Colin Unger

I was happy to read Walter's comments on how much work the Global Scouting is. I mean its too bad its so much extra work but I'm happy that he doesn't view the work as optional. There was a time before Walters took over where Winnipeg wasn't even willing to turn over every stone to find a helpful Canadian player. I remember talking to a CFL agent at that time when Winnipeg had serious snapping problems and they weren't even willing to go an look at a decent young snapper who was living in Winnipeg who ended up signing with a different team. Like they wouldn't even put in the effort. Now Winnipeg is clearly of the mindset that if there is going to be global roster spots they will do whatever it takes to maximize the talent they will be bringing in for those roles. Its refreshing and no wonder Winnipeg ended up with the best global player from last year.

Been doing a little bit a research on the quality of talent being made available for the global draft. Winnipeg is in a good position because they already have an impact player but next season there will be two players on the roster and 3 more on the practice roster. Given that Winnipeg won the Cup I guess i'm assuming we will be picking 9th overall. I think last year the draft order was random. Clearly that would benefit Winnipeg. However, I'm trying to get a sense for whether or not there will be 9 players of substance available in case we draft 9th overall. Well. Its hard to research but most of the nations have released lists of available players and there is already some pretty good talent I can identify. Finland has 2 players who played American college ball. They are defensive lineman and didn't do a whole lot in college but its still better than nothing. France actually seems to have the best high end talent. They have three players who were good enough to get NFL shots included 2 receivers and 1 6 foot 4 defensive back. The two receivers went back to Germany and played after their NFL cracks didn't pan out and both were highly productive in the the GFL. Germany has a large list of players available. And I feel like German typically has the most talent available out of all the global nations. One of the players on the German list was one of the top runningbacks in the GFL. Maybe he can use that speed and strength to be a pretty good special teams player. Another German League player was one of the best pass rusher's in the league. Maybe he's another Hansen? Mexico has not yet released a list of available players. That could be the real wildcard. But based on the limited amount of research you can do from a keyboard and mouse I do feel like the level of talent available will be much deeper than last year where they basically ended up being one high quality player in Thiadric Hansen. https://www.americanfootballinternational.com/germany-releases-list-of-45-athletes-attending-cfl-germany-combine/ https://www.americanfootballinternational.com/france-announces-23-athletes-for-cfl-france-combine/ https://www.americanfootballinternational.com/italian-federation-announces-cfl-italian-combine-athletes/ https://www.americanfootballinternational.com/great-britain-releases-list-of-athletes-for-cfl-uk-combine/ https://www.americanfootballinternational.com/17-players-to-showcase-their-skills-at-cfl-finland-combine/ WR Anthony Dable - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl-aAGcBxTQ

I’m taking a wait and see approach on this one. The problem is he can’t work out for nfl teams. The problem with Streveler playing in the NFL Is how he plays. He takes on contact directly. He’s very fast but doesn’t have finesse moves or presence of mind to get down and avoid contact. If he can’t stay healthy in the cfl with this style imagine how things will go for him against bigger defenders and a smaller field. Taysom Hill rarely throws the ball and is mostly used as a receiver. Last time I checked Streveler wasn’t a high end receiver before switching back to qb and downgraded schools.

O'shea would be saying the same thing even if they were planning on moving on from him.

And with the extra global roster spots teams will be less worried about "burning" a Canadian special teams guy to get an extra american onto the starting lineups. I'm sure teams will be more subtle about it than the scenario i suggested. Could you imagine if Chris Jones was still a head coach with this type of exploit available?

There seems to still be no answer to the concern over faked injuries. You know.. A guy like Thomas Miles is listed as the starter at middle linebacker and Bighill is one of the Nationalised Americans. Miles fakes and injury on the opening kick off and then Bighill replaces him. What im looking for is the specific details on how this will work.

https://3downnation.com/2020/01/08/cflpa-sends-memo-to-players-detailing-changes-to-cba/ Can somebody make sense of the new nationalized American rules. It seems like America vets will be able to qualify as Canadians in the starting ratio. But further down it talks about 10 National starters in total.

This guy is just throwing up a bunch of hail mary's. Last year he got a couple of things spot on but in most cases he was completely off. He projected Wolitarsky to be a cfl all-star for example. Predicting Fajardo to pass for 6000 yards is crazy. He's a game manager type and is sheltered by a good running game. He's not going to all of a sudden be an elite passer beyond anyone else in the league. Also.. Predicting right now that Winnipeg is going to fall and be a cross over team is purely conjecture. Nothing has happened in the real world to make Edmonton and BC a lot better. BC hired a Campbell who is a decent head coach but he struggles when he does not have top notch assistant coaches. BC failed to hire Dinwiddie as the OC and are likely going to be left with mediocre offensive coaching again. Edmonton replaced an offensive co-ordinator (Jason Maas) who should be a head coach with another carbon copy in Scott Milanovich. Nothing has occured to make anyone think these teams won't be just as soft as last season. As of right now there is every realistic expectation Winnipeg will remain competitive and in the top 3 in the West just like the last 3 seasons.

