Bombers at Stumps GDT

[wbbfan]

Just now, 17to85 said:

We can go back and long way and see roster management problems fro. Osh. Love the guy as a coach but he has flaws in this regard and has for a long time. The problem now is there's a lot of fading stars that get all kinds of rope when they really need to be spelled off more.

100%. Back to guys like Hurl and Kuale. We hoped then that it was just because we had a bad team, which we did. But his roster management hasn't gotten better since then.

In fact, as a coach, he's not improved an only gotten worse. Gone are his brilliant trick plays, especially on teams, challenges that were good or served to back up a player/expose a bad decision, gone is even min-maxing the ratio. I've never seen a more complacent coach in all of sports. 

 

There is a good chance we don't even make an AR change going into the next game after the bye week. 

[Booch]

1 minute ago, wbbfan said:

Teams with better DL than ours are using our former players, while our "superior" guys get whupped. If we made a DL of former bombers on CFL ARs, it would be handily better than our own. 

that's the sad part...we kept the aged...declining...in a few instances washed up players...guys who have been part of 3 flops in a row....and let the young, upside guys walk away.....now make that make sense?

 

2 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

100%. Back to guys like Hurl and Kuale. We hoped then that it was just because we had a bad team, which we did. But his roster management hasn't gotten better since then.

In fact, as a coach, he's not improved an only gotten worse. Gone are his brilliant trick plays, especially on teams, challenges that were good or served to back up a player/expose a bad decision, gone is even min-maxing the ratio. I've never seen a more complacent coach in all of sports. 

 

There is a good chance we don't even make an AR change going into the next game after the bye week. 

resting on laurels

[17to85]

We had a really strong roster and won a lot of games as a result, and can still win... but they're getting older and games like last week will be more and more common.

[GCn20]

39 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

So we sign Patrick Surtain, reigning NFL MODP. He isn't an upgrade over Bridges until he proves it, even if Bridges is proven to be below replacement level? 

If that were remotely true, free agency wouldn't be what it is, and defenders wouldn't get paid to go to other teams. That might be the earliest point you are able to recognize an on-field value differential, but that isn't a blanket that covers everyone's eyes. 

To that point, TC and PS would be completely worthless.

That doesn't prove that he is willing to make the changes, it proves he is only willing to do it at the last possible minute after it's cost us repeatedly. 

Go sign Surtain and see if he is not a starter day one. C'mon man....you are reaching on that one. TC a player has to beat the player ahead of him. It doesn't go to the rookie in a tie or if there is even some debate. That's coaching 101 stuff. I like that J. Jones has the potential to replace T. Jones. When he demonstrates that to Osh and Younger I will be happy to see him succeed here. You say he is better now, but our coaches disagree. We don't have guys riding the pine because they are the better option NOW unless ratio comes into play. No coach in the world leaves a guy on the bench that is clearly better than the guy ahead of him with all things being equal.

What we call roster mismanagement is valid in some respects, but not all. Some of it is based on the age old fan belief that the 2nd stringer is better than the 1st stringer WAAAAAAAY more often than is the actual case.

Edited 10 hours ago by GCn20

[17to85]

So you've never seen oshea make a mistake in roster construction?

[Booch]

24 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

Go sign Surtain and see if he is not a starter day one. C'mon man....you are reaching on that one. TC a player has to beat the player ahead of him. It doesn't go to the rookie in a tie or if there is even some debate. That's coaching 101 stuff. I like that J. Jones has the potential to replace T. Jones. When he demonstrates that to Osh and Younger I will be happy to see him succeed here. You say he is better now, but our coaches disagree. We don't have guys riding the pine because they are the better option NOW unless ratio comes into play. No coach in the world leaves a guy on the bench that is clearly better than the guy ahead of him with all things being equal.

What we call roster mismanagement is valid in some respects, but not all. Some of it is based on the age old fan belief that the 2nd stringer is better than the 1st stringer WAAAAAAAY more often than is the actual case.

Jake and T.Jones didnt out perform anyone....Kolo either...Punter guys didnt.....

J.Jones...Allen....Woodbey...Ayers did tho.....Adams as well but still takes a back seat.\

I doidnt see Korn outplay anyone.....Bridges either...Sterns wasn't the 5th best receiver in camp.....and you certainly can go with a rookie in a tie or if debatable...especially if younger and shows upside and the older player is what he is

How do you think T.Jones got here...by all accounts...his included he had a great camp in Edm...and was shocked...as were others he was outright cut....for a young rookie.....that's coaching 101 also....that rookie ended up as R.O.Y too....I wish Edm would have cut him instead with the Osh theory and we had Anderson here....Anderson...Ayers...J.Jones...Wilson....gimme some of that 

19 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

So you've never seen oshea make a mistake in roster construction?

no....yeah but.....lol

[Goalie]

None of you went to camp or if you did it was for an hour on 1 day so to be making statements like this guy was better in camp Is just pure bullshit. Nobody went to camp. 

