GCn20

Cobb is a scrub. An argument could be made to roster him but really whether we dress him or not is a nothing burger. Sometimes you gotta look down the road a couple weeks too and see that he is more than likely going to be released soon.

Are we leaving quality receivers off the game day roster? There is your answer. That being said things will be looking up once Schoen is ready and Wilson inevitably returns.

Kola needed to be addressed in the offseason. It is abundantly clear that the coaches have no faith in Eli at C.

Look, I'm all in favor of a few reps here and there. However, not until the coaches feel comfortable with it. We have 3 years of these players being locked in, there is absolutely no reason to rush things. NAT draft picks are the one type of player that we can ripen on the vine. Yea...we could insert them into blow outs, but honestly those are practice reps as well.

Do we want to win, or rush our draft picks into duty they may not be ready for? I have no issue letting first year draft picks develop slowly, it is usually of great benefit to both the team and the player. I am not understanding what short coming people are seeing that would require us to play Shay/Smith right now? If the argument is for a ratio shift along the DL, then are we willing to downgrade LBer play to get this done? Look I want every draft pick to be a starter sooner rather than later as well, but I see no benefit in forcing the situation when we are not necessitated to do so. More players are ruined than actually excel when put in that situation. There is a lot to dislike about our current roster but tossing players in just to see what happens is incredibly short sighted and probably leads to losses if we do it on any kind of scale. What's the concensus around here? That we should give up on this season and start going towards next year?

Well there you have it, bigg jay for the win. Can't argue facts.

A good snapper and pre-snap OL communicator is worth the saw off. Totally. Anyone thinking otherwise has never been responsible for OL play. I guess in short I agree with your assessment that unless the difference would be vast post snap, take the guy that can actually snap the ball, and make the correct pre-snap read. Who are these good young players we have been letting go? Definitely you are correct about the OL....we have seen an exodus....but who are these stud young guys you speak of that we kept a veteran over. I'll wait for your answer. Name the stud young player that is now somewhere else, and the veteran that should be cut that we kept instead. Wanna make broad statements like that, back it up. As for the OL, we didn't really keep veterans in place of young guys, it was vice versa. Did we move on from Brendan O'Leary Orange to keep Clercius/Woli/Demski....we sure did....which one of those guys should have been cut? That is quite literally the only drafted player I can think of that we let walk that I would want back if we could but apparently you have a list so let's hear it. Would I want Desjarlais, Dobson, or Couture back? yea that would be nice. Two of those guys we lost due to very poor GM work and one to wanting to go home. That will always be a reality in the CFL with NAT players. Not a single one of those guys was moved on from in order to keep an aging vet that should be cut tho so you obviously have others to bring up.

Or he causes mass confusion because he can't direct traffic on the line and ends up getting our QBs injured. People judge centre by what they are seeing after the snap when a lions share of their importance is what they do pre-snap and with the snap itself. As for Kola, his issues are not in the run game at all. It's his weakness in pass pro that's the problem. Thing is that is also the weakness that Eli has demonstrated.

My bad....didn't think anyone else would pick him up after his 2nd release. Point remains tho, he was a dud of a draft pick by any measurable. No call from upstairs? Happens all the time is what I heard. I would not be against a ratio flip for an IMP C. Bryant and Neufeld are not the problem with our OL at all.

Can't be sure, but other teams have leap frogged us in terms of NAT talent for sure. We've seen guys drafted behind our guys turn into bonafide CFL talent while we have first rounders like Anthony Bennett out of football.

I am not willing to put a sub par player in just because the guy ahead of him sucks. Rather cut bait on them both and our GM do his job. We need an infusion of talent in a big way, particularly to our NAT depth which used to be the class of the league and is now second rate. I don't care how you cut it, that is on Walters. Could we tweak our lineup a bit and wring out a little bit more than one we have been getting? Possibly, but it is just putting lipstick on a pig.

Totally agree. Walters need to find a suitable replacement ASAP. What you won't convince me of, after watching him for 6 years, is that Eli is that guy. We really should cut bait on him too.

Eli has clearly demonstrated that he is not a particularly good OL. The coaches know this. This isn't some fresh faced guy, he's had numerous games under his belt and has been well below average in all of them. Why would anyone think he would be better all of a sudden? I get that no one is particularly impressed by Kola, and rightfully so, but change has to be for the better or why bother. Replacing an inferior talent with an inferior talent is not a particularly bright idea. If we want Kola gone then Walters has to get to work.

