Jimmy Pop

This whole added value in Regina thing is just a myth created by Rider fans anyway. Not in Heenan's case, because he is a hometown boy but with other prospective players. Rider fans have created this myth that if you come to Regina there are tons of businesses that are lining up to throw cash at the players creating this huge advantage for them. The truth is that every city that cares about the CFL can offer the exact same perks through there alumni, booster, and corporate sponsors. Players in Regina make no more money off the field or have any more perks extended than in say Winnipeg or Calgary, In fact, in many cases they offer less because of a smaller market size.

It's still five long months until we have football again. I've been doing a lot of reading about the history of the Blue Bombers and I thought maybe we could start a "this day in Blue Bomber history" thread of some kind to give an idea of what this franchise has been through and how history continues to repeat itself. Anyway, just a thought.
Here's a for instance - 80 years ago the Bombers got beat by the Roughriders in the playoffs, and decided that they didn't want to endure that humiliation again, and so they pioneered a concept called "imports". That's right, the Bombers invented the concept of importing large numbers of US players specifically to play football in Canada. Did you guys know that?
 

http://www.cflapedia.com/teams/winnipeg.html
Kind of like how the Jets pioneered the recruitment of European players back in the WHA days...

Certainly an interesting read, and I liked the format he used for grades.  Although based on the grade definitions he gave I think Volny and Ettiene are 2's rather than 1's, but that's largely inconsequential.
 
One thing I think is inaccurate is the assertion that Volny doesn't play much special teams, drawn from the fact that he has only 5 ST tackles in his career.  There are 6 different special teams units.  Only 2 of those 6 commonly involve tackling.  Although I don't watch for Volny every time special teams steps on the field, I know he is a fixture on the front line of our kickoff returns, and am fairly certain he is on the field for all punt returns as well.
 
And I would be curious to know the source of his assertion that Mack drafted Ettiene at the behest of LaPolice.  I don't dispute it, but if it's just something that's been out there for a while, I must have missed it.

What did he ever do to you?

Hey, it's fantastic to hear that MBB is supporting Big Brothers / Big Sisters. I'm a big brother and it's a great program. Thanks MBB!

Season ticket holder since day 1, and that's easily one of the better games I've seen at the Phonebooth. Jets played real well - engaged, fast, physical, positionally-sound. We deserved the 2 pts, and were the better team without a doubt. Build off this heading back on the road...same play vs. Ott, Car and the like, and those are W's.
 
Surprised at the way Pitt plays this year - extremely chippy. Game got out of hand at various points, due to Pitt being pesky buggers and some boneheaded officiating. Refs: The Pens already have Crosby and Malkin, they don't need biased officiating on their side too!! Numerous calls missed when a Jet was hauled down or hooked, then head-scratchers like the interference call in the 3rd where our D (who?) stood up a Pen at the line. That's not a penalty. Pavelec gets absolutely mauled twice, one time they even it up, 2nd time it's a PP Pitt. We go and get in Fleury's grill, who in turn gives Scheif a nasty slash on the back of the leg - Pens powerplay (huh?). Buff... I won't complain too much there...he got away with only getting a 2min to end the 2nd, and the 10 min misconduct was clearly the make up call. I've never seen a misconduct on a uneventful little scurmish like that.
 
The crowd, took it to another level last night. Very much reminiscent of year 1 - which is phenomenal. So few games at MTS have that energy these days.
 
Pitt fans...eeesh...they're not Mtl or Tor bad. But on the uninformed/dickish scale, they're near the top for sure. Mocking Pavs strong play because it's occuring in a contract year (whaaa?) was a favourite. We had 3 Pens fans from Ohio sitting behind us...pretty good ribbing back and forth...until the game ended and the overly excited/inebriated bloke behind us tumbled down 1.5 rows while spilling his beer. Kind of hope he's concused....not going to lie. 

This has got to be a joke. I can't believe how clueless some Jets fans are.

This thread...
 

In all honesty I think Edmonton has a one year head start on the Bombers in rebuilding.  They went through similar growing pains with Reilly last year that the Bombers are just working through now with Willy.
 
