Tehedra

wow! Cato obviously is about to lose any chance of having a job in any sport with his attitude; I wonder what his fall back plan is?

I too would be excited to see this; nothing against Adams I just don't feel that he has been playing as well as the others. It may be rust; might just need to get more reps in; could be permanent who knows

I want to say that I doubt she is lying; and I also doubt it was as bad as she made it out to be. We have to remember that there is a difference between a lie and one persons reality or opinion. A lie is telling someone something that is completely false and knowing that it is false. For example, perhaps there were some fairly intoxicated people behind her. As typical that happens at a sports game, fans heckle fans of the other side. Even in Edmonton where I go to watch the bombers play, this happens to me as I cheer on the bombers. Now, this heckling to her could be that they were in her face, being very mean, using terribly inappropriate language and just down right disturbing. The reality to her is that it was this terrible terrible experience. Now to myself, the heckling I could consider fun and we can do it back and forth, or I can be like typically drunk idiots and carry on. I honestly wouldn't consider the language an issue because if I didn't want my 9 year old child to hear profanities I would not have taken them to a place where I knew alcohol was being sold. I probably wouldn't even take them to a sports game as even in Junior A hockey you will hear much profanity just due to the passion of the fan base in typical sports. I'm sure even a golfer once in awhile goes "awww *****" Next it could have been that someone did throw a drink at the child, or it could have been that someone purposely dumped a drink on the child, or it could have been that someone accidentally dropped a drink and it splashed up and hit the child. Now even if it was the latter, the reality to her and her child could be that they truly believed that someone intentionally dumped their drink on the poor 9 year old boy. Even if this is far from what happened, keyword is if. The reality to this mother is that it did happen. It doesn't mean she is lying if she truly believes that these are the events that took place. Let's keep an open mind, and instead of putting blame in either direction. Respect that the Blue Bombers are taking the steps necessary to verify what they feel the reality of the incident was; and that they are taking corrective actions to help assist with this mothers reality of the incident even if it is possible that she could be slightly exaggerating. I think its good on the Blue Bombers for what they have done because in reality this wasn't even someone from the Blue Bomber organization that caused the incident. It was just a bunch of fans in close quarters who may have taken things a little too far. Cheers, Tehedra

I agree it depends like I said the Dressler one okay lets not count that one; but Sheppard's was clearly a drop even when they showed the replays it hit him in the mits he wasn't stretched out or "laid" out to make that catch.

I actually think that Edmonton would be able to handle Carters attitude; possibly Calgary but those are the only two that I think would be able to manage an ego like that. BC just wouldn't put up with it and he would be released quickly. I don't think any of the other teams could do it, though Kent Austin might be able to put him in his place too. Could just imagine Carter doing running drills for 8 hours straight because he pissed Austin off lol