I agree, better would be good, now direct that anger at who is responsible for bringing in the talent. There seems to be a huge disconnect on this forum in that regard. Look, I'm not going to sit here and say that Osh doesn't make some poor roster decisions, but I will defend him when someone says we should bring in inferior talent just for the sake of change. That never works out. When someone better is behind someone and not being played the point is valid. However, you brought up Kola and Neufeld as examples of players taking up spots over better players in house. That is fiction.

Yes, that surely does say something about Walters work doesn't it? You have to be off your rocker to think that coaches would rather lose than upgrade their roster. This forum sometimes.....

In a rotation with Bighill was the best use for him at the time and probably would have remained so if Biggie didn't get injured. Biggie may have been eclipsed in stopping the run by Jones, but he is a way better cover LBer than him on passing downs. That is a Jones weakness. I have defended Tony Jones all year here, and will continue to do so, because I think he is a decent MIKE but he was no better than Biggie on passing downs and in fact was not as good. Where we saw the real improvement was against the run where Biggie was struggling. I agree on finding someone else. Like I said, I am no Kola fan. I just don't believe the answer is in house and that is on Walters. If Eli showed any ability to be a starting Centre he would have gotten a look by now. Sorry if some guys want to live on what we saw early in his career, but he never reached his potential.

I agree. He looked promising before he stepped away from football after 2019 but he has clearly not been the same player since.

Yes, a veteran guy we brought in and he definitely helped but he had a bunch of playing time prior to Biggie's injury already. We were using him on running downs in rotation at both MIKE and WIL. Eli has not shown the ability to play at a high level when inserted into our line up. What confidence should the coaches have in him after what he has displayed thus far? The guy has stunk when he has been put in as an injury replacement. I will concede that has not been at Centre, but the crux remains that you still have to show an ability to block even at centre.

Teams barely scout PRs of each other? Based on what are you saying this? Who says? I've seen umpteen examples of teams taking prospects released by other teams and getting good use out of them. We've had several players released by us get looks in other places only to be released by other teams. You are not arguing with facts in any way, shape, or form right now. You believe we are not giving players development? How so? Do you think that playing players that are not developed is the way to develop them properly? That is nonsense. Not one iota of your counter argument is grounded in reality.

How can you say that? Who has come in as an injury replacement and pushed a starter out lately? Can't think of one. Therefore you suggesting something is demonstratively false is completely opinion, and without any basis in fact to back it up. That is called opinion, not fact. That is arguing in bad faith. If you can give me some tangible facts, I am willing to reconsider my opinion but just saying this is the way it is based on nothing is not a particularly compelling argument.

You can use that as a metric though, if we are passing on quality starting level talent other teams will gladly bring them in. Every team, no matter how much they scout, will not gladly take a quality player that slips through the cracks elsewhere. We've had numerous players that we've cut get looks elsewhere only to be cut again.

If we had a coach that was keeping inferior players on the regular for some unknown reason, we would see these players surfacing elsewhere and realizing their potential. I don't see a single guy we brought in that is making any sort of meaningful impact anywhere else. Can you name on guy who we passed on that is more than a rotational guy anywhere else? Therefore your theory that we are letting gems slip through the cracks isn't really supported by anything tangible. Not saying it isn't the case, maybe it is, but at this point that's purely conjecture.

Yes and no. Surely Collaros made some bad decisions, but mostly because Buck allowed him to do so. Sometimes and OC has to take the green light away and that was Buck's biggest flaw. What we have in Hogan will be really put to the test with Schoen and Wilson (almost certainly going to be cut by the Jets) set to join us soon. That vastly improves our receiver set. If our offence can't get on track with the addition of these two guys then we know we have a huge problem at OC.

Neufeld has been rock solid the past several years. Old? Yes. Still playing good football? Yes. Really kind of an odd guy to pick if you are talking about a guy not earning his spot. Has Eli ever gotten a chance at C? Nope, has he earned that chance? Nope. The guy is here because if he ever gets it together he has all the skill in the world, unfortunately, he doesn't seem to bring it on game day. I am no huge Kola fan by any stretch of the imagination but thinking we have an in-house replacement for him right now is wishful thinking.

Yea...I think you could say that about every football forum ever in any pro league. An OC has never been good enough even when they clearly have been. That being said, I am not a huge Hogan fan right now. Sometimes a football forum does have a valid reason for criticism. That being said, Walters didn't give the coaching staff much to work with in the passing game.