On another note, I hope O'Shea comes back after this week with a vision of what he needs to do to further the progress that has already been made this season.  Time for him to take charge and stop letting his coordinators make the decisions that lead to the same errors and weaknesses being exposed week after week.  This means play calling as well as personnel decisions on all 3 teams.  I think so far O'Shea has leaned heavily on his coordinators to make decisions for him but sooner or later he has to realize that this is his team and he has to take charge.

Yeah, good sign for this place to see other team's fans coming here. And yeah, good for conversation to get other POV.
 
That said, the Durant thread was littered with the same Pom pom waving that we're *apparently* helping to eliminate with the help of the oh-so-knowledgeable Rider brethren.  Only instead of blue and gold pom pom's, they were green and white, and accompanied with a sign reading: "Durant or no Durant, we're the best and winning the Grey Cup!"

OK so I know, understand, and agree with the idea that fans of all CFL teams are welcome here to talk football.
But that being said and at the risk of going all 17to85, what is with this place being overrun with Rider fans in virtually every thread defending all their players at length (like we really care that much), scolding us about how we should feel about injuries to their precious players (like they can really talk), and then being all condescendingly patronizing (easy to do after beating us 3 times).  Are all the Rider boards too full of all their super awesome smart fans that they're spilling over here?  Why would a Rider fan even want to spend so much time here??? And are they still going to be here when the Riders suck and the Bombers finally sweep them in a season (Lord willing, I'll never stop praying until it happens)?????
 
Or maybe this is the new reality of being in the West, and we're just getting a taste of what fans in Calgary and Edmonton have to put up with inside the actual stadiums. The green virus is spreading.
 
So in conclusion, Go Big Green BLUE!

My 2 cents. This year's outfit is miles and miles ahead of last year. I really hope suggesting otherwise was an attempt at humour.
Run D, in tough again. On the plus side, tackling seemed a bit sharper. End of the day, 14 pts, 14 first downs and 300 yds against is a pretty solid effort by the defence. Offence did enough, but not when it mattered.... ill advised throw sucked the the life outta that place. I thought Drew had plenty of time to throw all night, and when he didn't, he stepped up and got rid of it. Special teams and untimely calls against cost us this one.
I had a great time though, sec 209 brought the noise all day. Rider 5 beside us shared some mini donuts, so hard to be too mad at them.

My 2 cents. This year's outfit is miles and miles ahead of last year. I really hope suggesting otherwise was an attempt at humour.
Run D, in tough again. On the plus side, tackling seemed a bit sharper. End of the day, 14 pts, 14 first downs and 300 yds against is a pretty solid effort by the defence. Offence did enough, but not when it mattered.... ill advised throw sucked the the life outta that place. I thought Drew had plenty of time to throw all night, and when he didn't, he stepped up and got rid of it. Special teams and untimely calls against cost us this one.
I had a great time though, sec 209 brought the noise all day. Rider 5 beside us shared some mini donuts, so hard to be too mad at them.

Under 30 crowd, checking in.
I don't think there's much of an issue getting people my age or younger involved. Had the last regime stayed another year or two, maybe another story.
We were just talking about this at my office...one mixed with mid20's to middle age folks, male and female. Consensus was Miller is doing a lot of positive things to engage people. Allowing fans on the field and keeping the vendors open past the final whistle is only one ex of something theyre doing to engage fans, young and old.
Bottom line: 20-23K are going to be at the stadium rain, shine or earthquake. When the team is promising (hello 2014!) the casual fans will come out in droves.
/non issue. Handled internally.

For all the criticism he's getting, we don't even know if we have a back up QB who's better than Elliot.

I know you're not...but this post is close to the troll variety, seeing that you know how the majority feels, or should, about those ugly clothes they wore.

1290 is a fart sniffing empire.

I'm hoping we've learned our lesson on Woods, and that he plays.  We need his reliability on teams.

