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I'm going to be very disappointed if we use our 2nd pick on a FB.

Why is everybody so horny for a fullback early on all of a sudden? First of all, when’s the last time a top pick was used to draft a fullback and it actually panned out? Fullbacks in the CFL don’t need to test well or be elite athletically. They need be smart. Our fullback last year was a 30 year old rookie, not a pop-off-the-charts young athlete. Second of all, we have a perfectly capable fullback for the packages we roll out. His name is Chris Streveler.

Yeah and his 2 receiving touch downs were at a time when a DL came in as TE type situation in goal line packages. Plenty of DEs catching endzone passes. More recently they've just used a fullback for those types of situations. The cool thing about oosterhuis was that he was the pick we gave up for Doug Brown and wound up with him anyway.

Providing up to date information is what they do well. But, as soon as they start adding their perspective and opinions, they're exposed as bad amateurs. Hodge being one of the worst.

Don't think Bombers will draft too much for positional need in this one since there are a lot of great players in the draft. But it will be heavy on OL/DL, LB/DB, receiver. I expect almost all their picks in the first half of the draft to be from these position groups. See what combine looks like but doesn't look like any viable tailbacks in the crew, couple guys that might get converted into FB/TE types. Not much use in drafting a guy that's played FB in U Sports and runs like a lineman.

Go figure. A terrible mock from Hodge as usual. I’d be pretty annoyed if we used 2 of our first 4 picks on special teamers. The whole thing seems real unlikely, to be honest. First round seems like a total mess.

Ni idea why you'd take offense to what I say but it seems you need a Snickers way more than me. Hufnagel & Barnes had a helluva season in 81. They truly were one of the gretest tandems to ever play. Why all the angst? Like I said, the CFL was so abuzz about their play that they were given a nickname J.J. Barnagel by someone in the media & the name stuck.. Think that would happen if they stunk? It's not always the qbs fault when they lose. The Rider defense wasn't up to par so they gave up a lot of points. With the Bomber tandem, Clements played 75% of the time with Huff coming in for the other 25%. In saskatchewan, Hufnagel played 60% of the time & Joe Barnes about 40%. So you can't even compare the two tandems. In Saskatchewan, both guys played a lot & played well.

The idea for this thread is to both be a meta hobby thread which jumps off into existing hobby threads that are already in here (music, fishing, etc...) as well as to perhaps spark some new ones. It may also help you become better acquainted with some of the posters that you've "known" for many years. So basically just start by listing your hobbies and interests. You never know who may be lurking here who wants to talk about your classic Lego sets or whatever. I'm Into: all things motorcycle. Currently still on my Indian Roadmaster, but have owned and ridden all types and sizes of bike. I have taught and trained about a dozen riders over the years and am happy to give advice on how to start out safe and smart. I am Pres of my riding chapter which has a worldwide affiliated chapter system. EDC (Every Day Carry), I spend way too much money refining the common items that I have with me every day. (for those unfamiliar with EDC, think wallet, watch, keys, pocket knife, multi tool, etc) sports wise, obviously the Argonauts are my passion but I am also a long suffering Leaf fan. As discussed elsewhere, I'm also a 28+ year supporter of Manchester City (the only club in Manchester). I am a long time member of a fraternal order which is known and meets around the world. I own a large (and busy) auto repair facility, so any questions about cars or small businesses are welcome Musically, I mostly listen to post-punk, new and classic southern rock, grunge era and classic metal. But I was a radio jock for nearly 7 years and have an appreciation and some knowledge for all types/styles/formats. That about does it for me. Looking forward to seeing what you guys do when you aren't busy fretting over who your favorite CFL club may draft in the 4th round for depth.

I'm a landscaper by trade but I've been a hobby gardener for even longer. My wife and I are constantly carving out sections of our lawn to make space for more plants. We've put about 15 years of work and experimentation into our back yard and it's still getting better every year. This summer I solarized half my front lawn to make way for a new perennial garden... a section of my lawn has been infested with creeping bellflower for probably 100 years so it is not going quietly, drastic measures were called for... so I took my version of the nuclear option and killed it all off with cardboard and bark mulch. Soon it will habitat for the birds and bees, candy for the eye and food for the soul. Man I love working in my garden. Great exercise too. Can't wait for spring.

