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

7 hours ago, Arnold_Palmer said:

So I know AI isn’t always accurate but I saw Oliveria had a very efficient season. Nearly 1500 yards rushing and 1850 total yards but the 6.3 YPC stood out. Allegedly it was the third highest YPC for a running back that had 200 carries or more in the modern era! Very underrated season from Brady. I’m not going to lie early in the season I thought he looked a step slower but he was great down the stretch. I think we just take it for granted. Like we know how good he is but I feel like every week is just another day in the office for him. Very spoiled in that regard.

He did that despite being completely ignored for long stretches. Imagine his numbers with a halfway decent OC.

45 minutes ago, bigg jay said:

He did that despite being completely ignored for long stretches. Imagine his numbers with a halfway decent OC.

Yup one that doesn’t panic when a run call goes for two yards and his first thought is well that didn’t work more pass more pass less balance of run pass less balance of run pass.

8 hours ago, Arnold_Palmer said:

So I know AI isn’t always accurate but I saw Oliveria had a very efficient season. Nearly 1500 yards rushing and 1850 total yards but the 6.3 YPC stood out. Allegedly it was the third highest YPC for a running back that had 200 carries or more in the modern era! Very underrated season from Brady. I’m not going to lie early in the season I thought he looked a step slower but he was great down the stretch. I think we just take it for granted. Like we know how good he is but I feel like every week is just another day in the office for him. Very spoiled in that regard.

I'm old enough to remember when Rankin was a lock to break Pringle's record and Brady was looking just ho hum... yet Brady finished the season 300 yards clear of Rankin, with 6.3 YPC vs 5.7 YPC for Rankin...

13 hours ago, wbbfan said:

reality is, a completely green rookie played 1/3 of the games this year and was our real wr1 the whole time.

White, demski, and wilson had a couple good performances each. but for much of the season the production from all 3 was basically padding stats. High percentage short passes short of first downs. Of that 3, demski was probably the best most of the year. He was far more reliable even though he isn’t what he used to be. Wilson is the only one with a future here.

Hopefully wilson will bounce back, and be able to flourish as a wr 2/3.

Just blind stupidity of Osh that pokey..white and singer were not the 3 imports to start the yr. He had his agenda and was hell bent on it regardless.. 3 Canadian recievers and his predetermined import center before a player even stepped foot on field for t.c, and then proceeded to play garbage all yr basically..only injury got pokey in..and reality finally set in big legs was not the answer and eli clearly better...

And he does this all too often.

Singer was clearly our number 1 guy in the QB minds after his first start..he was who they went to

And like u mentioned 1000 isnt always a good metric...singer had 29 catches and just shy of 600 yards..thats a 1500 yard yr on 60 catches...dude is a chunk eating receiver...we saw it in preseason and in his games this yr. I mentioned before too led pac 12 in yards at Arizona..not breaking top 6 players in receptions...

If anyone with football evaluating skills can see..look at his first reception from brown when he got put in for ZC last game...he altered his route/eyes to the ball 2 times before he actually adjusted his body to be in best position to catch the ball in double coverage with 2 guys right in his pocket..all at speed...no gearing down

Thats a pure inert skill most receivers dont have..u can't teach that..guys either have it..or dont..he didnt learn it with his PR "seasoning"

If he not scooped up for an nfl camp..and even if we actually land a true alpha via FA...or find one..I bet he still our big play yardage guy next yr..if not top 3 in league..book it

I saw a lot of practices this yr..I had the time..and there was a reason I kept hammering for him to be rostered all damn yr.

1 hour ago, bigg jay said:

He did that despite being completely ignored for long stretches. Imagine his numbers with a halfway decent OC.

Yeah..he was just shy of carreer best..what a shame.

Edited 12 hours ago12 hr by Booch

Brady O did lead the league in rushing attempts

Rankin basically played 3 full games since we played them in August. Not going to set records as a running back if you can't stay on the field.

19 hours ago, Noeller said:

Wilson too... 1k. Some people are just grasping at straws at this point.

"Grasping at straws..."

17 hours ago, Mark H. said:

6 receivers in the entire league had more yards than White. All of the top 7 caught around 70% of their targets.

None of White, Demski or Wilson were keeping Singer off the roster.

and what was their average depth of target or yards per pass attempt?

Wilson, yards per attempt 8.6, 17 2nd down conversions out of 118 targets. That means 14.4% of his targets generated first downs. White scored a td on average every 19.66 catches.

white 9.05, 19 2nd down conversions on 126 targets. 15% for white. White scored a td once for every 21 catches.

Singer 14.2, 15 second down conversions on 41 targets. 36.5% for singer. Singer put up a td every 13 catches.

The wr1s in this league put up 30-40 second down conversions on significantly fewer catches.

60-70% catch rate when 90%+ of your targets are well short of the first down marker is not good, and not comparable to guys with the same catch rate 5 yards past the first down marker. That is a perfect summation of the failure of our passing game this year.

Also remember, the average completion percentage among qb1s this year is a shade over 70%. That’s across all depths of target, and wr 1-5.

Wr 1/2s who are catching passes short of the first should be catching much higher than 70%, or they should be catching at the same rate further down field.

Edited 8 hours ago8 hr by wbbfan

4 hours ago, Booch said:

Just blind stupidity of Osh that pokey..white and singer were not the 3 imports to start the yr. He had his agenda and was hell bent on it regardless.. 3 Canadian recievers and his predetermined import center before a player even stepped foot on field for t.c, and then proceeded to play garbage all yr basically..only injury got pokey in..and reality finally set in big legs was not the answer and eli clearly better...

