Time to get the regular season underway...

 

 

49 minutes ago, rebusrankin said:

Why did we sign him then? Hint, he was signed long before the Lawson injury.

Maybe he was brought back in case Lawson got injured 🤕 

I for one am glad we released a DE so we could keep *checks notes* Mitchell on the roster?!

1 hour ago, Pete said:

Have we replaced any starting player with another who is an upgrade over the one we lost ? Bonds for Parker is the closest.

ie Walker Yes, Woods and Adams are upgrades IMO.

   Bailey No but it's early and having the big guns hurt doesn't help get new faces acclimated.

  Hardwick No but sooner or later you had to move on from there

 Grant Not exactly but I like Smith and think he's going to be able to fill the role

Grey Hard to say, Gray had some issues on the line too. There whole group is having too down a year to really say at this point. 

Jeffcoat No but then again the guys slotted in to take the job are both hurt

Houston yes. Guy had picks but wasn't that great at the rest of teh job. 

 

So most of this is young player growing pains because they didn't do any succession planning last season or if they did the guys got hurt. 

Just like there’s nobody to replace bighill and Wilson really. Same with BA. Growing pains. Or lawler or Schoen for that matter. Even Zach. I want to think Streveler is but I have my doubts that they feel the same. 

Edited July 12, 20241 yr by Goalie

1 minute ago, Goalie said:

Just like there’s nobody to replace bighill and Wilson really

This is criminal. GIven Bighills age and obviously declining play and Wilsons injury history to not have anyone pushing those guys HARD is just negligence. Even last year at least they had Clements. 

So i keep thinking back to this interview Walters gave a couple years ago. About succession planning. He said something along the lines of "you can't replace everyone all at once, so you have to do it carefully... A couple pieces at a time..." Yada yada etc.

So I keep thinking they were trying this and really ****** up ... Or Osh ****** up the plan by overruling. 

But I remember specifically that Walters had at least some kind of plan for succession of players....

Just saying, they won last week so @voodoochylde should probably start the GDT

13 minutes ago, JohnnyAbonny said:

Just saying, they won last week so @voodoochylde should probably start the GDT

On it.

11 hours ago, Goalie said:

Just like there’s nobody to replace bighill and Wilson really. Same with BA. Growing pains. Or lawler or Schoen for that matter. Even Zach. I want to think Streveler is but I have my doubts that they feel the same. 

You couldn't be more wrong!  There's Cadwalladar and Gauthier 🤣

12 minutes ago, Colin Unger said:

You couldn't be more wrong!  There's Cadwalladar and Gauthier 🤣

Gauthier has hardly seen the field for defensive snaps so far...I wonder if it's because Osh doesn't want to expose the fact that a pedestrian foot soldier linebacker will show more than our high paid gotta have vet whether he healthy or not LB....

12 hours ago, Goalie said:

Just like there’s nobody to replace bighill and Wilson really. Same with BA. Growing pains. Or lawler or Schoen for that matter. Even Zach. I want to think Streveler is but I have my doubts that they feel the same. 

Ayers and Cole at LB. Griffin or the Cdn DB who is always hurt at safety. Receiver is a mess with 3 guys out. 
 

So I think there are guys around to replace the vets but totally agree no one has had the actual opportunity to. 

13 hours ago, bigg jay said:

Parker is still here, just hurt so we haven't really lost him.  You could say Bond replaced Houston since he's covering the side of the field that Demerio did.

The side that Parker was playing was a bit of a revolving door last year (Parker, Rose, Lawrence, Daramy-Swaray).  Ford has locked up that spot so there's an upgrade even though it wasn't from scouting.

Ford was an upgrade from scouting.  You do know drafted Players are scouted?  Teams just don't throw darts randomly at a board.

1 minute ago, blue85gold said:

Ayers and Cole at LB. Griffin or the Cdn DB who is always hurt at safety. Receiver is a mess with 3 guys out. 
 

So I think there are guys around to replace the vets but totally agree no one has had the actual opportunity to. 

