who Walters wants it will be harder for him to make a trade because they know if they don’t do anything then Walters will just pick Goossen at #2. He telegraphed his play, so to speak. Again, maybe I haven’t had enough sleep and I am over thinking things. Who knows… I am excited to see how this draft unfolds.

Most definitely. Do you think he is good enough to start at tackle though? I am sceptical. I thought he played well in Sask at RT... and terrible at RG. But, that was before the injury so we'll see. I guess I am unfairly basing my skepticism on some of the opinions of my Rider friends. (Having Rider friends is my first problem…I know.) I haven’t actually seen him play myself, so the nervousness about Walters abilities may not be fair, it’s just that I have had more than one person tell me that Neufeld wasn’t that great. Maybe they were referring to when he played at RG.

Most definitely. Do you think he is good enough to start at tackle though? I am sceptical.

Did Walters make a mistake trading the 2nd round pick for Neufeld? If we had that pick we could have picked Quinn Smith and still have been in play for Goossen. When Walters made that trade he claimed that he wasn't worried about tradding that 2nd round pick because of the lack of depth in the draft. However in his most recent "draft preperations" press conference he made the statement that it was not likely that he would be able to trade up to the second round because most teams, based on the depth of this draft, will not want to move out of the second round. So it seems that he may have misscalculated the value of the 2nd round. This leads to my second question. Why would the Bombers fly in Goossen for a work out? The reality is they are not going to see much in a private work out anyways, because no one wants to risk any kind of injury. So how much do they really get out of flying him in for a private work out? (How much more can they get from a private work out then they did from the combine?) I would say very little. They're not going to get him in the 3rd round, so I am assuming that they are trying to figure out if they can reach for him with the second overall pick. By bringing in Goossen and basically stating out right that they are wanting to pick a center in the draft, he has given up any leverage at all in any kind of trade that could have been made to move back a few spots. I don't know...am I over thinking things...? This is making me nervous. I am starting to wonder if Walters is in over his head.

I don't know if it's been covered but the Old Dutch chips that come in the box are made in Winnipeg. Right beside the Free Press building. The bagged ones are made in the states. You can also get the boxed variety at Sobeys. (I know I'm a little behind in the conversation...sorry.)

If he's down 20 from his playing weight and is planning on losing 20 more, than no, he is not making a comeback.