And he does this all too often.

Singer was clearly our number 1 guy in the QB minds after his first start..he was who they went to

And like u mentioned 1000 isnt always a good metric...singer had 29 catches and just shy of 600 yards..thats a 1500 yard yr on 60 catches...dude is a chunk eating receiver...we saw it in preseason and in his games this yr. I mentioned before too led pac 12 in yards at Arizona..not breaking top 6 players in receptions...

If anyone with football evaluating skills can see..look at his first reception from brown when he got put in for ZC last game...he altered his route/eyes to the ball 2 times before he actually adjusted his body to be in best position to catch the ball in double coverage with 2 guys right in his pocket..all at speed...no gearing down

Thats a pure inert skill most receivers dont have..u can't teach that..guys either have it..or dont..he didnt learn it with his PR "seasoning"

If he not scooped up for an nfl camp..and even if we actually land a true alpha via FA...or find one..I bet he still our big play yardage guy next yr..if not top 3 in league..book it

I saw a lot of practices this yr..I had the time..and there was a reason I kept hammering for him to be rostered all damn yr.

Yeah..he was just shy of carreer best..what a shame.

The nice thing about singer is you can fit a lot of different types of wr around him. Where as demski white and wilson all have similar skills and require some one like singer to excel.

So if we build around singer and wilson next year as the imps, we can bring in the best imp wr we can find and it’ll work. I’d prefer a big physical guy but it could be the best player not a specific one.

I think we will stick with nield though for better or worse. Crazy over pay, but it he’s used well maybe it’d be good.

23 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

and what was their average depth of target or yards per pass attempt?

If you have access to average depth of target, I'd be interested

I crunched the numbers on average yards per pass attempt (yards / targets) rounded to the nearest 10th:

Philpot T: 11.3

Snead: 11.1

White: 9.1

Philpot J: 8.9

Hardy: 8.6

Eberhardt: 8.6

Johnson K: 8.5

1 minute ago, Mark H. said:

If you have access to average depth of target, I'd be interested

I crunched the numbers on average yards per pass attempt (yards / targets) rounded to the nearest 10th:

Philpot T: 11.3

Snead: 11.1

White: 9.1

Philpot J: 8.9

Hardy: 8.6

Eberhardt: 8.6

Johnson K: 8.5

I added to the post, But the difference between a pass short of 10 and past 10 is very significant.

You can see this by looking at second down conversions catches, and the yac yards of guys with lower ypa.

Eberhardt put up 27 conversions and 419 yac. Both white and wilson had significantly fewer conversions, white had less yac. That’s despite our screen useage being significantly higher to both those guys vs Eberhardt.

The top tier of wrs had some real outlier performances, but here’s philpot stuff for fun.

6.04 yac after each completion.

34.37% of his Attempts! are second down conversions, 30+ yarders and/or tds. 45% of his completions.

10 targets a game. 1.687 tds/30+ catches per game. 113 yards per game, 46.87 of those being yac yards.

Edited 7 hours ago7 hr by wbbfan

wilson 6.5 yac per catch, so half his yards are after the catch, with only 14% leading to a first. And whites had marks of 4.4 yac per catch on 19%.

1 hour ago, wbbfan said:

Wilson, yards per attempt 8.6, 17 2nd down conversions out of 118 targets. That means 14.4% of his targets generated first downs. White scored a td on average every 19.66 catches.

It would be a neat trick if Wilson catching a ball on 1st down (resulting in another first down or not) resulted in a 2nd down conversion.

Whats the line... theres lies, damned lies, and statistics

After T. Philpot, and to an extent Snead, yac yardage for receivers is mostly in the same ballpark, not sure how anyone can argue otherwise. 2nd down conversions are a Bombers' issue, no doubt about it.

2 hours ago, ShyGuy said:

It would be a neat trick if Wilson catching a ball on 1st down (resulting in another first down or not) resulted in a 2nd down conversion.

Whats the line... theres lies, damned lies, and statistics

You aren’t wrong, but do you know what offence had the fewest first downs? You can also use average gain on first down plus runs on first and ypc on first to gain our average pass on first. We didn’t have some massive outlier amount of first on first though.

2 hours ago, Mark H. said:

After T. Philpot, and to an extent Snead, yac yardage for receivers is mostly in the same ballpark, not sure how anyone can argue otherwise. 2nd down conversions are a Bombers' issue, no doubt about it.

That’s true, but the rest of the areas still serve to quantify yac.

For instance look at 2-4 in yac. Then look at their ypc. 555, 514, 513. 15.5ypc, 12.9 ypc, 10.3 ypc.

That’s snead, wilson, and rankin respectively. Rankin is catching the ball behind the line the most and a lot at the los. Wilson is catching a lot at the line and on short screens, then snead is catching the ball the furthest down field.

Snead had 13 tds 13 30+, and 10 more conversions. wilson had 8 TDS, 6 30+. Snead had 95/133, wilson 79/118.

So snead was hitting more longer gains and getting more firsts.

Snead only had 2 games under 60 ish yards. Only went back to back games with out a td once.Wilson had 10, and went with out scoring a td after week 7 until week 13.

Snead, despite being under philpot who put up the best season since milt, was maybe the most steady and reliable wr the whole season.

I will say, snead and philpot are not reasonable points of comparison for any one. If you look at what bc, ssk and mtl was able to accomplish in the pass game, plus hamilton before blm got hurt, that needs to be the goal.

Wilson, also showed great mental toughness bouncing back from two stretches of pretty bad yips.