Yeah.. The offseason doesn't begin until the Grey Cup Champs say it begins!

Last year was a disaster. They didn't have a good offensive co-ordinator and Dom Davis was already somebody who had shown that he wasn't good enough. With a good offensive co-ordinator Jennings would have been somewhat ok. Arbuckle has come out of a good system and performed quite well in Bo's absence. You might even say he was better than Bo. Its a smaller sample size no doubt but with Lapo and potentially a good running game there I think Arbuckle will be fine.

Don't know why people are down on MBT. He put up great numbers and is clearly a more gifted passer than Matt Nichols is as this stage of his career. Nichols can't stay healthy.

Potentially both if Streveler signs in the NFL. Im not convinced if I'm Toronto that i would prefer Matt Nichols as my starter over MBT.

Yeah. Maybe Toronto would be willing to trade the farm for him. The 90k they saved on Mitchell's salary isn't really going to reshape the team they have around the quarterback. But if they could save 250k over what they paid to their starter last season they could really pickup a number of pieces to make a difference.

Id be incredibly surprised if Arbuckle has any interest in re-signing to be Bo's backup qb. I imagine that the idea of re-signing Arbuckle for cheaper and moving Bo was what got Bo to take a lower salary. I think Arbuckle is going to follow Dinwiddie to Toronto.

I think Winnipeg made him somewhat of a priority. They are not in a position to start an american back if Harris gets injured like they once were and Oliveria is coming off of a pretty serious injury.

I prefer the option of him coming back to Winnipeg

He will be missed and so will Rose. I don't think Sayles height will keep him from getting a contract but it will make it difficult for him to win a job. I just don't know what he's going to do on a smaller field with super accurate passes to tall receivers. Gonna be a challenge for him. The bombers recently signed Malik Boynkin who was a safety in camp last season. I see Alexender moving back to corner or halfback. We can find another american safety without too much trouble. So what it looks like is we have Matson, Alexander, Jones, and Taylor going into next season right now. Not a bad starting point.

Note sure where he would go even if he was a FA. As good as he still is Andrew Harris ain't getting any younger and Winnipeg right now is the only team dedicating runningback as a Canadian position and runs the ball heavily. And he's from Winnipeg.

Apparently Sergio Castillo play for the Houston Roughnecks. I imagine his plan is to bank some extra money and then take a shot at the NFL.

@66 Chevelle I agree with you that you can’t ignore the fact that the time commitment is less in the xfl as well as the injury potential and wear and tare on the body. However, many of these guys will be looking at maximizing their earning on an annual basis and the dollar amounts will he higher in the cfl. There’s also a bit of a timing issue for the xfl. Players coming right out of college will want to focus on making the nfl and then if that opportunity isn’t there they will be offered earnings more quickly from the cfl. A good number of the best cfl prospects are guys who only sign right before cfl training camp. Chris Streveler and Marcus Sayles come to mind as players who waiting to sign in the cfl until close to training camp. There is also going to be a significant bump to the cfl salary cup for next season as the players had a clause in the latest negotiation to receive a percentage of any new tv deal. But like you said there is plenty of talent out there. Players will get cut from an xfl team and make an impact in the cfl and vice versa. There’s also the element that the xfl will pay money for some nfl name who would likely not have any impact in the cfl. I don’t see a cfl starting qb going to the xfl because there wouldn’t be name recognition in the states and a qb who had put in the hard works to learn to excel as a cfl qb it’s going to give that up for anything less than nfl bucks.

"We like to say waterperson"!

There's also MBT who i think is an under rated options heading into free agency. What remains to be seen is whether or not Masoli re-signs with hamilton. He may not even be ready for the season and so he might just sign a one year deal with Hamilton. If Arbuckle and Streveler hit the NFL and Winnipeg opts to sign Zachary there could be the potential to get something for Nichols going to Ottawa. But not much. I guess in a dream world Toronto really wanted Nichols and we could bargain down the 1st we give up for Zach.

Have they not looked at his height?

Its about putting the best possible defense on the field. The defense got significantly better after Hecht was benched and we started Alexander at safety. I'm not convinced a top end Canadian safety is going to fall onto our laps.

I'm not worried about the offensive line especially center where we have Speller and Eli already. Where we are low on Canadian talent its defense. We need to have a National on the field at all times. Without Kongbo we would need to play Jake Thomas and a rotationary Canadian DT to keep him fresh at all times. Perhaps we would look at moving on from Kyrie Wilson and starting Jesse Briggs at linebacker. We seemed to be fine when we were starting a Canadian at WILL when Biggie was out.