Griffen would offer way more than Kramitupyourkramhole at SAM....But I also think the best option would be Cole at SAM...Griffen for Holmboy and Holmboy at safety....that would give us more physicality and tackling ability closer to the line...and I would bet Holm would become a pickin' machine at free safety.

Be nice to know whats up with Parker tho and if he will be back....as he was our best tackling DB last yr...and would be a nice addition to the secondary at HB....with Holmboy at safety

Just now, CrazyCanuck89 said:

Ford was an upgrade from scouting.  You do know drafted Players are scouted?  Teams just don't throw darts randomly at a board.

No ****.  Obviously they did research into him but he (along with every other draft eligible player) was known to them.  I meant it in the sense of he wasn't some random juco/d3 player that our scouts uncovered and brought into camp.

All things considered with injuries...poor roster usage...after Mtl loss last night we basically have given up least points per game now....keep it to under 23 tonight and we will be the number one defense in points allowed.

Factor in at some point we will get Garbutt...Fox...Parker....Possibly Lawson all back....Ford more experience...Same with Bonds tho he is already lights out and also soon to be 28...so he knows whats going on.....and if Osh pulls face outta his own sphincter and actually rosters WJ/Garbutt/Woods/Adams/FOx/Lawson/Hubert in some fashion....drop some dead wood (Thomas) relegate others tomback-up/role players (Biggie/BA) and forget about this Kramdi fascination...we have the makings of a very good defense.

 

12 minutes ago, Booch said:

All things considered with injuries...poor roster usage...after Mtl loss last night we basically have given up least points per game now....keep it to under 23 tonight and we will be the number one defense in points allowed.

Factor in at some point we will get Garbutt...Fox...Parker....Possibly Lawson all back....Ford more experience...Same with Bonds tho he is already lights out and also soon to be 28...so he knows whats going on.....and if Osh pulls face outta his own sphincter and actually rosters WJ/Garbutt/Woods/Adams/FOx/Lawson/Hubert in some fashion....drop some dead wood (Thomas) relegate others tomback-up/role players (Biggie/BA) and forget about this Kramdi fascination...we have the makings of a very good defense.

 

Its still difficult to score touchdowns against Winnipeg. Given the obvious shortcomings talent wise i think we need to give some credit to our defensive co-ordinator. 

It's somewhat difficult to picture where Parker would slot in. With his injury history when healthy I would use him in Griffin's role until an injury opens up a spot for him. 

Edited July 12, 20241 yr by Colin Unger

I wonder how much of Janarion Grant's success in Toronto is aided by the argos special team's unit?  Obviously he's still able to get it done when healthy. I don't think he was healthy for us most of last season. But when you look at the drop off in production from Javon Leake when going from Toronto to Edmonton I think we need to at least consider how much credit is due to Grant and how much to the Argos unit at large.

I don't think Chris Smith will be as good as Grant but he's younger and cheaper and he looks like a guy who can be a good returner in this league. 

I don't have any major problems with this year's recruiting class when you combine the Canadians and Americans. The issue is last year's lack of a class is coming back to bite us. We're expecting a lot from players who were just introduced to the CFL a few weeks ago.  Even guys like Lawler, Simon, Stegall and many more were not instant successes in the CFL. Lets' re-evaluate later in the season.  Guys like Bonds and Ford all of sudden started to click.  And I don't think we can forget about Wheatfall who looked quite promising.  

Edited July 12, 20241 yr by Colin Unger

2 hours ago, Booch said:

All things considered with injuries...poor roster usage...after Mtl loss last night we basically have given up least points per game now....keep it to under 23 tonight and we will be the number one defense in points allowed.

Factor in at some point we will get Garbutt...Fox...Parker....Possibly Lawson all back....Ford more experience...Same with Bonds tho he is already lights out and also soon to be 28...so he knows whats going on.....and if Osh pulls face outta his own sphincter and actually rosters WJ/Garbutt/Woods/Adams/FOx/Lawson/Hubert in some fashion....drop some dead wood (Thomas) relegate others tomback-up/role players (Biggie/BA) and forget about this Kramdi fascination...we have the makings of a very good defense.

