Wow!

3DownNation

Ottawa Redblacks trade Dru Brown to Winnipeg Blue Bombers...

The Ottawa Redblacks have traded Dru Brown to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. The Ottawa Redblacks (0-2) will visit the Montreal Alouettes (2-1) at Percival Molson Stadium on Sunday, June 28 with kickoff s

1 hour ago, rebusrankin said:

Dinwiddie talking about how Maier has a better arm despite Dru having a better average yardage on completed passes is funny. Maier was throwing mainly short passes going back to him starting in Calgary years ago.

Maier has a better arm than Brown...who knows...maybe? You know who else has a better arm than Brown? CFL legends like Jake Dolegala, and who could forget "Heavy Balls Cornelius". If throwing great balls in practice was what mattered most then Dominique Davis would be the highest paid player in this league and Elgersma and Dolegala would be right behind him.

20 hours ago, GCn20 said:

A few weeks ago I wondered if Ottawa may be trading him, and I wishfully predicted we would trade for him. It was wishful thinking on my part basically but it seemed to be a possibility. Glad that sometimes my logic still works...lol.

I am beyond confused as to why Ottawa would trade him at this time. Dinwiddie must not like him at all.

Ya think... Lol.

Edited June 25Jun 25 by SpeedFlex27

14 hours ago, wbbfan said:

dinwiddie sure didn’t mince words on brown lol. He clearly went into it not wanting brown and didn’t give him much of a chance to win his job back.

Maier isn’t a better passer to any area of the field, browns arm is no issue. Jake’s best game is at best a mediocre outting for brown.

Dinwiddie's comments didn't come off like an honest assessment of Brown's skill. Brown is known for his great deep ball and that is the area that Dinwiddie chose to denigrate. Leads me to my theory that this was more of a personal decision than a football one with some shade thrown by Dinwiddie.

Why does Dinwiddie never look healthy?

Someone in the RedBlacks org. liked Brown, Dinwiddie didn't, Brown is a Bomber

10 minutes ago, kelownabomberfan said:

Tough to compare apples to apples when Dru was a backup and played marginally until 24, while Jake was a part-time starter at least from 22 on. Brown also had to throw to win in Ottawa a lot because of the teams they put around him.

For me, the best comparison is Jake from 22-24 and Dru from 23-25.

570/827 7331 41 tds 20 ints 8.86 YPA 10 300+ games in the past 2 years (5 of those 400+) 12 since 22, 7 games more ints than tds, 6 games with 3 or more passing tds.

927/1349 10474 55tds 36 ints. 7.76 YPA 9 300+ yard games from 22-26, 12 games with more ints than tds, 5 games with 3 or more tds.

Funny thing is, Dinwiddie could've said plenty of things you couldn't argue with. Drus health, experience for Maier with almost twice as many snaps in the game, even fit with both being Calgary coaching staff products (not at the same time). My biggest concerns with Brown are Health and ability to sustain a high level of play over a full season for multiple seasons. He's a touch/accuracy guy by nature and elite in those areas as well as speed at getting the ball out, but he has all the arm to throw any pass on the field.

30 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

Dinwiddie's comments didn't come off like an honest assessment of Brown's skill. Brown is known for his great deep ball and that is the area that Dinwiddie chose to denigrate. Leads me to my theory that this was more of a personal decision than a football one with some shade thrown by Dinwiddie.

I agree. Strikes me as really strange coming from a HC in the CFL, especially a former QB. Really does sound personal.

19 minutes ago, bustamente said:

Someone in the RedBlacks org. liked Brown, Dinwiddie didn't, Brown is a Bomber

Seems like Dinwiddie was hell bent on having his "own" guy, even if the guy he inherited was very capable, and just steam rolled Brown outta town. This very clearly wasn't a football decision. It was about Dinwiddie establishing that this is his team. This isn't the first or last time a GM/HC has come in and ran the old regime's QB out of town and it won't be the last. Mike Kelly did it in his first week. Chris Jones was another who did it. In fact, most GM/HCs seem to do it. Not sure why? It almost always bites them in the ass after though. I think the reason is to cut the cord completely from the old management/coaching regime and the QB is the roster player most connected. Just a theory though.

Edited June 25Jun 25 by GCn20

27 minutes ago, bustamente said:

Someone in the RedBlacks org. liked Brown, Dinwiddie didn't, Brown is a Bomber

And this was how the Winnipeg Football Club received their new name, thanks to the Brown Bomber Joe Louis. It all comes full circle.

Edited June 25Jun 25 by kelownabomberfan

12 hours ago, kelownabomberfan said:

That's what I liked about Kindly Cal Murphy. His QB's were always on a short leash. If you were sucking, you were pulled.

The thing I liked best about Kindly Cal was that his teams would often be up so far in the third quarter that he'd pull Clements and let Hufnagel close out the game. Either way the game went, TC was getting pulled. 😃

Dinwiddie just talks in circles. When asked directly if Browns arm strength was an issue "A little bit of it has to do with arm strength, obviously, and some mechanics that lead into arm strength. You look at last year, there wasn't a lot of opportunities to push the ball down field"
Then he goes on what they want to do this year....."it was one thing that we wanted to get changed this year, so schematically we put that in our play-action stuff. Now does the defence give us those looks? We've gotta be able to start running the football and be able to push the ball down the field."

It kinda reads that he's blaming dru's arm strength for the lack of down field passing last year....then also recognizing that THIS year they need to run the ball to open the deep pass....did he not watch Ott last year at all? Their run game was invisible....

