Well that loss stung last night. Not happy with the decision to kick the FG but that can be discussed elsewhere  All in all there was a lot of improvement this year over last year and looking like they are trending upwards. If Walters can pull off another great draft and some more key FAs this offseason I like our chances going into 2017. Who is on the FA watch list and what areas are we in desperate need of fixing?

12 minutes ago, Atomic said:

It's not ridiculous unless you believe that EVERY player on the Bombers actually needed to be cut from the team.  If we're talking about the Redblacks building around 6-8 players from the expansion draft, I'm sure you could find 6-8 players on the Bombers that were worth keeping in town.

And the point is that the Bombers GM could have cut whoever he wanted, and signed whoever he wanted.  CFL teams are not restricted by contracts at all... all the power rests with the team's management.  There is no such thing as a CFL GM being handcuffed by a bad roster.

I agree. I fail to see how an expansion team with no neg list, no players under contract, and only the leftovers from other teams to choose from is at an advantage.

22 minutes ago, gcn11 said:

I agree. I fail to see how an expansion team with no neg list, no players under contract, and only the leftovers from other teams to choose from is at an advantage.

Minor advantage when you consider how badly Desjardins kicked Mack's ass in the 2013 draft...  

20 minutes ago, Floyd said:

Minor advantage when you consider how badly Desjardins kicked Mack's ass in the 2013 draft...  

Desjardins only had 3 picks too... his 1st pick (Macmillan) was better than all our 6 picks combined that year. 

IF Mulumba ever plays up here and IF he ever amounts to anything it might make it a bit closer but as it sits now that was a terrible draft (it wasn't a very good draft year in general though to be fair). 

5 hours ago, sweep the leg said:

We didn't have access to other teams' rosters to re-stock.

Exactly.

1 hour ago, Taynted_Fayth said:

given our records up until last year under Walters - 3-15(13') 7-11(14') 5-13(15')  and that only remaining players left since Walters first took over are Denmark, Thomas, Wild and Sherman,  I think Desjardins could have fared about the same had he blown it all up. 

Walters didn't do it in one fell swoop like Jones did in Sask. but gradually he ended up turning over almost the entire roster

I believe we may be down to three... I don't think Teague Sherman is with the Bombers anymore

There is such a thing, back in the Mack days, and thereafter, that free agents were not inclined to sign with the Bombers, them being the wreckage of a team that they were. 

Nowadays, there is a better total atmosphere that free agents feel more at ease with.

7 hours ago, sweep the leg said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_CFL_Expansion_Draft

They had better Canadians and a better qb than us just from the draft. They traded Glenn for Pruneau.

It's very strange how the redblacks had a better QB and better Canadians than us in 2014 ... and yet the 2014 Bombers won twice as many games as the redblacks, including one head-to-head victory against the rbs.  And strange how all but one of the expansion draft players had been cut by the time the redblacks won the Cup. (all but two if you count Pruneau as an expansion draft player, which he kinda does)  (I was wrong about this ... there was more than one.  Hopkins and Cappacotti at least.)

Face it, the expansion draft was not a big deal.  People like to get bent out of shape about it, going on like riderfans about how it was unfair and how the league was against us and how Desjardins was an ******* for throwing shade on our roster -- but nothing that Desjardins said was untrue.  We were a dumpster fire after 2013. 

The rbs' ability to mold a bunch of free agents into a championship roster is the real story here. Most teams that sign a big posse of free agents like that don't meet expectations.

Edited April 25, 20178 yr by johnzo

9 minutes ago, johnzo said:

It's very strange how the redblacks had a better QB and better Canadians than us in 2014 ... and yet the 2014 Bombers won twice as many games as the redblacks, including at least head-to-head victory against the rbs.  And strange how the majority of the expansion draft players had been cut by the time the redblacks won the Cup.

Face it, the expansion draft was not a big deal.  People like to get bent out of shape about it, going on like riderfans about how it was unfair and how the league was against us and how Desjardins was an ******* for throwing shade on our roster -- but nothing that Desjardins said was untrue.  We were a dumpster fire after 2013. 

The rbs' ability to mold a bunch of free agents into a championship roster is the real story here. Most teams that sign a big posse of free agents like that don't meet expectations.

Testify!

The prevailing opinion here was that DesJardins was not very good at his job. Read that a number of times.

Also, lot of people informed that Ottawa had a terrible O line. (Atomic the exception)

Also,  Burris was terrible.

 

 

 

Edited April 25, 20178 yr by Mark F

13 minutes ago, johnzo said:

People like to get bent out of shape about it, going on like riderfans about how it was unfair and how the league was against us and how Desjardins was an ******* for throwing shade on our roster -- but nothing that Desjardins said was untrue.  We were a dumpster fire after 2013.

