WPG. Own thread coming soon.

CAL . How much do you tinker if at all? But somethin aint right here

EDM. Lots of room for improvement.  Reilly another year older

SSK. Canadas team has lots of FAs, Carter leaving. Huge question marks at QB

BC. Lots of smoke but less flame than grease fire in MTL. Whole new coaching staff at least

TOR. Turning point to build on or just a nice story like OTT last year?

HAM. Soap opera . Key FAs looming. Collaros. Manziel thing.

OTT.  Trending down

MTL. Grease fire until further notice.

If they had 200K available for Westerman, they should be able to create 200K for Henoc. 

 

Frankly, I’d rather have Henoc than almost any other FA we signed from another team this off season. 

11 minutes ago, TBURGESS said:

$190-200K for Muamba seems about right for a ratio breaking NI who plays like Import, especially one who plays a position that we need. I wonder what the Bombers think a 'strong pitch' is. 

Probably a multi-year deal where they add money to year 2 and/or 3 to make up for what they aren't able to offer in year 1 due to cap limitations.

Considering Muamba has recently got burned on the off-season bonus along with several high-profile players, I can see why an offer that has less up-front cash and more deferred would be unappealing.

1 hour ago, blue_gold_84 said:

Despite the optics of this message it's somewhat encouraging that Henoc hasn't already made up his mind and signed with Mtl. if the Bombers offer is way below his ask.  It may be an indication that he really would like to sign with the Bombers and have a decent shot at winning a G.C. instead of enduring next year's soap opera directed by Kavis.

Realistically, if there was any other CFL or Bombers news, would we still be talking about Muamba? This is all getting very old.

13 minutes ago, blue_gold_84 said:

My thoughts exactly. If Muamba's ask seems unreasonable to Walters, it leads me to think the team is tighter to the cap than I thought. And that's troubling.

Sort of but not exactly.  You have to budget for all sorts of things including money yet to be spent.  Draft picks still need to be signed.  Guys will get injured.  Players will still come available in the fall after the NFL makes it's cuts.

The team will budget most likely according to position groupings and then signed according to those budgets.  This year QBs probably got more than last, but the DL group might have been less.  Receivers are probably higher, RB's higher, secondary level, LB's lower, Oline higher.  So now after FA has started and you've signed players within those budgets, finding an extra $120,000 (over S-Knox) for your MAC who came available after these decisions were already made isn't so easy.  You can sneak 10k here and there from these other areas, but that still doesn't get to $120k.

So if Walters wants to make this happen he has to do something irresponsible and take money away from one of those original 3 groups.  I'm sure some of what we're offering came from there as well, but you can't leave those accounts empty.  That's like the City of Winnipeg fixing a pool with money from the snow clearing budget and hoping this year it stays above zero during winter.  It's a bad idea.

Also, keep in mind that while getting Muamba would be really helpful, it's because of the ratio flexibility he offers, not necessarily because he'll play the position any better than Bobby Import Jr (2nd generation CFLer).

There are pros and cons to signing Muamba.  I'm entirely in favour of doing it, but that doesn't mean we're screwed if we don't, and we might find a really good use for the money we saved come October.

Walters not offering $200k - lame

190-200k seems like a very reasonable ask and it's disappointing we can't make that happen.

7 minutes ago, Atomic said:

190-200k seems like a very reasonable ask and it's disappointing we won't  make that happen.

Fixed it for you.

The dispersing thing about the Muamba....be it him or someone else is the fact that the MLB situation has been and remains a critical unsolved problem. 

What if Santos-Knox can play the middle well? Then all this whining about the position and not making a big splash in FA is all for nothing... but I guess that's what Bomber fans love to do is whine about things in the offseason. 

Think JSK will be pretty good in the middle. He can fly around is a good tackler pretty much what you want in the middle. Has played MLB in college he should be alright.

8 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

What if Santos-Knox can play the middle well? Then all this whining about the position and not making a big splash in FA is all for nothing... but I guess that's what Bomber sports fans love to do is whine about things in the offseason. 

FTFY

Why the hell is Muamba worth 200k a year? He's going to get paid 235k this season?

Unrealistic.

10 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

What if Santos-Knox can play the middle well? Then all this whining about the position and not making a big splash in FA is all for nothing... but I guess that's what Bomber fans love to do is whine about things in the offseason. 