[17to85]

But look at what happened in preseason game 2... the starters on D got outperformed badly by the 2s... not a coincidence in my mind. The defensive line is a problem and has been for a couple years. Would really like to know how people feel they really are putting the best people out there...

[rebusrankin]

3 hours ago, GCn20 said:

Our DL play is by scheme. That is Younger's D, the same one he played in when he was with the Argos....get used to it.  Collaros playing hurt in 2022 was still the best roster decision at the time, whether you like it or not. We lost 3 Grey Cups in a row because big time players underachieved. It is nonsense to say that roster management lost us those games. A small part of it perhaps, but at the end of the day we could have won any of those games with the roster we fielded if we had not shat the bed. Simple as that. To say otherwise is dumb. If you can honestly say that our team played to the best of it's ability but we lost because of how the roster was constructed then you may have a point, but that didn't happen. Our big time players were not big time players in those games.

Biggie playing even though he was injured. Schoen and Bailey playing even though injured cost us a Grey Cup in 23.

[SectionKBlackout]

O'shea highlights on the CJOB sports hit this morning when asked about the D line...

Don't look at sacks, look at the pressure. Last year we were 1st in a lot of those categories, that's what we are aiming for. Sacks don't tell the full story.

Pretty much exactly what I would expect he would say. 7th in sacks, D line after 4 games looks like it's week 17 but hey let's go!! 

[17to85]

Ok how many pressures are the DL generating this year? Cause it is usually a linebacker getting pressure. First in those categories last year is one thing but what about this year?

[SpeedFlex27]

21 hours ago, Captain Blue said:

Just to point out, there are the same folks over and over pointing out how Osh won't move on from anyone.

This is not actually correct. Even just this past year we moved on from three major parts of the defense - Bighill, Alexander and Ford. The idea that they don't get rid of aging vets when they did not re-sign two guys who helped transform and start this era of success is completely overlooked. 

You can argue he didn't get rid of the right guys or enough players, and that's fine. But I laugh at the idea that Osh is too loyal to move on from guys like Jake Thomas when he's letting go of Adam Bighill. The reason Thomas is on the team, for instance, is that Osh views his performance differently than say someone else here. And that's fine! You can criticize him for that if you are unhappy with literally any player that is getting playing time. 

Looping back every discussion to the same issue (as if it's always just one thing) merely subtracts from the football discussion on the board. 

Osh didn't move on from those guys because he felt there were better players available. The injuries forced him to. If Biggie could play at 45 years of age & run a 6.5 forty & have a vertical jump of 9 inches then he'd start. 

[17to85]

It's very telling that Mike Oshea never actually retired from playing. He would not ever quit and he's not going to tell one of his guys to quit.

[wbbfan]

2 hours ago, 17to85 said:

We had a really strong roster and won a lot of games as a result, and can still win... but they're getting older and games like last week will be more and more common.

Yep. Our wins have been heavily skewed by the fact that we had a ridiculous talent edge over the rest of the league. Look at how our DL dominated; we ran every alignment imaginable, with every single combination of players. Everything we did after we started, Zach worked. With every sub and roster change. That team is among the most overpowered in league history. The fact that much of the core is still competitive speaks volumes to that.

Mos has done a lot of great things here; we could've won with almost any HC. Not any coach could've turned us into that squad, not any coach could've come back from last year's start. But a bunch of coaches would have more GC rings in his place here. 

2 hours ago, GCn20 said:

Go sign Surtain and see if he is not a starter day one. C'mon man....you are reaching on that one. TC a player has to beat the player ahead of him. It doesn't go to the rookie in a tie or if there is even some debate. That's coaching 101 stuff. I like that J. Jones has the potential to replace T. Jones. When he demonstrates that to Osh and Younger I will be happy to see him succeed here. You say he is better now, but our coaches disagree. We don't have guys riding the pine because they are the better option NOW unless ratio comes into play. No coach in the world leaves a guy on the bench that is clearly better than the guy ahead of him with all things being equal.

What we call roster mismanagement is valid in some respects, but not all. Some of it is based on the age old fan belief that the 2nd stringer is better than the 1st stringer WAAAAAAAY more often than is the actual case.

