TrueBlue4ever

Chad Kelly?

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/sport/tim-mccarver-mlb-obit-spt/index.html

I hear what you are saying about draft picks, but personally I don’t think it is a huge loss. If you are inclined to overspend and take the penalty, then you are better off paying for a known commodity in free agency rather than taking a flyer on a draft choice who may be a free agent by the time their draft potential starts to be met. At least that was the Brendan Tamen philosophy, one that I did not disagree with. Long term it is no way to build a club, sure, but in a world of one year contracts and quick re-builds, it wasn’t the worst idea, and paid off handsomely in a few cases where teams loaded up for a home Grey Cup.

The only way to counter this malignant behaviour is to beat them with their own logic. Ban books with sexuality in them so we don’t “indoctrinate” kids? OK, let’s start with the Bible, given the sexualization of Adam and Eve after the Original Sin, all of the incestuous behaviour (“go forth and multiply”), and other sexual references. Of course, Santos, as the original author of the Holy book, will exempt himself from that list. I’ll go wait in the corner for the lightning strike.

Owners in all sports prefer to keep salaries hidden, because once players hear what others make, they use it as leverage in negotiations by making comparables (especially with overpay contracts - “if Fajardo makes $500,000 then Dane Evans is worth more based on the 15-3 season in 2019”) and salaries jump across the board, with profits shrinking and dans paying the freight. The additional headache for the CFL is that since cap enforcement is so weak (the penalties for going over are not much, and for example Sask in 2013 made a $20 million profit off of their stacked team Grey Cup, and maybe paid a few hundred thousand in cap penalties) and “side deals” apparently a thing (Sask. endorsements deals with local companies were a rumoured thing), the league wouldn’t want to expose the fallacy that is the hard cap. Players should always want salaries public because it inevitably drives things upward in all cases. But the player’s union has so little power the owners call the shots, and want to keep their budgets private for tax reasons I suspect. Just my random opinion.

You may have just created the next great thread idea for this site, matching avatars to posters. Or the next big Karen gathering, depending on the thickness of skin around here.

Maybe, but with back-to-backs in Jersey and MSG Sunday-Monday Rittich was getting action soon anyway. But Helle didn’t get an all-star layoff like the rest of the team, and it’s Columbus, so not the worst spot to give Dave another start.

There was a Twitter link to an article saying Calgary was interested, but he has not signed with them or any team yet.

Don’t know why but I heard it in this voice: And with this face:

Sounds a bit like the 2002 mentality though. “All-time team, just fell flat in the big game. Let’s just run it back and we’ll be fine”. And we all painfully remember how that turned out. I think a small bit of skepticism is fair.

For people dumping on the CFL for not going with the local Eric LaPointe group instead of Stern and Spiegel in 2020, here’s some info from another source with impeccable credibility. Food for thought.

Interesting take. I have been wondering how much of an “unfinished business” approach the team has been taking here. But then, they were 15-3 so would you really want to tear down a team like that anyway? And in 2002 when we launched the original “unfinished business” we were probably just Stegall and Roberts injuries away from getting back to the Grey Cup. I won’t say there are no concerns here. Collaros has played his least impressive football in the playoffs the last 3 seasons, I wonder openly how much Bighill has left in the tank, and Jeffcoat is now looking like he could be an injury liability. Even Jefferson’s “game wrecking” seemed less frequent last year and Hardrick and Bryant may see Father Time and injuries catching up with them. But here’s the question: with talent that got you to a 3rd straight Grey Cup and best record in club history (albeit with some visible flaws) do you quit on that level of talent maybe a year or two early, or risk being a year too late?

Likewise, players who sign fat contracts and then underperform always agree to re-negotiate down in the same interest of fairness as they expect the teams to do after a breakout year on a value deal.

Wheeler with 40 points in 44 games now. For a guy people want to bump down to the 3rd or 4th line, he is still playing up to the value of his contract, IMO.

Jets kind of sleeping this period.

To be fair, this would be my audition tape

Colin’s “audition highlight tape” to the Bomber club:

Basically Paul Friesen’s comments in this article (link is below) that the Elks still have a two-day window to match or exceed the Bomber offer, and that Lawler was seeking $1 million over 3 years. Clearly all speculation, but acknowledges that even an agreement in principle can be overturned and is not worth anything concrete. This was just my response to JCon wishing things were kept secret. It would seem to benefit the player to make an offer public to force the hand of his existing team, like an offer sheet in the NHL. I agree that the “tampering window” is really just optics to make transparent what has been going on for a long time - the practice of teams negotiating deals on the side before they are allowed to formally speak to a player under contract by another team. I am confident Lawler is coming here, but the whole “tampering window “ does seem like a silly exercise, and all it takes is one back track of a player your team “signed in principle” and the howling will commence. https://www.thepost.on.ca/sports/football/cfl/winnipeg-bluebombers/one-step-closer-to-winnipeg-blue-bombers-kenny-lawler-posts-goodbye-message-to-edmonton/wcm/18cb4143-a961-48be-959c-2d713ed9a8f8/amp/

Then what’s the point of the whole window? If the agreement in principle is binding, then why delay? If the contract cannot be signed until the 14th, then maybe everything done on the “tampering window” is worth nothing, as you say, and players just leverage these announcements to see if they can squeeze more out of their current club one last time. Seems goofy.

But that’s really the point of it. Players get to sign in principle and drive up their asking price for their contracted team, so they totally want things made public. Kenny Lawler is trying to parlay his “in principle” contract with Winnipeg into a $333,000 counter-offer from Edmonton, according to reports I’ve read. Players who flip-flop are going to draw the ire of fans who thought a deal was done.

So @bluto will you reveal who your project is about now that we’ve thrown out some candidates?

One man’s take: If you are going by name recognition and worldwide acclaim as your definition of “greatest”, then the bear Winnie the Pooh is the strongest candidate for his global name brand. I’d say this is the 2nd greatest Winnipegger. Among humans, wrestlers Kenny Omega, Roddy Piper and Chris Jericho, singers Burton Cummings, Neil Young, and Justin Bieber (technicality since he often visited his father who lived here, was a second home to him) are the most recognizable worldwide. Arts and entertainment TV and movies Anna Paquin, David Steinberg and Monty Hall. Sports Terry Sawchuk, Jennifer Jones. CFL specifically Chris Walby edges out Andrew Harris with Cal Murphy taking the bronze. Beyond cultural impact, those whose achievements have had the “greatest” impact are Duff Roblin, who’s floodwaters diversion has saved an entire city definitely twice and likely close to a half dozen times, and saved us billions of dollars, and in science Louis Slotin (worked on the Manhattan Project and was a forefather of the Nuclear Age in designing the first cyclotron and exploring fission reactions), and Frances McGill, who pioneered Forensic medicine and developed the first ever crime lab for the RCMP.

Sept. 29

Have a hunch it will be an abbreviated tour. I’d lay odds that the number of “total number of times helmet comes off during the play” will be higher than “total games played” by season’s end.