Jesse

I just think Cody needs a receiver like him, who knows when to break off his routes and come back to the QB when he's running around. He does so well at finding open space. If Montreal wants to commit to Fajardo, Schoen's the best guy for him. BUT, I'm obviously hoping we're in his ear and can convince that he's going to be much more successful by staying here with us. Hopefully we got Kenny and Zach in his ear too.

I've been expecting them to make a big push for Schoen.

Not really, he even said in the article it's what you do as you get to this point in your career. He's not at his peak.

That seems super unlikely at this point in his career. Especially with the way MOS and Younger have been talking about his role going into next year. Seems pretty settled already.

But I'm talking about the difference from Year 1 to Year 2. It's wonderful that he's taking less than he was supposed to, but it still represents more of our cap space than he took up last year (if the numbers reported are to be believed - which is iffy at best, of course).

I don't want to sound like a naysayer, but when I look up receiver salaries from last year, 3down reported that Kenny was supposed to earn 250k in hard money with a max of 258. If we're taking these numbers at face value, Kenny is still getting a significant raise this year. Not as much of a raise as he was scheduled to get, but it still represents less money from last year, not more.

I think Ceresna has more on-field value, if you take age and ant status out of the equation. And TO must be bracing to lose some DL pieces in FA. I think the trade works for both sides.

Shocked Chris Jones makes that move.

It does not have any direct bearing, other than the fact that there was a post-Christmas lull and now things seem to be picking up again. Walters will need time to get other players under contract and/or figure put replacement plans and we still seem to be in a holding pattern. Probably can't let it go on too much longer. I understand the reasoning on wait on Schoen, but he may be the more difficult sign. I can't help but think he's going to have a few teams bidding higher than we can reasonably expect to compete with.

Walters has said at some point he will have to move on and start allocating the funds to the remaining players on our FA list. Right now he's holding off because, if one or both of Brady and Dalton sign, it will mean making different choices. But at some point, he's going to accept that they're not going to sign and he'll move on. This decision will need to be made with enough time left before free agency to negotiate the remaining contracts we want to extend.

Starting to notice more signings around the league again the past few days. Might be getting close to the time Walter’s says now or never to Brady and Dalton.

Zach in an entrenched, MOP starter. He plays every game outside of injury or end of year scenarios. Coaches will let him play himself out of rough stretches, because they know he's capable of it. Zach has 2 years left on his deal and no one knows if he is going to retire at that point. Then you got Harris, who has completed maybe 4 games for the Riders and has a new coach with zero ties to him. Injury, poor play, losing streak. Multiple scenarios where they could potentially make a QB switch. Harris has one year left on his deal and would need to prove he's worth it to get another deal.

I know what you're saying, but there's always some extra bodies at camp.

If we don’t have Brady, it’s import at RB.

Don’t say it like a bad thing. That’s the best case scenario.

The QBs in question are terrible and renegotiating so they aren't cut outright, Zach equaled the performance that got him the contract in the first place.

Maybe in a very literal sense some players were offered "more". This just might be me, but if Toronto offers Kenny 310 and we offer him 305 (especially considering the cost of living between the two cities, I don't really feel as if the player accepted less to be here. Same thing with Willie. We made him the highest paid defensive player in the league when he came here. If teams ever offered more than we did, it certainly wasn't by anything significant.

Team building wise, that would be huge. But it only works if you hit on the rookie. Get a Dalton Schoen at the RB position.

I keep hearing that. But we had to make Zach the highest paid player in the league, we've made both Willie and Adam the highest paid defensive players at different times. Kenny left for more money and only came back when we paid him 300+ (saying he left money isn't the only thing that matters but contract saying otherwise). Everyone says Bailey came back for less money, but he went into FA and then came back so I honestly just believe the offers out there just weren't what he thought they'd be. Who's taken less money to be here?

This isn't really true. We've consistently paid guys at the top of the pay scale to get them here and keep them here.

Ok, now I think people are going too hard in the other direction here. Last year Brady was absolute crap for the first half of the season and clearly made changes to be the incredible back he was for the last half of 2022 and all of 2023. It is not all the OL and not every back will have close to his success. Augustine had a high average at the end of blow out games. It's not an equal comparison.

Brady is an all round great back. What he does is repeatable and he'd continue to have success for a long time. He'd break records and he's do it as a local kid. So, it would be tough to lose him. We will probably not fall backwards into another great back, you may get a good percentage of the the production at a vastly different price point though. It would be nice to add home run speed into the equation, as that's an element Brady doesn't bring (and why he shouldn't reset the market, imo - even if there's an RB who does). But it's likely that we go by committee and cycle through different backs in the future if we're unable to retain Brady's services, and that just sucks.

Anyone else find this kind of comment annoying?

Even more information in the Ed Tait article: https://www.bluebombers.com/2024/01/09/once-those-higher-ones-get-settled-whether-they-come-back-dont-come-back-lock-into-a-dollar-value-then-i-think-the-rest-should-move-along-fairly-quickly/

So am I, obviously.