Not sure I get the vitriol towards 3downnation and John Hodge. We all love the CFL. TSN and Sportsnet barely cover any off season news. Even in season, while broadcasting games, TSN is pretty light on content other than game summary articles. 3downnation has been around since 2015 and overall does a better job than anywhere else with CFL news. cfl.ca is good, and Ed Tait writes some really interesting content on bluebombers.com. But 3downnation is really my first stop to get any CFL content that I'm interested in - signings, draft profiles, USports stuff, CFL players in the NFL ... I like what they do. And I am in no way affiliated or compensated by the 3downnation corporation 😃

They Knowing the Preds, I'm assuming they have a banner in the Bridgestone Arena highlighting this feat. I really dislike this team. Go Jets Go.

My fear is we draft more low upside special teams guys who aren’t good at special teams :s

The idea of us taking a lineman in round 1 and a DL in round 2 works for me but I don't get us taking the rb/fb Hodge suggests. If the draft went they way he did I think we'd go OL going to the US as a futures pick in round 2. The ST in round 3 pick and the rational is laughable.

Only if the fb was both an instant upgrade on teams and blocking, as well as a guy who could be a back up ball carrier to Brady immediately. Other wise we have too much need else where.

I'm a word nerd. Love a good game of scrabble - in person - not on an app. I'm also an avid reader, when my brain isn't fried from too much marking (mostly non-fiction). I enjoy writing when I have time for it - I created a book of poetry and photography for my wife - one Christmas I teach Grade 11 Canadian History, and I am endlessly interested in any local history. We are avid bird watchers: geese are already returning, which means everything else is not far behind. We look forward to the tundra swan migration, and all the duck varieties over at Oak Hammock. Also, spending time with our daughter, occasional fishing or hiking expeditions, and barbeque / camp fire cooking. In spring, summer, or fall...you are likely find me relaxing beside the firepit, at least once a week.

TMI line - let's go boys!

That was not official Combine that was regional ones to get invites to the main one in Winnipeg next week I think.

Never mind that but taking 2 FBs also. Why.

For the past few months, I have gotten into card collecting. I started with the newest CFL upper deck series. I have pulled some really good Bomber auto cards and inserts. Probably my best one is an 8/10 Willie Jefferson High gloss CFL Greatness card. I am on the lookout for a Rasheed Bailey auto card. I just also ordered the new Upper Deck Series two NHL cards. Fingers crossed, I will get a Bedard Young Guns, lol.

Not sure it's a "hobby" (we take it a lot more seriously than that) but my wife are extremely into fishing 12 months of the year. It's painful living in Alberta at the best of times, but when you factor in our passion for fishing, it's that much worse. Last year (2022/2023) we took our ice fishing to the next level and started ice camping. It's been a lot of fun. I work too much during the winter, and the best fishing spot close to us is about 3 hours away, so we don't get out as often as we'd like, but we have a ton of fun when we do. For the summer, we DID have a little 14' Lund with a 25hp Evinrude (...lesson learned: Friends Don't Let Friends Drive E-Tec's...) but sold it when it was being too much of a hassle. We decided we're going to wait until we move back to MB (likely not too far off) before we buy our next boat... an 18' tiller with a nice big dance floor up front. There's just no sense in AB because you have to haul the damn thing for hours to get anywhere "fishable". In MB you can be on the water in minutes.... some places you can even leave the boat docked up for the summer so you can just jump in and go. That's the dream. Anyhow, yeah.... fishing fishing fishing. Obsession.

cool cool that they cover it.... now do it well.

all this talk about Hodge's mock draft sucking....... what else did people actually expect? Dunk mock MAYBE..... but seriously, it's the same thing every year. There are like half a dozen people on this site capable of putting together a mock draft as well or better than Hodge and most of the fan-zine crew....

He played all over the place when he wasn't filling in for someone on the DL, they got him on the field a variety of ways. DT/DE, OL, FB. One memorable moment of 2009 was Oos catching the ball in open field for a good 20 yard gain. He played enough snaps at FB to have 2 receiving TDs in his career, that's not nothing. I'm not knocking him, I was a big fan

For the record, I am not horny for a fullback. Cheerleaders on the other hand.....