7 minutes ago, johnzo said:

The thing I liked best about Kindly Cal was that his teams would often be up so far in the third quarter that he'd pull Clements and let Hufnagel close out the game. Either way the game went, TC was getting pulled. 😃

Charging $.25 for a cup of gatorade during practices was also classic Cal - I remember Tyrone Jones was so mad about that...

I don't think Ryan Dinwiddie should be critical of anyone's arm strength

28 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

I don't think Ryan Dinwiddie should be critical of anyone's arm strength

Truth bomb right there.

16 hours ago, johnzo said:

I had a memory like this too but when I looked back at the 2023 season I saw that the only time that Dru replaced Zach was when Zach was banged up against Edmonton on 8/10. That was the big game against Edmonton where he brought us back from being down 22-0.

Dru started the next week against Calgary when Zach was unavailable. First win as a starter for him.

sadly if ZC didnt get his world rocked Osh would have stayed with him thru the whole game and it would have been a disgusting and embarrassing loss

13 hours ago, kelownabomberfan said:

https://x.com/JohnDHodge/status/2069914791011893635?s=20

That's what I liked about Kindly Cal Murphy. His QB's were always on a short leash. If you were sucking, you were pulled.

any player for that matter....if a position wasnt up to snuff...or guys were playing like a jagoff there were new guys brought in the following week, and many times playing that week as well...as it should be....Osh has no stones

1 hour ago, kelownabomberfan said:

Charging $.25 for a cup of gatorade during practices was also classic Cal - I remember Tyrone Jones was so mad about that...

Wasn't it Kindly Cal that put a pop vending machine in the Bombers locker room?

Does Dinwiddie like Maier because he sees Maier as a better version of himself?

2 minutes ago, rebusrankin said:

Does Dinwiddie like Maier because he sees Maier as a better version of himself?

As long as Maier throws an INT in the Grey Cup and we end up winning because of it, I'd call it square.

41 minutes ago, rebusrankin said:

Does Dinwiddie like Maier because he sees Maier as a better version of himself?

I think he likes Maier because he signed him. Never underestimate how egotistical a GM/HC can be.

18 hours ago, Mike said:

Absolute master class from Dinwiddie on how to show everyone that you were propped up by incredible scouting in Toronto

Dinwiddie stated that he wanted to go somewhere he controlled recruitment/player signings. I now have to wonder if his GM saved him from himself in Toronto. Dinwiddie may have had a lot of really bad ideas while HCing but was shut down by his GM. We'd probably see the same if MOS put on both hats.

I think Dinwoodie should start looking for a no 1 qb cuz he doesn't have one...IF personalities clashed between the head coach and Drew, it should have been handled exponentially better..Dumping on your qb. after he's been dealt comes off to me as chicken$hit..I hope we play Brown when we meet the argos and Drew delivers the winning td....Oh how I'd like to catch the look on Ryan's face on film, if that would come to pass.. heh heh

4 minutes ago, Stickem said:

I think Dinwoodie should start looking for a no 1 qb cuz he doesn't have one...IF personalities clashed between the head coach and Drew, it should have been handled exponentially better..Dumping on your qb. after he's been dealt comes off to me as chicken$hit..I hope we play Brown when we meet the argos and Drew delivers the winning td....Oh how I'd like to catch the look on Ryan's face on film, if that would come to pass.. heh heh

I think the relationship probably broke down after the demotion. My guess is that Brown let it be known he wasn't happy and would welcome a trade. Dinwiddie probably was forced to trade him to keep his locker room from fracturing, which I strongly suspect was happening because probably most felt DB should be the starter. Thus the animosity. I'm really suprised that Dinwiddie seem to not have seen that coming.

I truly think that Dinwiddie felt that he could demote Dru, a guy that most of the players went to war with the past 2 years, and that the locker room would just immediately respect his genius without having a doubt about the decision including Dru himself. When it became apparent that people both inside and outside his locker room were questioning the decision he felt compelled to make the subject go away. Not in and of itself a bad idea, but one that Dinwiddie should have seen coming a mile away.

Edited June 25Jun 25 by GCn20

10 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

I think the relationship probably broke down after the demotion. My guess is that Brown let it be known he wasn't happy and would welcome a trade. Dinwiddie probably was forced to trade him to keep his locker room from fracturing, which I strongly suspect was happening because probably most felt DB should be the starter. Thus the animosity. I'm really suprised that Dinwiddie seem to not have seen that coming.

I truly think that Dinwiddie felt that he could demote Dru, a guy that most of the players went to war with the past 2 years, and that the locker room would just immediately respect his genius without having a doubt about the decision including Dru himself. When it became apparent that people both inside and outside his locker room were questioning the decision he felt compelled to make the subject go away. Not in and of itself a bad idea, but one that Dinwiddie should have seen coming a mile away.

If you read the 3DN article, Brown outright asked for his release. Dinwiddie said no because they'd already invested in him (paid his off season bonus) and instead waited for the right trade. Admitted it had become a distraction and he didn't like how DB handled things, but also said he thought DB did a good job of being a supportive teammate for Maier.

Edited June 25Jun 25 by Noeller

Sounds like maybe RD is the real DB here. Know what I’m saying??

(Dinwiddie is a D bag )

Edited June 25Jun 25 by Goalie

39 minutes ago, Noeller said:

If you read the 3DN article, Brown outright asked for his release. Dinwiddie said no because they'd already invested in him (paid his off season bonus) and instead waited for the right trade. Admitted it had become a distraction and he didn't like how DB handled things, but also said he thought DB did a good job of being a supportive teammate for Maier.

yep. Also sounds like brown and maier are super close.

4 minutes ago, Goalie said:

Sounds like maybe RD is the real DB here. Know what I’m saying??

(Dinwiddie is a D bag )

yeeeep