 

OMG there *IS* reason for optimism!!

 

Im not saying anything is even close to perfect, but I will take ANY kind of silver lining... Especially from Booch! 

Optimism Is basically it can’t get any worse can it? I don’t see how. Unless every starter gets injured. 

I also agree that we have done really well in regards to defensive positions.......Ford has grown, Bonds looks pretty good, we still have Parker...BA has lost a step post injury but he outside a few plays hasn't looked really bad....a couple guys looked good when rotated in also.....I think we are good on the back end.

 

As Booch said we actually appear to have some very good D-lineman, we brought in some legit talent. My surprise of the year has been Hubert, IMO he has shown me more already then Bennet did all last year....add in Schmekle being serviceable, and Jake (who yes get's too many reps currently IMO) and add in a healthy Lawson, that is actually pretty good CDN D-line depth with a quality starter in Lawson as long as he recovers...Adams has to me looked great, I thought Fox was looking good, Woods to me has been a bit up and down when in, but not enough to fairly judge, and as mentioned Garbutt and Habba when healthy both showed very high potential.

A line of 

........ Willy J.... Adams....Lawson.....Habba..... listed starters

>>>Hubert>>>Fox>>>Jake>>>Garbutt>>>listed B/U

If we rostered those 8 together and rotated closer to "normal" I see that as a really good line

 

LB, is a tough one for me...I thought Kramdi was growing well last year, but he hasn't shown that, this year. I really like Wilson, but since injuries he hasn't looked dominant and Biggie is one of the best ever but c'mon man his leadership is unquestioned but he really should be a rotational piece this year and it shows, heck it showed last year if we are being real.....the issue is do we actually have guys like we appear to on ethe D-line and the backfield to on the roster somewhere? Is Ayers any good, Cole etc.

2 hours ago, Goalie said:

Optimism Is basically it can’t get any worse can it? I don’t see how. Unless every starter gets injured. 

On 2024-07-11 at 2:02 PM, Noeller said:

Redhawk Randy fined....

 

followup on this: Dru Brown cleared to play this weekend per https://www.cfl.ca/2024/07/07/cfl-injury-reports-week-6/

Super happy to see this.  I will always root for promising QBs who are establishing themselves in the CFL -- this league gets stinky fast when it trots out bad / underqualified quarterbacks. 

Edited July 12, 20241 yr by johnzo

10 minutes ago, johnzo said:

followup on this: Dru Brown cleared to play this weekend per https://www.cfl.ca/2024/07/07/cfl-injury-reports-week-6/

Super happy to see this.  I will always root for promising QBs who are establishing themselves in the CFL -- this league gets stinky fast when it trots out bad / underqualified quarterbacks. 

Definitely. A QB resurgence is needed, and Dru Brown can be a big part of it.

When was the last time the league had multiple elite QBs? Back when there was Calvillo, Burris, Dickenson, Glenn?

I guess you can look at 2015 with Reilly, Mitchell, Burris, Collaros pre-injury.

 

Edited July 12, 20241 yr by greenrider55

7 minutes ago, greenrider55 said:

Definitely. A QB resurgence is needed, and Dru Brown can be a big part of it.

yeah, Harris / Mitchell / Collaros don't seem to have many miles left on them although the former two are playing well.  MBT is an older guy too. 

while we're talking about Redblacks QBs, I'm glad to see that Tyree Adams is back on the active roster.  Poor dude won his first start last year but took a season-ending injury from it. Masoli is still six-gamed; wonder who the odd guy out will be when he returns.

Edited July 12, 20241 yr by johnzo

6 hours ago, Booch said:

Gauthier has hardly seen the field for defensive snaps so far...I wonder if it's because Osh doesn't want to expose the fact that a pedestrian foot soldier linebacker will show more than our high paid gotta have vet whether he healthy or not LB....

Seems to be a trend where platooning certain players versus starting them would be a good adjustment with the existing roster we are working with.

I know Captain Obvious.