Your claim is that absurd. We see outstanding rookies at every single position in the CFL now. Even QBs here n there. For real though, who did Kornelson out play and how?

The backup QB is the most popular guy amongst the fans. The thing is, we have several below-replacement-level guys like Kola and Jake. Would you like to go do a head-to-head comparison of forced into action PR back-ups vs those guys in film? Can show real clearly that some guys we play are average PR or below guys. 

14 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

But look at what happened in preseason game 2... the starters on D got outperformed badly by the 2s... not a coincidence in my mind. The defensive line is a problem and has been for a couple years. Would really like to know how people feel they really are putting the best people out there...

Funny thing is the same thing happened last year in PS too. 

 

7 minutes ago, rebusrankin said:

Biggie playing even though he was injured. Schoen and Bailey playing even though injured cost us a Grey Cup in 23.

On top of that, our brutal useage of biggie, feeding him to OL to prevent double teams, caused his precipitous downfall and injuries. We battered the poor guy into a career grave. 

 

5 minutes ago, SectionKBlackout said:

O'shea highlights on the CJOB sports hit this morning when asked about the D line...

Don't look at sacks, look at the pressure. Last year we were 1st in a lot of those categories, that's what we are aiming for. Sacks don't tell the full story.

Pretty much exactly what I would expect he would say. 7th in sacks, D line after 4 games looks like it's week 17 but hey let's go!! 

We were not first in pressures last year, which aren't openly tracked or released on a reliable in-season basis. Classic distraction technique. Teams often track it themselves and quantify it. He tried to say at one point last year that Jake had the most pressure in the league. 

 

The gap is actually widening in terms of pressures as well, between us and the rest of the league. Teams like Sask, To, and a couple of others are running much more aggressive fronts, doing basically the opposite of what we did last year. The riders have had an absurd amount of pressure on opposing qbs this year. More real pressures than we had all last year. 

5 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

Ok how many pressures are the DL generating this year? Cause it is usually a linebacker getting pressure. First in those categories last year is one thing but what about this year?

Very few. 

[SpeedFlex27]

6 minutes ago, rebusrankin said:

Biggie playing even though he was injured. Schoen and Bailey playing even though injured cost us a Grey Cup in 23.

Brandon Alexander & Collaros was hurt as well. However, I get starting Collaros even with a bum ankle. Posters here going after the members they think complain too much & then they throw up shade making excuse after excuse actually keeping the merry go round going. The coaching decisions cost us those Grey Cups. The 2023 Grey Cup with all the injured players, especially with Biggie playing on one leg, Schoen barely able to run & was a non factor...etc, etc. Last year playing Collaros with a severed finger on his throwing hand. That's all coaching decisions. 

[sweep the leg]

16 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

But look at what happened in preseason game 2... the starters on D got outperformed badly by the 2s... not a coincidence in my mind. The defensive line is a problem and has been for a couple years. Would really like to know how people feel they really are putting the best people out there...

Quality of competition matters in preseason. Looking good for a quarter or half of a preseason game isn’t the only factor in who plays. None of us saw any camp to know how they looked over a few weeks of reps. They might be better, but the definitive takes we’re getting on this site are a little much. 

 

@DTonOB, do you have any pressures stats for last year and/or this year?

[17to85]

13 minutes ago, sweep the leg said:

Quality of competition matters in preseason. Looking good for a quarter or half of a preseason game isn’t the only factor in who plays. None of us saw any camp to know how they looked over a few weeks of reps. They might be better, but the definitive takes we’re getting on this site are a little much. 

I knew this would be the first argument brought up... and there's some validity tonight, but the 1s have looked very similar in the regular season compared to preseason and we can pretty much nail the roster that'll start as soon as camp opens so that shows me that osh has it written in ink from day 1 and it won't change. 

Honestly I want to see one person provide a good solid justification to having Ayers, a linebacker, as the only DE depth on the roster when our starters are 34 and 32 years old.

[JuranBoldenRules]

45 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

But look at what happened in preseason game 2... the starters on D got outperformed badly by the 2s... not a coincidence in my mind. The defensive line is a problem and has been for a couple years. Would really like to know how people feel they really are putting the best people out there...

Biggest mistake they've been making from 2022 on is Willie Jefferson.  Great luxury piece to add to one of the greatest CFL D's of all-time if you have the cap space.  It worked for 3 years amazingly when he played about 2/3 of snaps.  But he's not a building block.  And especially as he reaches his mid-30's.

