Mike

I can’t see Hamilton, in a Grey Cup hosting year, taking futures from one of their biggest obstacles in order to improve them in the now unless you absolutely blew them away with an offer. I can see Hamilton saying no to our next two first rounders, to be honest. Only kind of trade I can maybe see working is something along the lines of Dobson for Bennett, which is probably a trade I’d make but you have to think long and hard about it now that we don’t really have any upcoming OL in the pipeline and Desjarlais isn’t coming back.

I’d be shocked if Hamilton traded us Bennett. I’d also be shocked if we didn’t heavily consider the idea of trying to trade for him or someone like him. They’ve made it pretty clear that this year is *the* year for us, our first round draft pick probably isn’t going to contribute at the level a third year Canadian can. Sure, you can try and sign him next offseason but we want to win now. I’d offer up our first rounder without hesitation. I think it’d take more

Same. I wonder how many neg-list guys are getting scooped up by the XFL/USFL. I know we’ve been hit hard by it. Donald Payne, Terrell Bonds, John Daka are all names we’ve released on that neg-list reveal that are now in the XFL.

No argument about the validity of injuries, I’m just saying they’re both starting to develop a history of missing too many games and/or being too beat up at the end of the year, so if we don’t have a well thought out plan B going into this season, it’s really our own fault.

The general consensus you’ll hear is that the hold up is the majority of lower level players don’t want their salaries published.

Most teams have their 2 non-SAM linebackers playing essentially interchangeably these days, so I’ll just use that criteria and say I’d rather have McManus, either Williams (Avery or Jordan), Thurman or Judge over Bighill at this point in time. Feels to me like we’re stuck in the same time warp that makes Hamilton fans think Simoni Lawrence is still good. What I’d really like to see is if we can scout a young one to come in and replace either Kyrie or Bighill. If we have to use the same excuses of “they’re just covering up for injuries” this year when we’re going to trot out the same guys who we’ve been having that problem with for two years, we’re really doing it to ourselves at this point.

Has nothing to do with the league though

I don’t mind bringing Jeffcoat back, but we obviously need a third (and probably fourth) DE that can rotate in. The only known guy left that interests me is Shane Ray but obviously he’s pretty injury prone himself and for some reason, I get the sense he’s XFL or USFL bound anyways

doesn't really work that way though, you're still trying to create competition for camp. If you sign a guy and he's beat out by a drafted player, off he goes. It's not like these bottom half of the roster types are leveraging bonuses.

no kidding

Serious question: who takes Jeffcoat over Orimolade this year?

I’d love to have Bailey, I just don’t know where you play him if you’re putting Demski, Schoen and Lawler in the slot (which they should be)

Referring to last year when we made the mistake of prioritizing Maston over Darby and then pairing him with Kyrie to surround Bighill. Love me some Kyrie … really really underrated and fantastic player … but the guy is a bandaid. He’s played like 33% of our games in the past two years.

If only we had not committed ourselves to surrounding our struggling, aging MLB with players who are very injury prone or coming off major surgeries.

“he’s pretty good” isn’t exactly what I’m going for when we’re talking about the highest paid player in his position, but I wouldn’t even agree with that assessment, personally. He was a step behind a ton of plays and as it was happening, everyone chalked it up to “well he’s just covering for other people so they’re using him differently” and to me, he just looked slow and a step behind. He was probably the most constant offender on our entire D when it came to whiffed arm tackles. He averaged 4 tackles a game and didn’t really contribute a whole lot else, which is not what I’m looking for from a top level MLB. Yes, I get he can drop back in coverage and give different looks, but so can a guy who can fly around a bit more and have a little more impact on the field. Part of me wonders if O’Shea sees a reflection of himself in Bighill, the decline in overall play has been very similar to what O’Shea saw when his time was coming to an end. If you’re looking to set me up for an I told you so, you’ll be looking for a long time. I hope Bighill has an absolutely massive season for us. Why would I want anything less?

Genuinely one of the worst contracts in the CFL, in my opinion. Statistically one of the worst middle linebackers in the CFL and he’s the highest paid American LB? If we’re in the Grey Cup this year, he’ll be 35 at kickoff, has developed a recent trend of being too hurt by the end of the season to be effective when it matters and is visibly slower every single year, but we treat him around here like he’s 28 year old MOP candidate Bighill because FIFO, “he’s covering for other people” and because he’s a SAV4GE. I know Bighill has intangibles and leadership that bring value to the room, but the blind love for his play over the past few years has me really puzzled. He’s not good.

