Jaxon

Along the same line, The Winnipeg Rifles have new uni's this year, and they are really nice! Should be revealed to the public before their season opener on Aug 17.

good article, thanks. Try to even imagine living his life. You can't. It is true that he's had a hard life. No doubt about that, but the only one who can turn it around is himself. According to the article, several people have tried to help him, but he keeps making bad choices. Getting into fights, drunk driving, trouble with the law, idolizing the wrong people. He's made plenty of wrong choices, including using a rare NFL pay cheque to buy 70 pairs of sneakers. I know several kids who are from low income broken homes that make better choices, and who have been able to move forward dispite disadvantages. He has to take responsibility for his actions....he isn't a child anymore.

I've long felt that the penalty for PI was too severe. Most other penalties are 5-10 yards, with "major infractions" at 15, where in theory the risk of injury is greater. PI, which we all know can be subjective, can be 40+ yards, which seems disproportionately high. Compare this to holding at 10 yds, and I have trouble justifing the difference. People claim that if wasn't for the PI, they could have scored a TD, but my answer is that without the hold, there could have been a 15 yd sack, which also would have been a loss of down, so the penalty doesn't necessarily make up for the play/foul. At the professional level, it is one of the very few "unrestricted" penalties, meaning that instead of going "half the distance" to the goal line, it goes all the way down to the one yard line for a foul in the endzone. Again, this seem disproportionately high. I'd suggest that PI be made 10 yards and an automatic first down (restricted to half the distance when close to goal line) for most of the calls, but perhaps allow the officials to call a "flagerant PI" with the current penalties for the worst occurances. The officials already have the same discretion when it comes to "roughing" calls, there is the garden variety "unnecessary roughness" which is 15 yds (officials refer to this as "UR") but they can also call "rough play" (aka "RP") which is 25 yds and often an ejection. ("RP" in amateur ball is an automatic ejection, and as of 2009, all roughing calls became unrestricted, meaning that the ball can go down to the 1 yd line, rather than 1/2 the distance)

How many times has Marve been stopped? Other than once or twice at the goal line? I know he got stopped on the 30 yard line against Montreal but that was a bad decision to go for it in the first place. With the lack of push of the O-Line I don't think Refrigerator Perry would have gotten a first down on that play. I don't think it was a bad decision, just bad execution. I know it didn't work, so it's easy after the fact to say that it was a bad decision, but that's very micro oriented. From the macro point of view, players love playing for a coach who has confidence in them. A coach that never gambles on 3rd, or never tries a fake kick, or never goes creative does not instill the same confidence in his players. I recall one time I was coaching in an important game, and we went for it on third down early in the game and got stuffed. I called over the entire o-line and the o-line coach and said "that clearly wasn't acceptable, but I know you can do better, so I'm going to give you another chance later to prove that you are better than that". We gambled twice more in that game, both successfully, and scored a couple of touchdowns with our short yardage team as well, and won the game handily against a strong opponent. My point is that many people on this board have been critizing the Rider's coaches for playing musical RB's due to a couple of fumbles. I don't believe that you give up the run entirely due to a couple of fumbles, and you don't stop going for it because you get stuffed on occassion. It is true that you may need to make changes to the personnel or the execution, but the strategy remains solid. Teams that play to win, win more often than overly concervative teams.

IMHO. the officials blew the call, the returner conceded and it should have been blown dead. On your second point, unless time is critical (counting seconds) most returners while intending to concede in the end zone are coached to run around a bit to force the cover team to run down field. Cover teams tend to have more defensive players on them, and you want to tire them out as much as possible, as they will stay on the field on the next play. A significant amount of football strategy involves trying to wear down the opposition all game long to take advantage later in the game. That is why you will see some teams swap receivers frequently and run fly routes against a corner all game, it is also why you will see teams rotate in d-linemen, because they know it is difficult for the offence to rotate in O-linemen.

I'd be very hesitant to take Kelly out of the lineup. His hands are outstanding. When Willy needed a big play to seal the deal, he went to Kelly, who was well covered.

I too prefer Thursday night games. I'm quite busy on weekends, and it really breaks the week up nicely. Gives me something to look forward to mid-week!

my biggest concern in this area is the mid-season transfer to the NFL. I can live with players leaving at year end, but loosing the top players mid season is an insult to fans. It will kill the CFL if it happens.

Too early. I could actually see Howard taking January's job next season. Bombers are high on him and January isn't getting any younger. Looked to me like January and Morley were the leaders out there last night. They were talking to the other guys and looking like the veteran players that they are with some leadership roles.

Happens with age. Don't feel too bad. I noticed that, and my father stated "oh no, they've already got the flag at half mast, did we die already?"... hahahahaha

I thought the Bomber coaching was brilliant last night. From the play calling to the challenge to the way they talked to players coming off of the field. Everything looked like I want to see it. I love coaching specialty teams, I love to gamble, and I love "gadget" type plays with lots of motion and mis-direction on both sides of the ball. The only thing that made me go "hmmmm" was the fake punt. On one hand I agree, I like a coach who is agressive as I believe it inspires his players. It shows he has confidence in them. It sets the tone that this is the kind of club we are; we take chances and we play full out. On the other hand, we were well up, and now every other team has film on that play, part of me says maybe we should have kept that one in our pocket. It sure was fun though!

Compounds the victory for the owners at any rate .. revenues that weren't accounted for during negotiations .. at any rate .. this is great for the league and hopefully draws a wider audience to our brand of football. It's a renewal, so it's not all new revenue. It would only be significant if it involved a large increase.

