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I don’t hate that at all. Yoshi gets his cash, Riders get a diminishing asset, Drew Richmond gets a chance to play.

Hardrick’s deal will pay him 230.5k in each season. 120k signing bonus. Makes him the highest paid 🇺🇸OL in @CFL. @CFLonTSN LMFAO

I chuckled.... #ConcussionProtocol

Matthieu Betts likes Elaine.

Yoshi is dead to me from now until he retires

Good for Hardrick. Take the money while you still can.

Yeah, I noticed last yr he was in a modified set position...I also think it due to he's put on weight again...and injuries/age....we will be a stronger oline with someone else there....and I love Yosh, but also being a realist

If he retired, he’d still be their best OL

I would be thrilled if he pulled a Durant. Take the signing bonus and go enjoy retirement!

Hardrick could barely get himself into a stance for large chunks of last season and was just getting beat by speed constantly. In a 18+ game league, don't mind watching him walk.

Matthieu Betts says lots of teams badly want Matthieu Betts.

CFL should do more of this type of communiction to help some understand how the league operates:

Well everyone going on about Richmond at tackle, but is gray maybe an option there?

Good Christ. I'd go live in Regina and play for the Riders for that kind of dough........ No i wouldnt.

I think that feeling sad is a perfect emotion to have if one is empathetic. Yoshi will now have to get up, look out his window and see a Regina sunrise. Think about that for a moment...

There isnt enough puke emojis on earth to describe this.

They can agree to terms but the current team will still have 48 hours at the end of the tampering window to try & get a deal done. No deal is official until FA starts.

A blessing in disguise. Any team signing him to a big deal will be disappointed.

Source : Jamal Peters.

That’s a lota chedda for a guy going on 34. But in saying that he’s only missed 3 games since 2017. Glad we didn’t pay that much to retain him and good on Yoshi for scoring that deal.

Until you roll up for training camp and see that the prison is the most prominent building in the skyline.

Good for him. Hope we shore up our duties this year. Either let Castillo do it all or get some one who can actually punt and kick off. Good for him. I love yoshi, I’m very grateful for every thing he’s done here and I cheer for him as a person. I’m also very very happy he won’t start for us at T any more. He can’t handle speed any more. I bet the riders flip him to guard before the ldc.

it makes me physically ill thinking of Yoshi in Riders green. Absolutely disgusting. He better be getting WAY overpaid...

Secondary is not a place we need to compete for contracts with other teams.

Ottawa loading up. Pickett is a nice get.