I do have a couple of points I would like to add, if we are saying the interception number is lucky because of DB drops or penalty calls then we have to consider the drops by our guys that hit their hands even if the throw was errenuous. It isn't like when a DB almost intercepts a ball it is in a perfect throw to them. Now the other reason I state this is because, do we analyze every caught pass by those Quarterbacks who are apparently elite? I'm pretty sure Carter laid it out a couple times in the Montreal game to catch what we would consider uncatchable balls. I remember Holley made at least two of those catches in a game against us. I don't believe that Nichols threw the ball to the wrong side on the Dressler drop, sure Dressler looked left and then had to adjust to go right but I think it's the job of the Quarterback to throw the ball to the opposite side of the defender. I believe the ball was well placed had Dressler recognized the coverage on the left sooner and made the adjustment to catch the ball on the right he would have had the catch. This is just experience with a Quarterback I actually appreciate that Nichols has that forethought to control the ball in that way. I also believe that the Sheppard drop was straight up a drop, he almost had no one on him he barely had to stretch out for that ball he pulled it in and it bounced off his chest and to the ground. If Sheppard squeezed that ball it would be a sure catch. Now given those examples, I still am not saying that Nichols is an elite quarterback. I guess I am more questioning what does an elite quarterback make? Quarterbacks with receivers that catch the uncatchable ball are considered more elite because of their elite receivers. I would say if we are talking about accuracy, Nichols accuracy in my opinion hasn't been that terrible. Yes he has thrown the ball slightly behind or slightly ahead but I feel it has been much more accurate than what we had with Willy, although I do believe Willy corrects that and gets back to his former self. I would say that Nichols accuracy though when compared to that of others in the league is about similar. I also remember a game where our offense would have scored touch down or had a very good drive going ad our running back fumbled the ball. It is sometimes on the Quarterback for those fumbles but it can't always be. We can't blame those drives that didn't score a TD on the quarterback and they do of course take away his numbers. That is why they look at the Quarterback rating and have measureables because so much of a drive depends on those outside the quarterback position. Nichols job is to take what they give him without turning over the ball. The receivers jobs are to capitalize on a ball thrown their way. The defenders job are to stop the other team from scoring in any way possible and create good field position. It's a team game and right now the team is playing at a level that is allowing us to win games. Can we keep this up against the "elite" teams? Well we have already beat Edmonton once and I am sure we can do it again at home. I'm not afraid of Calgary as much this year as I have been in past years. BC to me is really the unknown but I want to play a wait and see approach. In reality we don't have to beat each team more than once. If we win the next two games we go to the play offs; we can lose our games against BC and Calgary and only need to beat them in the play offs to win. Just like we can win all the rest of the games and lose in the play offs and be done. Something that stands out to me in the recent games is actually not only how Nichols is managing the game and the ball but how Mike O'Shea is managing the game. He seems to be doing a much better job with his challenges, as well as his calls when it involves risks on 3rd downs. I believe our team is just short of that star receiver that can be our go to guy when things break down. Once we have that I feel we will be contenders and hope that it even carries into the future with the team that Walters has built.

I think Heath will possibly take Johnsons spot; the only guy besides Adams who I have felt got beat a couple times in the last couple of games was Johnson and Adams. Adams was "Shaking off the rust" according to many, so that leaves Johnson as odd man out.

Thanks Mike! I always enjoy your posts even though I'm mostly silent. Even if the other person doesn't begin to understand I usually find them very informative and informational. WBBFAN I wonder, do you really have to understand the ratio when coaching junior football? I mean, if you are coaching junior football in Canada I would assume most if not all of the players would be considered NI? Do they even have the ratio rules at that level. It seems to me that it makes quite a bit of sense, the way we are currently managing our OL and Roster has been working. It also seems to me that it fits in with the majority of the league and it also makes sense that if you have 5 NI OL you would need more back-ups as you have a higher risk of suffering a loss in that position. I personally feel we have adequate back-ups; and having the rotational players that we use actively instead of having extra O-LINE men on the game day roster which won't touch the ball at all provides extra value to the team. It gives our guys who are going hard every snap a break and a chance to rest. It also allows us to change up strategies; or try to get better one on one matches based on the weaknesses that we may be seeing in the opponent. Cheers, Tehedra

There goes home field advantage but also means less boo birds as well

I agree with this!

So after reading this two things I got out of the play by play; obviously with his own internal biases but it looks as though OL communication skills need to widely improve. Sounds as though when they do make the correct read or call and communicate to each other well that they have the skills to make the blocks or hold their men but the issue sounds like they just don't know who is blocking whom and what the call really is. That to me is definitely a coaching issue; I hope Eric does this again next game so we can see if there is improvement. Next thing that jumps out at me is Ian Wild loves the one armed tackles; he missed or failed on several tackles because he was trying to one arm tackle the player instead of properly wrapping up and hitting the tackle the way he should. If he can improve on his tackling ability it could help us fix up our play. Obviously other players made mistakes but those two things largely jumped out at me. One other thing is that Willy needs to do more progressions through his reads; as well as not stare down his read as to give the opponent an easy time of determine where the ball is going.

