WildPath

Good point, he was practicing since like LD iirc. 
I think it is always worth having Canadians like that. I'd take as many lotto ticket flyers on Canadians with upside as I could get. Generally, you are lucky to have a couple of guys in the draft who have decent athleticism and size that could be polished into Ss if they fulfill their potential. True cover guys, little on Sam's, are rare and valuable. 
They get a LOT of leash to figure out if they have any thing left too. BLM, Zach, and Harris are all great examples of that. All 3 looked fully cooked for more than a little while and managed to get back to being good. 
Khari was like 29 when he broke in with us, too. But you have far better chances of developing a QB who is in his late 20s when he gets up here than a kid out of college these days. The NFL is all over every single archetype at QB. No longer do they exclude system guys, or none pro offense guys. So, the kids we get access to who have 1 NFL TC or less are generally really lackluster. 
 
https://www.bluebombers.com/2025/12/23/new-title-same-jake/
Tait with another gem. Some interesting tidbits jump out at me. It sounds to me like he wanted to continue to play, and we weren't going to bring him back.
I had a really good exit meeting with Osh (head coach Mike O’Shea). At that point, I was still kind of planning on continuing playing if that was possible. Then a few weeks went by after the Grey Cup and we just kind of continued our conversation and he let me know there was a chance that this opportunity would be available.
 

Another CFL great said some bad things about Winnipeg when he was traded to the Argos from the Bombers. D i c k Thornton was angry that he never got a chance to compete for the starting qb position with Ken Ploen (as he thought he was much better) & was an All Canadian Safety with the Bombers.
He once paid a bunch of kids to carry signs around Winnipeg Stadium during a game saying, "We Want Thornton!" His blow ups on the practice field & Coaches office with Bud Grant were well known. Grant grew tired of the guy's antics & traded him to the Argos who were the worst team in the CFL at the time to teach him a lesson during the 1966 season. Thornton said to the Winnipeg media  when he left, "The best thing about Winnipeg are the roads leading out of it."
Interestingly enough, after Grant left Winnipeg at the end of 1966, he contacted Thornton & offered him a SS position on the MInnesota Vikings. The team he took over from Norm Van Brocklin. No offer to try to unseat Joe Kapp was forthcoming from Grant. Thornton declined & stayed with the Argos feeling his chances to make more $$ in the CFL was better than the Vikings as he was established. Thornton, I believe, never had another thing more to do with the Blue Bombers even as an Alumni.

I thought Muamba got better as the season went on. He started to tone things down & actually made some good points. Still don't like him. Probably never will.  I'll take TBurg;s sentence & change it to describe my feelings, "I don't mind him yelling his opinions. I do mind that he chased the dollars selfishly constantly changing teams letting his teammates & fans down". I don't respect Muamba like I do Sanchez or MIlt because of it. Muamba's legacy will always be chasing the money. That CFL tour he had was embarrassing. 

I'm not a huge Muamba fan either for that reason. He was selfish & chased the money rather than stick with a team through it all & go for the championships. Which is his right but there was very little loyalty there. Forget loyalty to the individual clubs as they'd cut Muamba the minute his performance started to erode. But to his teammates & brothers. The one year deals allowed Muamba to change teams every year.

Going back over the years and looking back at the hold out names we drafted, that didn't work out, how about the obvious one sitting on the tsn panel Henoc Muamba....We wined and dined the guy and his family...bent over backwards to sign him ,then he did a tour of the CFL AND suddenly signed with Montreal....I still have problems with this guy, whenever I see him mouthing it up on games

No consequences for failure/mediocrity.  What's Jake going to teach them - how to now get their uniform dirty? 
I wonder if the Hogan move might have been because of the salary cap? If he had a 2 year deal, they'd either have to eat his salary and still pay a replacement coach or they keep him but move him to a different job.

Condell has had success with good RBs in the past. He hasn't run an offense that leads he league in rushing, but he hasn't ever had the best back in the league or a top-tier guy either. I mean, the RBs kept starting a WR at RB rather than bringing in a real one.
As others have said, I have to believe that with brady locked up on a monster deal, that part of the due diligence was making sure Condell would fit in here with the balanced attack at the very least. 
 Also, him constantly being behind other offensive minds and running other systems, I tend to think he will either run the successful stuff we've had prior to the last 2 years or has some great ideas and hasn't been able to fully show them.
 
It's far from my favorite pick for OC. But at the very least, I expect a good improvement. 
Yeah, Hogan and Buck in his last year really seemed to be at odds and out of sync with Zach. He was furious so often because the calls from both came in ridiculously slowly. Which means you break the huddle late, have to rush lining up, and get significantly less time to survey the D in the pre-snap read. I can't emphasize enough how important an extra 4 seconds breaking the huddle are. Little on if you break the huddle and start lining up before the D. We used to reap huge advantages from being set way ahead of the D, and running any play out of any formation. That has been completely gone for 2 years. Not only does it make it harder to pass and run RPO, but it also makes it harder to protect the QB.  \
 
Condell, as an OC, gets a C grade from me right now. I worry that it will be a high-floor, low-ceiling pick, but time will tell, and I am fine giving him the benefit of the doubt. He also worked very well with Dru, which bodes well for fit with Zach imo. 

