With Rookie Camp getting underway Wednesday morning, it's officially time to talk about the 2026 Winnipeg Blue Bombers!

1 minute ago, Bubba Zanetti said:

Yeah really no need to start Cobb. Kramdi, Lawson, Neufeld, Wallace, Demski, Nield, Oliveira makes 7. Singer offers much more upside/explosiveness.

Pleasantly surprised...especially on defensive side of the ball....lotsa versatile and interchangeable guys, and an actual defensive line that should be active and aggressive

That outside WR spot tho....just a wasted poor allocation of guys and really....not even needed to make ratio...But I guess if 1 dumb decision is the norm as opposed to multiple then I guess thats some progress from previous yrs

I hope/assume Eli isnt 100 percent and the reason to 3 import it, cause its a bit of a dub move too when that import spot coulda been used on Singer or another guy like Fletcher on defence

I guess in a way extended TC for Elsbury to see if he has the chops against actual CFL players

It's quite literally embarassing to line up for Game 1 with an offense so thin.

18 hours ago, Booch said:

i agree....it was a gut punch for sure from a quality vet like that

yeah...we need to let him play his natural spots...we dont need him at SAM...Griffin..Woodbey..Smith and kramdi have that more than covered

Yup...WIL or MLB....he isnt fluid and greasy hipped enough for SAM....he is built thon to work nicely in the box...say....In Jones role 😁

I like Shay at WIL a lot better but agree he could play MIKE. I really don't think they are trying shoehorn him in at SAM. I think the preseason look there was more about seeing where he might fit into a 3-4 defence.

1 hour ago, Booch said:

but you still want a guy who can do something with those snaps, and or take the attention of a db and not be ignored essentially....opens up things elsewhere

yeah hard to say...Before Clercius got hurt we have a lot of diff options/looks we could give with him and MCI...still not sold on Danials yet unless they have some stuff they kept hidden hey are gonna unleash.

As I saw nothing to lead one to believe he gonna be basically doing what Eli did....and if that the case let Eli do it as he is better at it in the blocking aspect

Yeah, MCI and Clercius out of a TE spot could give us so much ability to create and exploit mismatches.

Im all for bringing in actual TEs and really going to town.

Just now, GCn20 said:

I like Shay at WIL a lot better but agree he could play MIKE. I really don't think they are trying shoehorn him in at SAM. I think the preseason look there was more about seeing where he might fit into a 3-4 defence.

yeah possible too....and I think he'd excell at WIL....Interesting that the depth chart has Jones at Wil and Wilson at MIKE

Is this going to be another game where a receiver or two goes down early and Zach has trash to throw to all game?

Tough test for the O-line against Calgary's front 4. But in a way, this is really good to see what they are made of early. Not unhappy with the line-up and really eager to see how Condell can make use of our talent. Go Blue!

1 hour ago, Mike said:

I feel like this is what it has to be ... variety and a multitude of different offensive sets is what I'd expect. Realistically, I think they're going to be giving the opposition a lot of different looks this season, which I don't mind at all. I don't really know if we can trust Zach to beat good teams with his arm, but I do have some level of belief we can beat good teams with Condell being able to create a lot of confusion on what we are doing on offense.

I actually agree with you on this. I think if Condell is thinking outside the box with the personnel at his disposal he could really set up an offence that is very hard to defend and to prepare for.

5 minutes ago, Booch said:

yeah possible too....and I think he'd excell at WIL....Interesting that the depth chart has Jones at Wil and Wilson at MIKE

I haven't looked at it yet, have to do that ASAP.

delete

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by bustamente

25 minutes ago, Bubba Zanetti said:

Love the look of that D. O looking solid too. I guess we'll see what the plan is for Daniels.

Some really curious tweaks on the D. Tony jones at wil, does that mean he will be rotating with Woodbey? That would be fantastic.

Flipping shay for smith is also interesting. Idk why we wouldn't have tried smith at sam, but idk if hes really a sam either. That might just be for sake of roster balance just like when ayers was a DE.

A bit thin at DL, only 6 guys. But atleast all 6 guys can go get after it. No real back up DT would be a bit of a concern, but then both Dixon and Jenkins can play inside out. Which is tremendous luxury.

Love that we are using a DI on the DL, and with no canadian back up to lawson at DT, they must be really comfortable with Smith and maybe Gatkuoth.

15 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

I actually agree with you on this. I think if Condell is thinking outside the box with the personnel at his disposal he could really set up an offence that is very hard to defend and to prepare for.

I haven't looked at it yet, have to do that ASAP.

AND he did utilize that big global Robinson as a true TE in Hamilton...and included him in passing game...5 TD's over 2 yrs there

30 minutes ago, Bubba Zanetti said:

Yeah really no need to start Cobb. Kramdi, Lawson, Neufeld, Wallace, Demski, Nield, Oliveira makes 7. Singer offers much more upside/explosiveness.

I don't mind cobb as an end roster canadian. Even forced into action isn't the worst guy on the roster. I do feel like he is a poor fit and field wr though. If you're gonna use him I think it should be in the slot.

In order to put singer in, they would've had to use the nat american. Its 8 NIs, 1 of which can be a NA. Because we refuse to use it, we start 8 canadians. That would make us soo much better. And fit right in with our canadian by committee on D.

1 minute ago, wbbfan said:

I don't mind cobb as an end roster canadian. Even forced into action isn't the worst guy on the roster. I do feel like he is a poor fit and field wr though. If you're gonna use him I think it should be in the slot.

In order to put singer in, they would've had to use the nat american. Its 8 NIs, 1 of which can be a NA. Because we refuse to use it, we start 8 canadians. That would make us soo much better. And fit right in with our canadian by committee on D.