This thinking is fundamentally flawed in that you aren’t projecting past the immediate change this year. We free up $600,000 by making Collaros a marquee player. Same difference if we increase the salary cap $600,000. Suddenly we have enough to give Schoen a $230,000 raise to 300K, Brady a $100,000 raise to 200K, maybe we would have added $20K to Wolitarsky because Canadians are a premium. Maybe Bailey goes up to $160K (if he got offered $140K last year). Maybe Bryant stays at last year’s salary rather than a reduction since we’d have the extra room. Etc etc. That works fine for this year, but then next year when comes time for free agency, we are short cash again because we are already up against the “new” cap (or the 44 player cap as opposed to the 45 player cap if you want to insist that the marquee rule is totally different than a matching increase in cap space - it is not) It is ridiculous to say GMs will stay within a budget and wages won’t increase. If the cap is $5 million GMs will spend that $5 million. If it jumps to $5.5 million the GMs en masse are not going to agree to keep spending to $5 million and not go any higher because “that’s our budget” to keep wages from climbing. That is called collusion and it was already tried in baseball to control salaries and they lost a lawsuit because of it. And if one GM like Kyle Walters decided to only spend to $5million to keep within his pre-set budget, I can guarantee you 8 other GMs would happily spend to $5.5 and take Brady, Dalton, Streveler, Kolankowski, Eli, and anyone else off our hands, and the fans here would have a fit if we said our excuse for not bidding was “but we are keeping wages from increasing irresponsibly, so give us credit for that”. The cap goes up $600,000 than Brady’s price probably jumps to $250K easily simply because the GMs have the extra cash, and someone will look at the Canadian RB who is a ratio breaker and who put up the best CFL season in a decade, and will say “if the top end price for an American RB was $170K last year, and this Canadian outperformed him by 50%, then a market re-set is in order, and we have the money to spend, so we will spend it”. So a $200K offer is easy to swallow, because hey an extra $500K in our budget. Then another team looking to help its ratio issue jumps in and a bidding war starts. Suddenly $250K doesn’t seem so implausible, because teams will spend what they have to get a top end player, and now we have a new established market price for running backs. If that sounds ridiculous, remember when receivers’ top end was maybe $225K, and Lawler getting $300K from Edmonton seemed outrageous. Then the Bombers matched that amount, and now we throw that out for Schoen as the accepted going rate. The market shifted because one team overpaid, but instead of correcting back to the previous level, a new top end has been established and is the accepted going rate. If the cap jumps, it will become accepted that you pay $600,000 for two receivers, or you pay $200,000+ for an MOP running back, or $300K instead of $250K for a top end defender, or $150-180 K for a game-changing kicker like Medlock instead of $130K. Getting a bonus $600,000 this year will simply defer the problem of being up against the cap to next year and beyond, and every team’s profit margin suddenly shrinks by over $500,000 in a league where most teams are not running in the black if recent financial reports are to be believed. Unless you are prepared to add a player to the marquee list every year (and if you do that, then you might as well scrap the cap altogether right now), your one-time cap circumvention has not solved the problem at all for next year, you still won’t be able to pay all your pending free agents come Feb. 2025, and team profits have shrunk across the board.

We could cut the cap in half and have exactly the same issues. Ignore thr dollars and pay attention to the percentage of the salary cap.

Liking this signing...he's a legit 4.4 running back...His pro day numbers would have put him in top 4 of RB times at the NFL combine..and what I like about him for the CFL game...and our O-line is that he a patient runner when choosing a hole or sem but when he gets to it he's thru it fast....good blocker and physical....Very interesting signing...the first real legit RB prospect we bringing up in a long time. Work a lot with Sun Belt guys so know some guys with good intel on him...He was actually projected to be an elite NFL return guy too

I figured there would be losses along the OL. And I'm glad they stayed with the GOAT. I would have been more upset losing Richmond than I am with losing Hardrick. I know...potential over experience. But they had to get younger eventually. This move makes sense for everyone imo.

Bombers signed runningback Chris Smith and linebacker Jordan Lewis today. A couple of young guys that have decided to sign with the Bombers instead of the UFL.

We know how that'll work if he tries...

120k signing bonus is hard to let go and probably sealed the deal.

trying wayyyy to hard there, mate

I really hope the Gappers sign Betts for 300k .

I genuinely would’ve been disappointed to see us bring back Yoshi at 50k a year less than that. 230k is insanity.

You gotta think they view him as the blindside tackle for that cash which is absolutely bananas

Can be sad about it and support the move. It's hard to see a guy like Yoshi go even tho it was likely what we needed to do.

Poor Yosh.....Guess its Richmond time...free's up some money for Schoen..... Yup...they likely paid large for it as they were not the only team in on him...and yes he is on wrong side of dominant now....Richmond will be no drop off....Cheaper for next few yrs....and allows us some cash to move to another position

don't encourage it!!

I think they are under belief that the Argos wont be matching the Ottawa numbers...so he will sign there, unless another team steps up and knocks Ott down a peg I do see Barlow possibly being here tho

great news, re: Houston! I still have hopes for Tyrell Ford

Gutted about Pickett.

Exactly - he has no spot here. Losing BOLO for him would be a fail.

If all the owners decide they don’t want to own teams the league will be in trouble - no doubt.

It’s the best group of ownership probably in my lifetime.

I’m still sticking to my Montreal guess.

Marquee player would just be your starting QB

It's very unlikely that the Feds would put money into the O. It won't be used for a national event or a national team/program. There are also no infrastructure programs, that I'm currently aware of, that are targeting this type of infrastructure.