My understanding is in the 2nd half he had already lost his time out because of the challenge that failed when he challenged after the fake punt

Yeah its fantastic; I still don't know enough about play calling ect but I love reading these types of play by play articles because it helps me learn what to watch for when I'm watching the game The only thing that would make this play by play better; was if the names of the players were in Blue for Blue Bombers and Red for Calgary players. Since sometimes I get confused as whom he is talking about lol

That is really cool; my question is where does he get the footage to analyze the plays? Is there a way to get an aerial view or something after the game to be able to see the games play out?

Thought Argos came out hot but Sask is starting to give them a run for their money.

I was surprised by this cut as I also thought he had a good camp

Id love to play, i want to play against the b team though since im a newb lol

Thanks for the help; it seems to be an IP issue >.<

I'm very dissapointed to see Denmark go, he is by far my favourite receiver of my time. I felt last year he made some phenomenal catches but the calls just didn't go his way

I guess that is true Taynted, they would need less Canadian Backups in case of injury and could focus on having more American starters but they would still need the Canadian starters for the games played on Canadian Soil. It's a slight advantage but I'm sure with even more investigation even something could be figured out to weaken that advantage. An example being that the league could create a median salary differential that proves that it costs X dollars more for having the Canadians and back-up and then give the Canadian teams more cap room based on the differential cost but I really would not want to get into something that complex or complicated in the league and then you would be treading water for labour laws and what not. I'm just suggesting that if there was an owner with money who truly wanted a CFL team in St Louis lots could be done to avoid changing the game, and to ensure competitiveness across the league without reducing the true ratio by creating other rules that would take away advantages of not using Canadians.

Well how would they have the advantage? By weakening their Canadian product for 50% of their games to have a stronger American product for the other 50%? There is still a limit of the total number of players, and you could still have Salaries in Canadian dollars even if you are paying in US funds. You just calculate their salary per game in CAD, then at the time of payment do the conversion from Canadian dollars to US dollars. The company I work act actually has contracts negotiated in CAD dollars but pay out in US funds. Most financial systems can do the conversion on the spot.

I was catching on to the labour laws and immigration laws and thought everyone must be right, it just can't be done. I really was against having a team in the states anyways as to me it is Canadian Football League which makes me slightly biased about having the teams in Canada. Now that being said, you can't impose them hiring only Americans to play in the states, but could you not still impose the rule that the games in Canada must be played by 7 Canadians? It would mean for them to compete in Canada they would still want the Canadians on their roster. The ratio limit would be removed in St Louis but they would still need to roster the same amount of Canadians as the other teams anyways for the road games. Either that or they forfeit road games. For the team to be successful they would then hire Canadians not because the Ratio requires it but because the foreign legal requirements require it. I'm sure it could be argued in court and would work.

This is a fact of life, in reality is any job "guaranteed" Most employees don't get to have a "contract" giving them a guarantee of their wages. Work in a factory and if you aren't performing to the task at hand, you can be let go. Your company has an agreed upon bonus? It can be removed, or you can be let go before it is paid. Management (coaches) get paid more than the average workers even typically in an environment where the employee might actually know more than the manager. Great managers hire those whom know more than they do, it's what makes them a great manager. It's just what being a professional is about. Finally as was mentioned supply and demand. I also disagree on this lunch box salary, the league minimum pays more than most employees in the similar age group get paid. The cap of what these players can make by being higher performers is upwards of 150k to 230k which is more than most in the same age group would also get paid if they were high performers with an expensive education. In the market like we have now, they don't need to worry about lay offs, they don't need to worry about market down turns, they are guaranteed that if they put out a good performance, and they have a cap friendly contract that they will have work. Not everyone can say or claim that.

M fiancee bought me a jersey and just put my birth year and last name on it. I thought it was pretty sweet. Good luck too Zach in his future endevours

Agreed with Taynted; we might have spent slightly more on some players but we cut costs in others. Picard was making much more than Keeping, the difference in salary for Keeping and Picard alone probably helps make up the differences for Medlock and Hajruallahu as well as Lochard and Pontibrand. I'd be willing to wager that net difference is probably only in the 20-30k range from the list of players we removed to the list of new players signed.