And even if that’s the case, it still doesn’t change the fact that we can use an extra Canadian starter.

When the club leaks a message to the public with a negotiation it can mean a number of things.  We don't know what this actually means.  The guaranteed money is likely where they are far apart.  The club have too much guaranteed money in contract can absolutely tank a season.

19 minutes ago, Mike said:

Why the hell is Muamba worth 200k a year? He's going to get paid 235k this season?

Unrealistic.

His new team won't get a $35K discount just because Regina gave him that much for doing nothing. IMO, He's worth $190-200K, just like Westerman was. Next time you hire someone, go for the guy who got overpaid for his last job so you don't have to pay him as much, cuz he's already got it from someone else. See how that works for you.

27 minutes ago, Mike said:

Why the hell is Muamba worth 200k a year? He's going to get paid 235k this season?

Unrealistic.

Market rate for a Canadian starter seems to be 125K-175K.... and more for an all-star Most Outstanding Canadian candidate like Muamba.  200 seems pretty reasonable.

22 minutes ago, TBURGESS said:

His new team won't get a $35K discount just because Regina gave him that much for doing nothing. IMO, He's worth $190-200K, just like Westerman was. Next time you hire someone, go for the guy who got overpaid for his last job so you don't have to pay him as much, cuz he's already got it from someone else. See how that works for you.

Tell me how doing what Muamba is doing is working for him, considering how all these articles keep coming out about how he wants to sign here or here or here and yet, he's gone what? a month with no deal? Pretty obvious that when you get released at the time he did, you need to re-evaluate your expectations on market value because most of the money has already been spent. Getting released after being paid a bonus isn't a chance for you to make even more money than you normally would. 

The bottom line is: Do we believe that Henoc Muamba is worth 200K to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers? 

Personally, I believe that considering the added boost of a Canadian starter and our struggles at MLB since Henoc left the the team that he’s absolutely worth 200K to this team..

Doug Brown thinks it's a no-brainer....to advance the team we need to sign a guy like Muamba and there isn't too many around like that...Soooooo do we put all of our eggs in one basket this year and go for the gold orrrr do we hope we can fill the linebacker position with someone else and accomplish the same thing...200,000 dollar question right about now...I'm pretty sure Walters has put everything on the table and in black and white so the question arises...IF it's not good enough what's the hold-up on Henoc's announcement about where he's going to land...?????IF it's Mont....announce the bloody thing already...UNLESS there's a third party throwing money at him and then that's another kettle of fish????

I guess the question is who you are willing to cut to sign Muamba.  It has to be probably 2 non-rookies.  Okpo is the obvious one but then who else?

I say roll with Couture..Trade Neufeld for draft pick this year..or rights to a neg list guy...Maybe if you need to dump 2 (which I highly doubt) you drop Nevis and his 130k price tag...theres roughly 275k  free'd up right there.

Couture is ready for prime time...he could have played last year if he had to and done just fine...Dress Foketti as the 6th oline guy...he's earned and deserves it...if he has to go in due to injury in game I am fine with tossing out Jones/Branning on the corner...or you just play one of Ekakite or Corney on every defensive snap...case closed

This team seems to have overpaid hurl in the hopes of him developing into Osh 2.0 

now we have a guy wanting to sign here and who would absolutely thrive under Osh guidance...

$200k is simply market rate for muamba - this is a no brainer 

rotating JSK and Wild would make jr his the best LB crew in the league imo

especially after okpo’s salary becoming public knowledge how would anyone expect muamba to take less than 190k

Here's the thing as I see it.  We've already made a huge upgrade at MLB by not re-signing Hurl.  So Henoc would be a nice-to-have, but our Canadian depth is such that he's not a got-to-have.  If he's looking for a max payout, that's fine, but I really don't think he brings enough to the table to justify the potential of us being in cap-hell by mid season.  He's a real good middle linebacker, but he's not head-and-shoulders above everyone else in the league better.   I'm confident that we've either already got, or can acquire, a import that can play every bit as well, for a whole lot less money.  If we start 3 Canuk Oline, Harris, a receiver and Loffler, we only have to play one other Canadian.  Yes, it would be nice for it to be Henoc, but it doesn't have to be, nor do we need to start jettisoning good players that might actually want to stick around beyond the end of their contract just to we can have him play for one season.