Yea...FB maybe after the 3rd round. We don't use one enough to be really all in before that. Would make no sense as our FB is really just a 6th OL most of the time. I could see us going OL round 1, DL round 2, and OL flyer in round 3.

I suspect that we will be looking at the trenches early in this draft. The last few drafts have been BPA, but I'm not sure we have that luxury this year.

I'm President of a Beer collectibles club, with a basement full of stuff. I mostly collect beer tap handles and have about 450 displayed, along with neon and LED signs, tin signs, rare bottles, keg fridge- anything beer or Crown Royal related. I also have 7 arcade machines and a virtual pinball machine down there. Needless to say, a popular place for poker nights or family get togethers.

That's one thing I love about the CFL. You never know who from the long list of off-season signings will be an all-star.

Amazing two years ago we had no idea who dalton Schoen on. Just think about that. Such a dynamic receiver.

he was on our negotiation list as well, (as was Nichols when we signed him) fingers crossed - it would be nice to have a db with a bit of size

Noted! (Switches VPN to "Paraguay")....

I go back and forth on it, but I can't imagine being with someone who doesn't share the same passions. On the other hand, it might be nice to have something that's just yours and gets you away from them for awhile. S'posin' it depends on how much you enjoy being around your significant other...

Austin/Burgess was really effective for sure. Hopefully one day "Collaros and Streveler" will be right up there, if they can put together two solid seasons and even another Cup or two.

A reporter actually contacted Tyrell Ford and asked him what he's been up to. https://www.tsn.ca/cfl/tyrell-ford-looking-forward-to-returning-to-winnipeg-blue-bombers-following-nfl-tryout-1.2089345

The difference is we don't go online with our comments other than here. There are too many fanbois masquerading as actual football journalists at 3DN. It hurts their credibility. They could easily have better writers giving us better content but obviously don't want to pay for it. So, you have guys like Hodge & Ryan Ballantyne doing pieces for them. You get what you pay for.

I have had lots of creative hobbies over the years but nowadays I mostly play drums and write songs with my hobby band. My band is all gen-x people so we're about rock but some country will creep in now and then. We don't gig for the most part, occasionally we'll play a backyard or a pub but we're mostly about "mom and dad get away from their kids and get loud." This is my favorite of our recordings -- something my band and I threw together during pandemic lockdown. it's a weird electro jazz thing, totally not what we would usually play live.

Three categories of hobbies for me. Activity-wise, enjoy golf and world travel. In terms of mental activities, enjoy crosswords and other word puzzles (Sudoku or Wordle/Quordle/Canukle/Puckle/Puckduko stuff, although it can get to be a bit much) to keep my brain sharp. Also enjoy jigsaw puzzles, especially the 3D ones (I have a city full of various buildings on display, and a 4 puzzle New York City skyline). As for community hobbies, I like organizing and sports-related stuff, so I help with community BINGO and work with the Bison sports programs in tournament scheduling and stats keeping. Have also organized various curling leagues and school volleyball tournaments.

I like your comments and agree. Mocks are mocks and in my case I further use them to get myself familiar with the prospects who are available for the year. I do research the current crop of prospects starting in Nov of each year and use the mock(s) as a guide and look to see if I'm way out. In some cases don't agree with the positions/players the Bombers would select as proposed, but still do find/use it as a tool for my purposes. I enjoyed reading/looking at these mocks. Good on the guys who do them!!!! But, there are a few of the self pro-claimed experts in here and a few others that will band together if self pro-claimed experts are challenged in here. They love to shoot this/these mock(s) down as was the case last year as well. I actually would like to see their mock draft(s) as I asked one of them to provide.

That's all true, fair enough.

Ha, ha. I take your word for it since I totally forgot. I have been to MMA events in the city before but I never went to this UFC event. Coming back 6 years later & it's not even a major PPV event tells you the importance of Canadian cities to the UFC. Except for Toronto.

My fear is that we reach for a player because they fill a position of need, rather than using the ratio more effectively.