Could just start Eli, add Vibert for Elsbury. Take Corcoran off, add Singer. Start Singer over Cobb.

Or just take Ayers off unless he's actually going to play D this year.

I'd much rather use the American at Center than as the 5th WR but as mentioned before, if we were actually using the rules to our advantage we wouldn't have to choose

Full depth chart, injury list etc. here

https://static.cfl.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/WINNIPEG-at-CALGARY_JUNE-5.pdf

3 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

I don't mind cobb as an end roster canadian. Even forced into action isn't the worst guy on the roster. I do feel like he is a poor fit and field wr though. If you're gonna use him I think it should be in the slot.

In order to put singer in, they would've had to use the nat american. Its 8 NIs, 1 of which can be a NA. Because we refuse to use it, we start 8 canadians. That would make us soo much better. And fit right in with our canadian by committee on D.

y0u would think we would have learned that by now eh? The art of maximizing the roster as opposed to just soothing a personal bias

That being said we could have replaced Elsbury with Singer....Added Vibert for Corcorran and been just fine too

Cobb as the back-end depth guy if we had 3 imports...And then MCI and Daniels on roster until Clercius gets back is workable...he does serve multiple purposes...not elite world beater at any of them..but good enough he wont hurt/hamper you...aka perfect for back end multi role Canadian depth

2 minutes ago, Booch said:

AND he did utilize that big global Robinson as a true TE in Hamilton...and included him in passing game...5 TD's over 2 yrs there

TC loves the 11/21 formation. Both for max protect and passing.

23 minutes ago, Blue28 said:

Tough test for the O-line against Calgary's front 4. But in a way, this is really good to see what they are made of early. Not unhappy with the line-up and really eager to see how Condell can make use of our talent. Go Blue!

Looks like we might catch a bit of a break there too. Calgary isn't listing Flo, or Hutchins on the AR. Flo as the reserve tells me hes probably a GTD and not 100%.

https://static.cfl.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/260605-vsWPG-position-chart.pdf

2 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

TC loves the 11/21 formation. Both for max protect and passing.

Looks like we might catch a bit of a break there too. Calgary isn't listing Flo, or Hutchins on the AR. Flo as the reserve tells me hes probably a GTD and not 100%.

https://static.cfl.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/260605-vsWPG-position-chart.pdf

what I really like about our depth chart on the dline...we will not have any sets with a dead weight guy on the field...and some case we had 2 together

No Korn..No Thomas....so if we get owned it's more a case we got outplayed and outschemed and easily fixeable...as opposed to out classed like previous yr...2 👍's up in my books

39 minutes ago, JuranBoldenRules said:

It's quite literally embarassing to line up for Game 1 with an offense so thin.

we all expected it tho...and all know it wasnt a "need" to do thing either....dumb decision but at least for 1st depth chart of yr we only have one head scratcher and wasted spot....I guess that can be considered a win for now

Calgary’s rec group isn’t the best I’ve ever seen. Nice to see a couple starting dl missing from their depth chart too. I think Collaros should have time to throw.

I don't think Singer would make a difference, but the depth is ridiculous.

Just shows how poor our recent drafts have been and US scouting too.

We literally have two guys on the O side of that depth chart that can play special teams. Our backups for all the skill positions are Chris-Ike, Corcoran and Daniels.

So like if Tim White blows his achilles in the 1st quarter, those guys are playing the whole game.

We use 2 DI's on LB's when we never have more than 4 of them on the field. Like I get that it's nice, but it's a major luxury when you look across at the O and one injury could leave us basically useless for the rest of a game.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by JuranBoldenRules

4 minutes ago, JuranBoldenRules said:

I don't think Singer would make a difference, but the depth is ridiculous.

Just shows how poor our recent drafts have been and US scouting too.

We literally have two guys on the O side of that depth chart that can play special teams. Our backups for all the skill positions are Chris-Ike, Corcoran and Daniels.

So like if Tim White blows his achilles in the 1st quarter, those guys are playing the whole game.

We use 2 DI's on LB's when we never have more than 4 of them on the field. Like I get that it's nice, but it's a major luxury when you look across at the O and one injury could leave us basically useless for the rest of a game.

yup...lean in depth and shallow in real game breakers....Who knows Demski's status as well and if he is actually 100 percent...or lasts

Imagine if one of Pokey/Demski/White goes down...means we running every play with Corcorran and Cobb as 2 of our receivers....If 2 go down....yikes

Why not dress that canadian receiver we felt the need to grab after other teams cuts and have him rostered for one of Stuart or Clark?

Or as mentioned dont go Import at center...dress an import receiver and replace one of Stuart or Clark with Vibert

Interesting

Six players have also hit the six-game injured list, including Canadian receiver Kevens Clercius, American offensive lineman Micah Vanterpool, Canadian defensive lineman Tanner Schmekel, Canadian linebacker Lane Novak, American linebacker Jovan Santos-Knox, American defensive back Cam Allen, and Canadian defensive back Ethan Ball.

Younger really doesn't want to play any Canadians or rookies on D. And our roster has been built around that for 2 seasons. But that's an offense that would do well to be top 6 in the league IMO.

D better start taking the ball away and scoring points or we'll be battling Edmonton for 4th in the West.

Hmm. Here’s the thing.

What if Elsbury is actually better than Eli? I would think Job 1 of Oline.. keep Zach healthy. I’d start 4 Americans if it means Zach is healthy.

2 DIs on LBs is annoying.

Does any of our brain trust realize how limiting it is to have a lack of playmakers on offense in any sport?