Cap wise, I agree that this is the best position we’ve gone into the off season in in a long time. And you have the ability to fix your cap year to year. If you have the will to do it. 
 We have a few awful deals, but the cap growth and off season turn over makes it workable. 
Wj, is one of the worst contracts in the league. Dl is one of our biggest positions of need. Idk if we will actually spend at dl though. 
Zachs lack of consistency and quality concerns me more than his pay. Yes 600k is a yikes. But it’s not like we have a comparable guy available for 400-500k. The only way up for us at qb, is going young. And that is a very risky and lengthy process. 
These guys we will see what they got. I have to imagine with the timing and cap space left that we have them front loaded deals that won’t hit the cap hard next year. Especially with the importance brady put on guaranteed money. 
With the current market demski probably goes from too expensive but very effective to a good deal. Even with a raise. 
We’ve had opportunities and money to spend. We just haven’t done much to invest in league free agent. That’s the big moment I think we are all waiting for. To really see if we’ve changed. Moving on from some one old is inevitable one way or another. 

The Elks (Eskimos) were the ones that started playing Canadians on the OL back in the early 80's. It was done so their team could play Americans at the skill positions. I believe 10 Canadians were starting back then. Now, it's 7. Also back then, Canadian OL weren't making six figure salaries, the skill positions were making the money & of those they were skilled positions.B ut over time as other teams copied the Eskimos, the value of the Canadian OL went up.... way up. The American skill players didn't make as much & we evolved to where we are now. Where these guys are overpaid. Mike is right, the market is adjusting.

They are working on it - both the league & CFLPA says they are open to discussions but we'll see what happens.
CFL, Players' Association open to discussing public salary disclosure - 3DownNation

I'd love to see the CFL publish salary information like every other sports league.

I'm a broken record about this but RB's are about 7th to 9th in terms of average salary paid by position in the NFL due to availability of replacement level talent and overall impact. Why are we going against a trend run by much smarter and wealthier football organizations? Don't tell me it's because he's Canadian. Yes Canadians get a premium in terms of salary, but a smart team should still be paying that premium at the impact positions based on the bigger, smarter NFL - Dline; WR's; all star OL; QB's if you have a unicorn Canadian star (hopefully we might). This was a decision to appease the fans who value the local community impact over good cap management. 

Such a raise off a down year is pretty wild. His production has been going straight down the last 2 years as well. And again, Hogan plus the last year of Buck was brutal. Our ol the year before last was brutal too. Our passing game was atrocious. I don't blame Brady for the drop-off. Paying him an increase after 2 drop-off years is something that almost never happens. A good part of that is the appearance that teams will use the cap increase to fatten the biggest contracts. Part of that is desperation on our end. 
 At the end of the day, we've overpaid a RB, one of the last positions you overpay, when he's coming off an injury and 2 down years, when he is 28 and will be 29 before the end of next year, and yeah, given a rb qb money. 
 
Part of me is happy that Brady will be here for the future. Another part of me is happy for him; he's a great person as well as a player, and all the local kid stuff. A lot of dirtbags have made bank in this league, and are currently. Brady is a great ambassador of our game, league, city/province. It would really suck to see him in another jersey. Harris was bad enough, but he was never the guy Brady is. 
Another part of me is saying, OK, Walters better find a way to dig our ass out of the hole this deal puts us in. I've been the biggest defender of Walters lately. He needs to have one of the best league free agency periods of his career this year.  He needs to churn out another ROTY-calibre kid this year, and he needs the guys poised for progress to take the next step forward. 

I sure hope there is a ton of marketing money being used on that contract.  

The delay feels like last year when nothing was done and they ended up with Hogan who was a bad choice and possibly a last resort.

The older QB's like Bo and Harris seem to be aging like fine wine. Our old QB is aging like homogenized milk poured into a Betamax machine thats been left in the New Delhi heat during Diwali.

Unless it's a contract heavily loaded with marketing money so it doesn't affect the cap - hard pass for me at that price point.

It's a combination of factors, and a big dose of good luck. Not having had catastrophic type injuries, especially to your knees and hips, goes a long way. 
Because you aren't cutting at speed or running/jumping nearly as much as any other position, you don't get the no-contact injuries very often. What really gets guys in a bad spot for their career is when someone rolls up on the back or side of the legs. That kills careers. But also, if you are the hammer far more often than the nail, you will play longer. By playing on more great teams, especially ones that run the ball, instead of constantly absorbing hits, you are the one dealing them out. And you are far more often playing exhausted DLS late in games. 
If you are a road-grading type, you are also able to play longer, even when you lose a step and can't dominate pass reps anymore. It doesn't hurt that, in football in general, the OL prototype has changed to a far more sustainable model, and the gap between replacement level and all-star is so vast. You can backslide a very long way without playing your way out of the league. 
Ol also has some of the best resources for off-season training. The level of trainers available and the camps out there are extraordinary. It's only beaten by QBs, and has passed DL imo. Teams and trainers at every level are so used to taking big kids with upside and a severe lack of polish, and trying to turn them into useful players, that not much scares people off linemen. Most young guys would prefer to play DL over OL as well. So the kids who want it will always find their way to help. But it also means that older guys who have been hurt, like Yoshi, have an endless string of resources and chances to fix what's wrong and get themselves where they need to be. 
This is a big part of why the CFL focuses the ratio on the OL, and why it is the cornerstone of every team's ratio. 
The normalization and modernization of Ol builds have made a huge impact on longevity. We don't see guys having to constantly go up in weight for TC, or see teams pushing guys to be bigger and bigger. Guys 6'3 walking around at 295-305 with an athletic build are just a whole lot healthier than the old standard of 325+ lbs guys on squat frames. The growth of the importance of wingspan is wild, but those long guys often have a much better frame to carry weight. 