This is an argument I've heard before, and generally I believe that it holds true.  But an interesting case has developed recently in Dallas.  They were sitting in that 9-12 spot just like the Jets from 2011-2013, until they made the blockbuster 7-player trade to acquire Tyler Seguin.  They had to give up a budding star in Loui Eriksson, among others.  And that was enough to push them into playoff position last season.  Now, they've made another big move to acquire Jason Spezza, completing a total overhaul of their top 2 centres over a short period of time.  We don't know what's going to happen in Dallas this season, so it is hard to point to this as a model we need to follow.  But it will be interesting to see what happens there, because their situation was incredibly similar to the Jets' situation before they made the big trade.
 
Is it realistic to expect Chevy to pull off something like that?  Maybe that is asking too much... but in Dallas we have an example of a GM who proactively went out and acquired big, star-caliber players without mortgaging the future to do so.
 
All I'm saying is that it is not impossible to pull off big moves that help the team without killing its long-term viability.  It may not be easy... but nobody said being an NHL GM was an easy job, and they don't hand out gold stars for trying to sign players or trying to make trades.

I guess my biggest issue with Chevy after reflecting upon the last 3+ yrs of his leadership is that there doesn't appear to be any strong plan in place to get better - and not just have a better system and prospects - but actually have better results.
 
Clearly, they haven't done enough to bring in talent from outside the organization. This is really no debate. We can debate expectations and the 'ol would he/woulnd't he come here, end of the day pretty safe to say that 0 high impact players have been brought in. When Michael Frolik is your only substantial acquisiton and when you've NEVER completed a player-for-player trade it shows you're involvement in free agency and the trade market is essentially non-existent.
 
The draft-and-develop blueprint I totally buy into - for both the state of our franchise, and market, this seems appropriate. Problem here is Chevy has aquired the exact same amount of picks as he's traded away - so when people within the organization or outside say we're building through the draft, it's not really the full picture. We're drafting well, but not enough.
 
Sum it up and my fear with this team is that by the end of this season or next we'll be looking to pull the chord on Chevy and have the same lingering questions we did before these were the Jets: Is the core good enough, is Pavelec a legit starter, how good is Buff, Kane etc. Finishing one or 2 spots outside the playoff line is easily the worst place to finish - you're not drafting high enough, and your fans don't get postseason hockey. Given that we've yet to see playoffs anyway, would it not have made more sense to deal a Byfuglien, a Ladd, an asset that can bring back draft picks and prospects. Get worse now to get better moving forward. Yes, hindsight is 20/20....just feels more and more like we had our eyes closed and were hoping for the best the last few yrs...do the same thing and hope for better results - not a good enough method to win, especially not when you have Chi, St.L, Col and Dal in the division.
 
/rant

This thread has become lol worthy.. Turner tells us there's no cancers on this team and tons of chemistry and next we are talking about turner sucking (wtf?) And Walters sucking at trading... (again, wtf!) We traded a guy who wasn't going to be relevant here again and a second rounder for a starting canadian oliner.. Would we have landed one in the second round? Doubtful. Is our oline playing that much better since he was brought in? Yip. Lastly, with who we have seen at GM in the last 3 seasons... do we really have any grounds to complain ?

Not denying the talent of Watson, but he might be better suited to the role of rotational third NI receiver with his injury issues. Regardless, its a pretty good problem to have. Gone are the days of us starting Brock Ralph and Aaron Hargreaves.

Guys... let it go.  We're playing great now.  No need to dredge up the last 4 regimes. 

You don't think a head coach who throws his players under the bus at every turn, who basically said that the talent level on the team isn't good enough to win, isn't a cancer in the room?  You don't think that stuff doesn't bring the team down.
 
Have you ever had a boss that everyone hated that when he walked into the room everyone shut up and was immediately on edge?    I was never in the locker room, so I can't say this is how it was, but based on what I saw of his interviews, how he composed himself, how he spoke, and what he said, I would have a very hard time respecting what he did and said as a player.
 
And that is the worst kind of cancer to bring to any team, because it permeates from the top down.

Seriously? The NFL is all bent out of shape about a couple of dope smokers while it's coddling the likes of ******* Ray Rice?

Unbelievable.