Milt

Vega is a great signing. Awesome leadership guy I don't mind it, hes a solid player and he seems like a good guy but I'm a little surprised with the pageantry considering that wasn't exactly an area of weakness and he's not exactly a star. I don't recall off season press conferences being held for anyone but QBs around here. that being said, definitely a solid addition to the team.

wow that's really anti-climactic.

muamba extension?

so we don't have a kicker on the roster right now?

I somewhat disagree. If a guy is talented, smart, and most of all athletic - they will look at him. I'm not sure that it's so much of a stigma if he's getting workouts. Fair enough. Still seems like a disadvantage to me, having to learn the game, the nuances, the things most Americans would learn from HS thru to college and the pros. But hey, I've never played or coached - what do I know! I've also heard the opposite where coaches haven't seen as much of the Canadian guys so they keep em around longer. Kinda like how Russians get hyped up in North America in hockey.

But what if that means Rogers picks up the HNIC production team to run their stuff? Seems like a win win for CBC. They still get HNIC and don't have to pay these people to produce it. Just throwing it out there. But CBC just gets to air and advertise for some of their shows all the other advertising revenues goes to Rogers apparently. And that hockey revenue makes up about 50% of CBC's revenue. Looks like the beginning of the end for CBC as a public owned entity.

on the other hand Cortez woulda hired Creehan right? Red flag. Creehan was coming off of a pretty good stint in Winnipeg where he was thought pretty highly of. sounds like he'd have the option of having Tim Burke as DC this year. It's Cortez for me, he would still be working in Hamilton had Obie not stepped aside and Kent Austin come in. He's got a pretty good track record and experience as an HC. Cortez working with the offence (maybe with Khari as OC) Burke as DC Dickenson as STC You could do worse. And who would be the HC then? We've had oh so much success with HCs trying to be coordinators lately right? The concerning thing with Cortez is how he went out and hired a poor choice at DC in his try as a HC. We've seen enough of that here when coaches bring in poor assistant coaches. Gotta hire someone who knows how to surround themselves with good people. Yeah he'd likely improve the offense a whole pile, but would the team as a whole get better? I dunno. The idea here is to hire a coach who can stay here for 6 or 7 years. No but Cortez seemed to do a pretty good job of it in hamilton. It's been successful elsewhere. Don't let the bombers incompetence cloud your opinion of Cortez.

on the other hand Cortez woulda hired Creehan right? Red flag. Creehan was coming off of a pretty good stint in Winnipeg where he was thought pretty highly of. sounds like he'd have the option of having Tim Burke as DC this year. It's Cortez for me, he would still be working in Hamilton had Obie not stepped aside and Kent Austin come in. He's got a pretty good track record and experience as an HC. Cortez working with the offence (maybe with Khari as OC) Burke as DC Dickenson as STC You could do worse.

I'm no totally against hiring a rookie head coach but there is definitely a learning curve there in terms of in game decisions. And there's no promise he ever gets a hang of it. Lapo had some screw ups in his first year as a coach, Burke obviously did and if we hire Khari we better be prepared for at least a few hiccups.

and yea sure we have solid depth on the dline but dont you think we make room for bilukidi? he is gonna be a solid additionto the front 7, at the very least more effective then one of thomas or arguably more valuable then Anderson or Gilmore.. no? sounds like Mike is a bengals fan. Bengals won't have room for him, bombers will

I don't think George Cortez got a fair shake in Hamilton. I'd like to see him considered for HC.

Honestly with the 2 year minimum contracts in the CFL now, a guy who's got as much experience as him would be foolish to hold out for NFL options at least until the end of the NFL year (or whenever the latest he can sign and still be eligible for the playoffs, if there's such a rule down there)

So any NI who started some games at tackle is a "starting NI tackle?" There's no variability in quality? Paul Swiston is therefore a NI starting tackle now. That's about the level of player we're getting, so don't get your hopes up too high. Neufeld has much to prove. The only reason this trade isn't a total fleecing is because we dumped a 14 pick for a 15 one when there will be a full draft pool, but there's no way we should have had to give up 2 rounds in that swap. Neufeld isn't a top 6 OL for the Riders and had very little chance of making their team next season regardless of Ottawa. Should have been no need to sweeten the pot, and if it was insisted upon, play hardball. Neufeld started 13 of 17 games in 2012 and the West-Semi...Pretty different from Paul Swiston's situation. He occasionally breaks into our terrible starting line. Steve Morley was a starting tackle for Calgary and started all of 2009 at tackle for us. Not an indicator of ability, nor an indicator of current ability. Steve Morley was also a Number 1 pick so I guess that means that draft picks must be worthless as well. But really, Morley would have been 28 or so in '09, Neufeld was starting in his second year in the league at 23. There's room for development here still. If you got a guy who is a 24 year old borderline starter in the draft in the second round you'd be pretty happy.

Great place-kickers, like QBs, are worth their weight in gold. If that were the case the stamps would be over the cap on Rene Paredes salary alone.

Peach is American lol oh, ffs. Then consider me lukewarm to the idea. LMAO. He was born in Vancouver... Washington. I'm in the same boat as you

I think the best way you can look at Mack's reign here is that I think at least a few years of his approach here were necessary. We had Brock Ralph as our #1 NI receiver when he started and he's stockpiled a respectable amount of Canadian talent.

Henoc assuming he's under contract or coming close to a contract will be protected, there's one guy protected. now we've got 5 spots left, to me the choice is between giving up a lineman or a reciever, in my mind we have a little more depth at reciever than we do O-line (especially considering we have Aprile, Dicroce, & Alli all in the pipeline). So assuming there aren't going to be many options at O line in free agency, are we basically handcuffed into protecting our O-line starters? So Henoc, Sorenson, Greaves, Swiston. and now you've got two spots left to protect Kohlert, Etienne, Watson, Palardy, Deangelis, Pencer, Renaud, Cauchy, Poblah or any other NI you deem worthy. I would probably protect Kohlert over Watson, as he's 4 years younger and hasn't shown any injury problems. So basically right now that means that Watson is probably your 6th pick to protect. So at this point Watson and the guys on the outside looking in are basically competing for that last spot.

Ability wise, all else being equal? No one. Taking age and durability into consideration...by the end of the season Kohlert and Etienne may be seriously worth discussing as options.

Been thinking about this lately, with Watson being 30 at the start of next season and his inability to stay healthy, where do you guys peg his odds at being left out of the 6 NI's protected during the expansion draft. Obviously a lot can change over the course of the rest of the season if he comes back and tears it up or depending on how other NI's play. At this point I'd say its likely he'll be protected but feel like its far from a sure thing. Thoughts?

You don't know he's going to get better but there are trends that are pretty predictable in professional sports. Rookies/inexperienced players tend to improve over time as they adjust to the game and physically mature. Older players tend to see a decline in performance past a certain age. No one can see in to the future but those are about the two most solid bets you can make in sports. Now I'm not sure if that means Goltz will ever amount to starting material but he's already neck and neck with Pierce and both are at ages where you can expect opposite trajectories.

He was re upped after our appearance in the grey cup I duno if i would classify that as "JUST re-upped"

based on what?

awww i wanted to bust him on this

According to their twitter account, The bombers have brought back James Green.

I could see him filling in. He's got the size, he's bigger than gilmore.