I really like Toronto’s roster construction a lot. If MBT is back, I feel like they have a shot to do big things again and I feel like we could see a Grey Cup rematch, although that could depend on Bo and his arm in Hamilton. Our offense is clearly head and shoulders above Toronto’s (and anyone else’s) but their D was better than ours (imo) last year and you can definitely argue they’ll be even better this year … going from McManis/Henoc/Edwards to McManis/Williams/Pickett is huge, they’ve got a lot of good solid bodies in the secondary … especially if Carnell is as legit as he looked in limited action last year … and a similar ability as our front office to find new ones, plus I really do think between both DL, the most impactful player is Shawn Oakman and we don’t, as of right now, have anyone comparable. Willie and Jeffcoat are still impact players but in my opinion, they need someone around them to take the pressure off, they were often one step late last year and if it’s not age, then it’s likely a lack of support and rotation. I’m not saying we don’t have a very good defence, but on a straight up talent level taking anything and everything else out of the equation, I genuinely would trade our best DL and LB (let’s call it Willie and Kyrie) for theirs (Oakman and McManis) and not really think twice about it. Depth is a different discussion, but I also don’t love how we trot out Gauthier, Briggs, Maruo and Jake Thomas so frequently. Our D depth has taken a big hit over the last year or so everywhere but in the secondary, there’s no Kongbo or Rutledge as of today to fill those rotational reps that we may need to depend on this year.

I’m wondering if Bailey ends up being a guy who comes back here just because it’s that or the XFL/USFL for him. Seems like he may get caught in a situation where other teams don’t want to pay for the intangibles we appreciate from him.

Just to make sure … you know you’re not on the team, right?

“It’s different because it’s me, not them”

I’m not underestimating it, I’m just saying it’s weird that some people here apply it as a blanket to every talking point possible. I think we’re a top two team and I don’t really think it’s close. I don’t agree with the suggestion that we’re clearly the best team on paper. I think there’s certainly an argument, but I have a lot of concern about our linebackers (old, injury prone, recent history of falling off at the end of the season), our DL (we’re managing snap counts on our two impact guys there and nobody else on our roster has shown any ability to help carry the weight), our OL (hasn’t really been AS good as it’s historically been, but truly this concern is more of a “are they going to hit the age wall?”) and our kicking game. I think there’s an argument to be made for Toronto, because they play a very similar style of football to what we played when we used to have Matt Nichols. Athleticism to create big plays on defense, enough game management to overcome a lack of overall talent at the QB spot. Call it a fluke all you want, if that D doesn’t drop a few easy picks in the GC, they beat our brakes off and run us out of the building early. I’d definitely trade their LB and DL for ours in a talent-only vacuum. I’m just hoping (confidently) that our front office can find us some impact guys on D that can provide a bit of youth to that side of the ball, but as of right now, the age stuff makes me hesitant to say we’re easily the best team in the league on paper. Best offense? Absolutely. But I think Toronto has the best D and they’ve added there the same way we have on O. You can point to that mind boggling Prukop call all you want as self-inflicted harm, but the gift wrapped interceptions the Argos dropped were just as much of a fluke on their side, imo

I’m not. 🍻

Is that really what I said? Because I don’t think that’s really what I said. This is the exact kind of dumb **** I’m talking about. For some reason, a handful of people here have started to drink this weird kool-aid that the Bombers can do no wrong. Any loss is a fluke. Any Bomber is better than literally any other football player. Any guy we don’t want isn’t “FIFO” enough. Any guy we do want has a high enough FIFO score for us to allow him the highly esteemed privilege of wearing our team colours. Any critical thought directed at the front office or players is grounds for being publicly berated. The part I don’t like about it is not that we’re winning or that we’re become a confident fanbase with high expectations. That part is awesome and I’m glad we’re all getting to experience it, especially knowing what we all have gone through in those dark years. The part I don’t like is that the way some of you are acting about it now is literally textbook Rider fan behaviour and it’s gross. This is the stuff that made everyone hate them. Not because they were good for a brief period of time, but because they were oblivious, borderline delusional weirdos about it.

Amen to this lol this golden age of Bomber football has created some weird complexes up in here

The crazy thing is suggesting they fluked out a GC win Does that mean we fluked out the win in 2021? They beat us and we’re a year older in a sport where older isn’t always better. That’s a legit concern. Maybe it’s unwarranted and they’ll have another amazing season, I hope that ends up being the case. But for now, it’s a concern for me.