Compare me to Riderfans again and I will end you. I fully supported the expansion draft. How can you add an expansion team without an expansion draft? And I fully agree that we were a dumpster fire coming out of 2013, which is why I would have traded roster situations with the Redblacks.

 

 

Other GMs shouldn't be mocking other teams. Desjardins was an ass for the things he said about the Bombers. Yes, they were a dumpster fire but they were OUR dumpster fire, so he should have kept his mouth shut. When he was GM in Hamilton, he did sweet **** all & was fired.  The only track record he had in 2013 was he was a loser as former GM for the Ti Cats. Yes, he has been successful in Ottawa but it was still unprofessional to say the things he did about the Bombers. I certainly won't forget it.

49 minutes ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

Other GMs shouldn't be mocking other teams. Desjardins was an ass for the things he said about the Bombers. Yes, they were a dumpster fire but they were OUR dumpster fire, so he should have kept his mouth shut. When he was GM in Hamilton, he did sweet **** all & was fired.  The only track record he had in 2013 was he was a loser as former GM for the Ti Cats. Yes, he has been successful in Ottawa but it was still unprofessional to say the things he did about the Bombers. I certainly won't forget it.

16 minutes ago, Floyd said:

Ha, ha. rather have seen Dirty Harry asking, "Well, do you feel lucky, punk?'

24 minutes ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

Ha, ha. rather have seen Dirty Harry asking, "Well, do you feel lucky, punk?'

Wouldn't we all...

I lol at people now drooling over other teams 4th/5th string qbs... come on now...

I only vaguely remember what he said around that time. Did a quick search and can't find anything. Can someone refresh my memory?

Desjardins basically said our Canadian content was the sh*ts.  He took Kohlert (a pending free agent) in the expansion draft because there was nobody else worth taking.

Quote

“We’ve communicated with his agent and that’s still ongoing,” Desjardins said. “It became a function of there wasn’t anybody active we felt was worth selecting so we took a player that was a free agent and we’d see how it worked out.”

 

27 minutes ago, bigg jay said:

Desjardins basically said our Canadian content was the sh*ts.  He took Kohlert (a pending free agent) in the expansion draft because there was nobody else worth taking.

 

No he didn't. Desjardins said he was not going to draft any pending free agents and when he got to his last pick from the Bombers all that was left was pending free agents. 

Read the bolded quote from Desjardins.  He flat out says that there were active players (ie under contract) but he didn't want any of them.  He didn't even really want Kohlert - they tried to pass on their last pick from the Bombers but the league said they had to pick someone.

1 hour ago, WildPath said:

I only vaguely remember what he said around that time. Did a quick search and can't find anything. Can someone refresh my memory?

He attempted to decline making a third selection from the Bombers and was forced to by the the commissioner.  Then took a pending FA (Kohlert), which is of course idiotic.

41 minutes ago, mbrg said:

He attempted to decline making a third selection from the Bombers and was forced to by the the commissioner.  Then took a pending FA (Kohlert), which is of course idiotic.

I wouldn't say it's idiotic... He really didn't have much to choose from (non free agent Canadians):

Carl Volny 
Carl Fitzgerald 
Jade Etienne 
Kito Poblah 
Cory Watson 
Chris Greaves 
Tyson Pencer
Jake Thomas 
Philippe Dubuisson-Lebon
Cauchy Muamba
Teague Sherman
Sandro DeAngelis
Mathieu Boulay
Patrick Neufeld 
Rene Stephan 
Paul Swiston 

Now consider that we could protect 6 players and the list looks more like this:

 
Carl Fitzgerald 
Jade Etienne 
Tyson Pencer
Philippe Dubuisson-Lebon
Teague Sherman
Sandro DeAngelis
Mathieu Boulay
Patrick Neufeld 
Rene Stephan 
Paul Swiston 

Tough to blame Desjardins for not wanting any of those players.

It's good to play in the east, especially when Hamiltons QB is a walking band aid, the Als and Argos were in a race to the bottom. 

Yeah. I remember the Kohlert pick when we basically had a contract in hand. Surprised they would have had no interest in Teague or Neufeld considering how much of a part they played with our team since.

1 hour ago, WildPath said:

Yeah. I remember the Kohlert pick when we basically had a contract in hand. Surprised they would have had no interest in Teague or Neufeld considering how much of a part they played with our team since.

At that time Neufeld  would probably have been on the protected list.

Edited April 26, 20178 yr by Throw Long Bannatyne

I sincerely doubt we protected Carl Volny over Teague Sherman.