If we really wanted to go after some one that hard I’d go for a guy like tanner mclachlan. 6’5 245 te who put up good athletic numbers 4.61/35” vert/9’10 broad/ 1.58 10. He seems like a real fifo type too. Hard nosed, tough, good blocker does the little things. He might end up being a late pick if not he will be a priority fa but good probability to end up here if you take him. the other Canadian te Theo Johnson is gonna be a decent mid round pick down south. 6’6 260 4.58 40” 10.5’ broad all the eye popping numbers. Doesn’t have significant Production though or any of the intangibles of mclachlan.

My main hobby/interest is anything related to fighting. I was a fan of wrestling and boxing as a kid and my favorite hockey players were always the enforcers. Dave Semenko was a cousin so as a kid in the early 80's that was a huge deal and probably influenced a lot of my interests. When the UFC came around in the early 90's, I was obsessed with that and eventually turned it from an interest to a paying side gig. I started out working behind the scenes for a local MMA promotion before getting hired by our provincial commission. I worked my way up to being a fight judge (mma, boxing, kickboxing), to a level that had me travelling across the country, working for the biggest promotions (UFC, Bellator). The pandemic has really changed the industry though (it's basically dead in the prairies at the moment) so I'm back to being a fan mostly now but hopefully one day things will pick up again.

Whatever. The Western Conference was very, very strong in 1981. The Esks finished 14-1-1 for first place, The Bombers went 11-5 & finished second. The Lions 10-6 finishing third & the Riders at 9-7 finished fourth in the West. Combined, the West won 50 regular season games that year & the East just 21. In 1981, the Montreal Alouettes finished third in the East & made the playoffs with an abysmal 3-13 record. How freaking embarrassing for the CFL was that? The league's credibility was called into question. The Riders won 6 more games than the Als & were fourth in the West yet didn't qualify for the playoffs because there was no crossover. I remember fans & media crying how things needed to change. However, in typical CFL fashion, I remember the league getting right on it by taking another 16 years before it would allow crossovers in the playoffs beginning in 1997. What happened to the Riders was a travesty. I'm just glad the Bombers never experienced anything close to that back then. Chances are had there been a crossover, the Riders would have been the Eastern representative in the Grey Cup. Who knows, maybe they would have upset the Eskimos as they barely beat the 5-11 Ottawa Rough Riders that year. But sure, it was the Riders quarterbacking. It was just average. They didn't win.

The first videos of Shoen I saw posted here, the first thing I thought was that he was a CFL type reciever, had that look- body position, timing passes, great hands. Didn't fit the mould of a NFL reciever, but thought he may be one of those types of guys suited for this game with talent but overlooked down south. There's a lot of guys up here with enough talent to play down south, but just don't fit with what the NFL looks for.

They didn't win. I have consistently said for years that's my ultimate measuring stick for QBs. It's why I don't believe Trevor Harris was ever an upper echelon QB for instance. I truly believe that really good offence is good for 10 wins in this league by itself. You wanna go higher than that and then you need defence and ST help. Just my opinion. I remember watching Barnagel, and they were OK. Just in case you think my post is purely Rider hate, the very best QB combo I have ever seen was Austin/Burgess.....now that was a killer combo. I'm not trying to slag Huf/Barnes, just that I think they were average.

I used to do a lot more physical stuff when I was younger. Until arthritis caught up with me as did surgeries in my right shoulder, both knees & both feet took away just about everything I used to do. Like a lot of fishing in the White Shell, Lake Of The Woods, Quesnel Lake at Caribou Lodge east of Bissett, MB (we just called it Caribou Lake back in the day), along the Winnipeg River at Pointe Du Bois & the Lake Manitoba Narrows. Then I moved to Calgary in 1990 & that was it for fishing for me. I never got into fly fishing. Used to do a lot of curling in Manitoba at the Fort Rouge Curling Club. Curled here in Calgary at the Calgary Curling Club until I physically couldn't do it anymore because of arthrtitis. I haven't thrown a rock since 2009. Golf same. Not for at least 20 years. I loved to golf, fish & curl. I also used to run but that ******* arthritis took running from me too. I do have some CFL collectibles. I'm trying to collect more much to my wife's angst as she keeps telling me I'm too old to do that we must downsize because once she retires in 4 years she wants to sell the house & buy a condo...

I'm going with the "TMI line" as their nickname - they score a goal, then come off the ice and tell you all about their latest colonoscopy.

I would be happy if the CFL could just share the stats.