GCn20

I don't look at any exhibition game as an indication of anything. They are exhibition games. Preseason games have to be taken with a huge grain of salt because the 2s and 3s are also playing the other teams 2, and 3's. The Montreal game where our two DEs looked good late in the season was also an exhibition game of sorts. Montreal didn't dress half their starters and neither did we. That being said I am hopeful these young guys come in and don't regress like we've seen out of most of our top young guys over the past few years.

We We finished 4th in our division barely qualifying for the playoffs. There was no one or number of players sitting on our bench that puts lipstick on that pig. I don't buy your man in the middle theory either. It's pure speculation. If Walters and MOS were fighting every day before the GC's maybe they need to get back to that. That worked. Walters rolling over hasn't helped one iota and is a huge flaw. I see a very flawed SMS usage. That's not on Miller or MOS. I see aged out veterans being re-signed to big contracts. THAT'S THE GM. You keep saying we had the talent but we didn't because we used our SMS terribly. Pretty damn sure that neither Miller, or OSH advised Walters to let Kenny walk or let our OL fall to pieces and all the other massive amounts of actual proven talent that we lost, No coach in the world is telling his GM he doesn't want him to re-sign his all star player.

Couldn't agree more. At one time Walters was aggressive and creative in acquiring and keeping talent, now he just shrugs his shoulders as they go to other teams. Just this offseason he stated that the Bombers don't renegotiate contracts. Why the hell not? People blame MOS for being overly loyal yet have crickets to say about that very telling GM flaw.

Walters who saw us go from the elite team to pretender wears the bottom line for all of it. He is the boss. Everything that is done in our organization falls on him. If Osh's handling of the roster is costing us, that's on Walters to address. You guys just want to hand the guy whose responsibility it is to have a championship roster a free pass and that's BS. He has not provided a championship calibre roster. If your measure of his success is that a couple DE's played great in an exhibition game, Woodbey, and Allen then it's no wonder he's getting this free pass. Talent lost FAR outweighs talent brought in thus our decline. We can say he was in roster maintenance mode, but again that's not what good GM's do and money is only an object if you do boneheaded things like pay a RB 250k and couple it with an over the hill QB making 600k. Is that on MOS too. As for money to spend, that's entirely and 100% Walters doing or undoing if you will. He controls the SMS and how it's spent. I still can't believe people are still trying to justify the crap job our front office has done over the past three years with last year being an absolute abomination. Vaval, Allen, Woodbey are a bare minimum for any team for an offseason. That being said I think Walters is a top notch GM when he applies himself. I think he got fat and sassy the past few years. I trust he can rebuild, what I don't trust is his recognition of need to do so. He has been far too happy to let talent go over the past several years without bringing equal amounts of talent back. That has to change....like right freaking now. This rule was written specifically for the Toronto Argos when they were spending like drunken sailors for a couple years. That's my theory anyway.

There is a kind of loose justification every team must give the league for the marketing money. According to most reports I've read about the justification to the league it is pretty close to "trust me bro".

As I stated in my last post, SMS impact is my secondary concern on this proposed contract. Almost all of the 3 year contracts being signed now in the CFL are done so that there is a large portion of year 3 guaranteed. That could be a disaster SMS wise down the road. If he wasn't a RB I wouldn't hate it as much, but you and I both know 3 years for a RB is like signing a receiver and offering him guaranteed money in year 10. The odds are higher that the contract will hamper than they are of it working out.

Name one that worked out in the past 5 years. Without even looking at the 900k, this would be a horrible idea. 3 year contracts are now negotiated so that the player gets some guaranteed money. A RB should NEVER have guaranteed money 3 years down the road. NEVER. Couple that with 900k and you've got a contract that is an absolute farce. If some of that is marketing money, that's great and reduces the 900k part but if any of that contract (being a 3 year deal) is guaranteed that is a very, very bad contract. RBs have a short and unpredictable shelf life that should never see a guaranteed amount in year 3.

Biggest offseason in a decade was last offseason and they screwed it up pretty badly, this is the most urgent offseason in a decade though, and I really hope they understand that.

I used to love the Thursday games too.