Jeffcoat was the building block and they've never replaced him.  They misread who was dominant, but I mean the whole world does with Jefferson because he's out there and obvious.  Not that Jeffcoat could still play, but the role they needed to replace in the scheme to be dominant.  Instead, Willie has got paid at each time his ticket has come up as his play is less and less effective without that dominant core in the front 7 around him.

I am not a fan of Younger's scheme in comparison to Richie Hall's.  We hardly turn the ball over, and we rely on coverage which is foolish.  Even when you watch our DL play there's no attempt to get pressure from out side.  Vaughters will rush B gap, Jefferson will twist sometimes and end up B or A gap, but from the edge they are just reading the QB to disrupt passing lanes.  Any DE we've dressed for the past 2 seasons.

It's basically a coin flip every week if it's going to work, but you see how even 1 or 2 guys having a bad game in the secondary sinks this scheme.  Pressure is how you build championship defense, and if you're going to have one without the other, consistent pressure is way more impactful.  If you have good players in the back end you'll probably never be worse than .500 with this scheme.  But it's not a scheme that's going to beat another team that is in rhythm and playing at a championship level.  We make no attempt to be aggressive at the line of scrimmage and are mostly trying to disrupt QB downfield reads while that QB basically knows they won't be pressured.

Our team stats look decent right now, but we played the worst quarterbacked team by a longshot (BC) twice and Tre Ford.  

Edited 7 hours ago by JuranBoldenRules

[JuranBoldenRules]

9 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

I knew this would be the first argument brought up... and there's some validity tonight, but the 1s have looked very similar in the regular season compared to preseason and we can pretty much nail the roster that'll start as soon as camp opens so that shows me that osh has it written in ink from day 1 and it won't change. 

Honestly I want to see one person provide a good solid justification to having Ayers, a linebacker, as the only DE depth on the roster when our starters are 34 and 32 years old.

The justification is the scheme.  With Younger they have no commitment to rush from the edge.  They are disrupting QB eyes by challenging their reads in who from their D will be managing which routes and potentially who/where pressure might come from.  They'd rather have a guy like Griffin out there as a hybrid at 3 levels than have 4 DL driving into the pocket/off the edge on a potential passing down.  

We're basically running a 3-4 defense in this era where DB's are LB's.  Our only true LB out there is Jones or Gauthier if he's out there....It's basically a 3-1-8 if you're thinking about who might do what, for the most part those 8 are coverage players but they also will rush aside from the corners.

[17to85]

And jeffcoat missed a lot of time to injury so moving on wasn't necessarily wrong... but they definitely didn't put in a lot of effort trying to replace the DEs. Nor DTs. Trotting out Jake as if he's Doug brown ain't cutting anything. Jake was a depth guy at his peak and he's well past that now.

[sweep the leg]

10 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

. 

Honestly I want to see one person provide a good solid justification to having Ayers, a linebacker, as the only DE depth on the roster when our starters are 34 and 32 years old.

I’m not defending that,  nor do I like having 30 dbs/lbs and only six receivers in the lineup. That’s roster mgmt, which imo is different than direct player to play comps at the same position. 

[rebusrankin]

I'm going to build on @JuranBoldenRules points. Name a successful CFL or NFL team that didn't generate a lot of pressure and by extension sacks? We did in 19 and 21, Toronto did it in 22 and 24. Eagles just won a Super Bowl in part because of this.

[17to85]

Just now, JuranBoldenRules said:

The justification is the scheme.  With Younger they have no commitment to rush from the edge.  They are disrupting QB eyes by challenging their reads in who from their D will be managing which routes and potentially who/where pressure might come from.  They'd rather have a guy like Griffin out there as a hybrid at 3 levels than have 4 DL driving into the pocket/off the edge on a potential passing down.  

We're basically running a 3-4 defense in this era where DB's are LB's.  Our only true LB out there is Jones or Gauthier if he's out there....It's basically a 3-1-8 if you're thinking about who might do what, for the most part those 8 are coverage players but they also will rush aside from the corners.

Oh sure,  but that's justification for the numbers only, not when you try and account for the age of the DEs. 3 or 4 years ago sure run those guys as the only 2 but now they don't have the legs to be out there all the time.

[DTonOB]

Just caught up on snap counts for the season...folks had asked in a different thread. 211 defensive snaps (including penalty plays were the play wasn't stopped early):

Vaughters - 189
Jefferson - 182
Thomas - 144
Lawson - 129
Adams - 117
Kornelson - 26

[17to85]

Your best lineman is adams and he's getting so few snaps. Embarrassing.