here's something I've always been curious about -- how on earth do OL play into their late thirties?  how do Yoshi and Big Stan keep their footwork up to cope with freak 24-year-old speed rushing DEs?  a guard like Neuf is getting heavy body contact on every play from jacked up DTs and generally will play the majority of snaps in a game.  That's a lot of punishment to take over the course of a career and yet the dude is still doing it at a pro level (tho I guess opinions differ on this)

It's true. Oh, it's true. Postmedia doesn't send any beat writers for the Stamps on the road. I believe that's the same for every CFL team Postmedia covers. I've cancelled my subscription to the Calgary Herald. They don't want to spend any coin on the CFL well **** them. There isn't one story about the Stamps the day after when they publish when the Stamps have a road game.  Postmedia has destroyed journalism in this country. I refuse to spend any money on that fraudeulent media company. 

It's soooo hard to find a good trinity these days.

Naylor says the bombers have requested and been granted permission to talk to Mike Miller (toronto) for the oc position! 
He notes miller is a candidate for the argos hc job still. 
Theyre giving me some hope! 

Yeah I will be blown away if I ever see Schoen and or Streveler playing in the CFL again. Which is a true shame.

In Walter's press conference, he was asked about Zach's deal, and he still thinks Zach is worth 600k. (He unofficially confirmed the 600k, and I assume the 350k ish gaurenteed again)
I broke down his playoff stats a couple of years ago, which were even more dismal than I expected. Here is some more fun with Zach's numbers. 
He has played 31 games in his last two seasons, and during that time, he has averaged 238 yards passing, 1 interception, and 1 touchdown per game.
14 of his 31 games have been under that average of 238 yards passing, 7/31 games have been 300 or more. With 10 games very close to his average. In 24 games out of 31, we see average, or bad Zach. And average Zach is pretty bad. 
12/31 gave had more ints than tds. 8/31 games have had more TDs than INTs.
His 2 best games of the last year skew his stats by 762 yards, 9tds and 0 INTs. If you remove his 2 best games of last year, his average per game drops to 228 yards per game, and .8 tds per game. 
If you create a split of good Zach vs Zach the rest of the time over the past 2 seasons, you get this;
Good Zach, 2134 yards, 16 tds, 4 ints in 7 games. for 304 yards per game. A full season would be 5,472 yards, 41 tds, and 10 Ints.
Common Zach, 5,250 18 tds 27 ints in the other 24 games for 218.75 yards per game. A full season of this Zach would put up 3937 yards, 13 tds, 20 ints. 
 
In 7 of Zach's last 31 games, he has been worth 600k. That is very comparable to what BLM and Rourke did this year. 
In the other 24 games Zach has played, well, you'd be better off taking Fajardo's worst 1.5-2 years. Or any other maligned QB that started in this league currently. Like MBT.
77.4% Zachs games played the past 2 seasons, he's been one of, if not the worst, starting QB in the league. 
If we fix "X", "Y", and "Z", does that mean we flip those games and see good Zach 77% of the time? Well, we didn't have the worst pass blocking OL over he past 2 years, far from the worst run game, and didn't have the worst WR core. (As dismal as the WR core has been, it has featured guys like Wilson, Demski, and Lawler over 2 seasons.) 
I don't see us having the ability to get a premium QB this year, even if we weren't locked into Zach. I think the best hope is that if we significantly improve at OC, OL, and WR, Zach will be a coin flip between league average (instead of arguably worst) and MOP. 
Yep, and when you see the fast turnaround without a year of bad ball, it's because of a QB change. Going from a mccheese to VAJ will flip your fortunes fast. 

This season the offense was on the entire organization. Walters signed that high priced receiver from Edmonton & Osh barely played him. Damn, at one point we had Chris Streveler playing wideout on a bum knee. We signed Dalton Schoen & he never should have seen the fie;d this season. He was cooked by O'Shea playing him on a torn ACL. Zach was then handec an OC who was the worst in the CFL & now it looks like he'll be back again. We have the worst starting CEnter in the CFL  & the OL suffers because of it. I can't blame Collaros. I thin k it's more 65/35 Bombers seem to have become a somewhat dysfunctional organization. If you heard the comments from both Osh & Walters. More of the same coming in 2026.