I am in agreement on Walters performance. He has overseen a massive talent decline since 2021. I wanted him gone this offseason as well and am not particlularly happy he is back. That being said, he's who we got, and from 2013-2020 he did a pretty decent job. He needs to get back to that and I will be happy. If he repeats the same failures as the past few years we are in trouble. I am hoping the Canadian mafia got a big dose of reality this season and enter this offseason understanding that the work needs to be put in, and that we must utilize all potential advantages in order to win. Walters can't sit back and not be active this offseason, must make tough decisions on players even if it pisses MOS off, and MOS must be willing to utilize the naturalized import rule, and say goodbye to some of the guys he has favored for too long. If we do that we can start climbing up the hill again....maybe even rapidly. It seems to me that they got too comfortable and forgot that winning is more than running it back.

Agreed, but at some of the other positions we will have guys pencilled in, not every guy. but certainly we will have guys that are unlikely to be beat out in camp.

I would say no one playing in the trenches, or at IMP receiver should feel like they are pencilled in this year. What we saw from those groups was abysmal and if we don't pull out all stops to have our best camp competition in years at these positions we are not going to improve.

It's going to take a boat load of cash. I'd rather spend that boat load on a generational NAT DL than BO though. Hutchings could be the Doug Brown of our DL for many years to come.

I have my doubts he makes it to FA BUT IF HE DOES Kyle Walters needs to be on it and not acting like Sleepy Joe Mack.

It's not who we lose, it's how we adjust to losing them. Over the past several years we have bled NAT talent and replaced them with no one. We can sustain the loss of top NAT FA's if we go out and bring in other top NAT FA's. What we can't do is let top notch talent of any ilk go and not be aggressively pursuing talent back in return. Last year I really feel our offseason was one of the worst I can remember from a GM of the Bombers. It was really, really bad. We lost 2 NAT all stars in FA, probably the league's top receiver, and a bunch of decent depth guys and brought back ham and eggers to try make up for it. I was optimistic before the season because I'm a Bomber fan, but my gut was telling me that KW did not really give us much of a chance to succeed last year. This year, even if we lose a BO/Demski or both, we can still come out as a better team if KW does his job properly.

All depends on what Kyle Walters we get, The 2013-2020 KW that hoovered up top FA's with consistency OR the 2021 -2025 KW that swung and missed on just about every FA signing even though they were few and far between.

Not much of one. 509k is what he is worth. Not a discount. At the end of the day he's a 40+ year old QB. That comes with considerable risk to his team despite performance. I can agree with that. If we see a massive increase to actual SMS for player salaries then numbers change accordingly

There will be several. Always is.

I guess we differ in our belief of how important BO is to us winning.

They won't lose a substantial amount of season tix. We didn't when Harris left town and we won't if BO does. Losing games does that, not losing players. If we use that money to sign players that excite and help us dominate again we will be standing room only again

Not how it works at all. I agree you take Jake's money and reassign it. What you don't do is grossly overpay at any position. We could spend gobs of money on 12 guys and have 40 others on rookie contracts and win exactly zero games. The most successful teams since SMS started have been vigilant about not overpaying. If letting BO go allows us to sign 2 other premium NATs thats just smart GMing

Not a dinosaur at all...just good at math. It's an SMS world and it doesn't matter if the cap goes up. When a player is overpaid significantly it weakens the team.

He got a bump for sure. Unless his agent is the worst in the world he would have to have gotten one.

Agreed. Which is why I have stated as a caveat to what I am saying that if we are not signing him that money must go directly to upgrading our starting NATs at skill positions or on the OL. The number for BO being bandied about right now is 300k. If we do that we are blowing our brains out on SMS.

Cost over replacement. That is what makes his cost astronomical. Other RBs at 150k put up very similar numbers to BO last year. I agree Zach is currently overpaid as many QBs in a QB driven league are. Apples and oranges. What makes Lawler, Hatcher, and Philpott different? Cost over replacement. You can't replace the impact those 3 have for any cheaper. BO you can. That's not a slight on BO, just the historical fact when it comes to RBs both in Canada and the NFL. They play a position that there are more good RBs than there are teams to play for. You are trying to employ the same supply and demand across all position groups to justify BO's money and that just is not reality.