Brett Carter. Watson was injured last night, so we may see Carter activated for next week.

Nice to see two local (Winnipeg based) players making the Argo Roster: #48 Tommy Miles and #1 Anthony Coombs. Both played High School ball here, both played for the Manitoba Provincial Team, and then both went to the U of M. I like both of these young men and I hope they play well. With all do respect; I hope they lose their first pro game!

I disagree. That would kill junior football. All junior teams rely on funding from their local cfl clubs.

While BC does poach, they don't play at the same level as the prairie conference. PFC teams have won 4 of the last 5, 7 of the last 10, and 15 of the last 20 national championships. By far the dominant junior football is on the prairies.

I prefer the 7:30 start. It makes it easier for me to get to the game after work. I found 7:00 to be rushed. I also don't mind the Thursday night games. Mind you, I have one, maybe two beers at the most during a game. I actually go to watch the football, not to get hammered. My point is that for everyone that doesn't like Thursday, there is another person who doesn't want it on the weekend because they go to the lake. For every person who wants an earlier start, there's one that wants a later start. The diehards, like me, will be happy to go to games to support the team. The casual fans will go if the bandwaggon is making alot of noise and the team is winning. Thursday (or other weekday) games don't hurt the Jets, or the ballet, or the theatre centre. People who want to go will go, those who want an excuse not to go will find one. I agree with the earlier posters, winning will solve these problems.

IMHO, our biggest improvement over last year is coaching. Especially the leadership side of that job. I believe that we will see a greater committment from the players, and a whole lot more fight. I like Burke as a DC, but I never forgot the game where we kneeled down while losing at the end of the game. I just never regained any confidence that he could lead a winning team. With M.O.S., I believe we have the passion and the drive, and that it will wear off on the team. I expect some bumps in the road, and some trouble along the way, but I believe that this team will improve.

But, outside his passport, does Messam bring more to the table than any of our current running backs? Change of pace to a guy like Cotton? Absolutely. Would he be the primary back in our offensive? Not likely. I agree that he wouldn't be the primary back, but what he brings is 6'3" 245 lbs with experience carrying the ball. Cotton is 5'9" Volny is 5'10" I wouldn't break the bank for Messam, but if they can make the numbers work, he's worth a look.

I was at that game too. Sigh. Great team, great uniforms. We expected to win every game

I think Carter earned a spot. He has great hands, and was the leading "National" receiver for the Bombers last night. He played both slot and WR so they were definitely having a good look.

Toronto was playing a bunch of Press-Man. The correct read in this coverage is to go deep and let your receiver make the play in 1-on-1 coverage in open field.

I think the proposed arrangement is a significant improvement for the players. Cap this year went from 4.4 to 5.0 million per team, that's a 13% increase. The minimum also went up by a similar amount. They got concessions in more players, reduction of padded practises, and removal of option year for vets (good for players, bad for fans) They also got healthy signing bonuses. In the real world, this is a generous contract. True that they didn't get the "pie in the sky" demands that were completely unrealistic....but anyone one that thought they would was not in touch with reality. In the vast majority of cases, unions that switch to more combative leadership don't usually fare better, they just end up with more bitterness and anger because they set unrealistic expectations. Many union leaders are like politicians, they promise more than they can realistically deliver in order to get elected, and after then gain power, reality sets in. The better leaders set a realistic goal, and work hard on getting their priorities taken care of. Quite often, once the company has put down the final offer, smart union leadership recognizes that, and negotiates to allocate the limited resources to the most important areas. Looks like in this case, it was signing bonuses for vets instead of bigger increases to the minimum rates. I would suggest that this was due to there being more vets as the team reps taking care of number 1, and not caring much for the guys at the bottom of the seniority list. I don't know the details of when these bonuses are due, but if it is at the end of camp, it may cost more vets their jobs. This may also depend on whether the signing bonus is part of the cap for each team. Reality dictates that there has to be a value to cost ratio. I

In general, I think it proper that all members ( including rookies) have a vote. It's their future too, maybe even more so than an aging vet. They have a small window right now to prove themselves, next year there will be more rookies coming in. Proven vets get more chances and the benefit of doubt from coaches and managers. Just look at how excited some fans get for brand name players. I'm going to assume that they aren't voting on the owners' proposal directly, but rather a typical strike mandate to allow the PA's leadership the authority to call a strike at any time. These are often sold as "negotiation tactics" but I hope that the players fully understand what the reality of the situation is.

I don't see this as likely for several reasons: 1. PR would be an absolute nightmare for the PA if they did this. No chance that you would get any favourable influence from the fans for a very long time. 2. Different labour laws in different provinces make job actions a tricky business. In BC for example, a union (in the case of a strike) or the employer (in the case of a lockout) must give a couple of days notice. The PA could really only play this trick card once, and they couldn't do it everywhere at the same time. Also of note in BC, an employer can force the union to conduct a secret ballot vote on a "final offer". The Minister of Labour would conduct the vote, but an employer can only ask once during a negotiation, so you must use this carefully. My company did once a couple of decades ago, as the union was representing their own interests ahead of the interests of the employees. The union negotiator wanted several clauses inserted in the contract that had costs to the employer, but no benefit to the employees working there. The Minister conducted a vote and the employees voted 80% in favour of the company proposal. That negotiator was removed, and several subsequent contracts were settled in normal course. 3. Even if the PA was to adopt this tactic (not likely), I don't think that they would target Winnipeg for this. More likely that they would pick the most influential owner, or the one in the bargaining room that pissed them off the most, or the wealthiest team (Riders?), or the biggest media market.