JuranBoldenRules

First step for the organization is to hire a GM in the week after the Grey Cup. Walters will lead the transition team and take on the position of assistant GM/director of Canadian scouting. Here's what I'd do up to the Ottawa draft as a GM: Step 1- Hire a head coach with strong management abilities. I don’t want a guy who is going to call the offensive plays or insist on a certain style of offence or defence. I want a guy who can manage a strong coaching staff (and attract those coaches) and players. Step 2- Give the head coach the necessary resources to put together his coaching staff. Step 3- Offer the Argos our 3rd round pick in 2014, 1st round pick in 2015 (conditional on Collaros signing a contract with the Bombers) and Max Hall for Zach Collaros and Trevor Harris. If they refuse, I counter with our 1st pick in 2014, 3rd round pick in 2014, 1st in 2015 (conditional) and any import player they want off our roster or neg list for their 1st pick in 2014, 5th round picks in 2015 and 2016, Collaros and Harris. Step 4- Protected Lists: Import- Collaros Sears Washington Wild Anderson Jones January Denmark Turner McAdoo Woods NI- Muamba Greaves Kohlert Labbe Swiston Watson Next 7 (we get to protect 6 after Ottawa picks one from this group): Etienne Thomas Poblah Pencer Renaud Fitzgerald Volny I didn’t protect Neufeld because I think his contract and broken leg will shoo Ottawa away, or take a bad contract off our hands. I don’t care a whole lot about Ottawa not targeting free agents, the only guys Ottawa won’t take are guys with legitimate NFL prospects this off-season IMO. If we don’t protect free agents we won’t have anyone to protect.

You don't need a training camp to evaluate him now, there's more than enough film.

They already have a problem selling tickets with Tim Burke. First season in a new stadium, how many sellouts? They budgeted for 31,500 per game, did they get that?

Burke's input would have little value to me if I was making decisions going forward. You can argue about his competence, but he has proven himself to be incredibly biased on a personal level, you can't evaluate football players with that mindset.

This season was just plain ridiculous on and off the field. To put a team that poor on the field in the first year of a new stadium when you have a chance to build and solidify your fan base is an absolute f**k up. Combine with terrible planning, fan relations and the general poor attitude of the whole organization off the field, and you have a total show of incompetence, a complete disaster transitioning from an old dumpy stadium to a fresh one, should have been a great time for everyone. It would be impossible to top this in terms of bad. I mean they could go 0-18, but if they had a half dozen people on payroll who knew how to operate and function within a customer based business off the field they'd fare better than they did this year and through the stadium transition on the whole. I never thought it would be possible for my loyalty to this team to be tested, but it sure has, I mean I've lived my entire life save for about 9 months in Winnipeg and played football from the time I was 7-22. It's my favourite sport, I'm bound to be a Bomber fan just by my interests and environment. If the Bombers can lose my business they can lose almost anyone.

He actually had some talent though. Just stuck in a horrible situation and tossed on the field right away with tons of hype as a "NFL QB." We're talking about QB's as pathetic as Boltus, like filling their Pampers just attempting to take a snap-bad.

The guys gave it their best today. Even at 3-15 they try so hard. Tough to fire the coach.

Sammy Garza isn't even close to being among the worst. Kevin Mason is the worst I saw. Kent Austin was awful as a Blue Bomber. Mike Quinn was horrendous, NFL west coast style passer who just couldn't make throws or read a CFL defence. Keithen McCant, Shawn Moore both couldn't pass. Brian Ah Yat, Jose Davis awful backups on a great team.

Nobody with two brain cells to rub together would pay $10 million to take that debt obligation (Football Club) and then pay to lease the stadium. If the Bombers could operate at a $5 million profit every year there would be no problems, but they can't, even in the new stadium. They can't service the debt on the operations of the Football Club (even if Jon Bon Jovi made IGF into a karaoke bar for the month of May every year), which is why the Football Club is worthless as a business. It's unlikely that a private operator would take on the Bombers for free with the debt obligation and no way to pay it back.

I'll sell you my car for $10,000, but you'll owe the bank $100,000 as part of the deal. The Bombers have no value. The only way a private entity takes them on is if the government eats the debt and leases the stadium operations to that private entity, True North would be perfect because they have all the infrastructure in place to both operate a professional sports team and a facility. I guess you could count the lease price as a sale price, the NHL sure has more than a few times, but it really wouldn't indicate the value of the Football Club. There is no way to service that debt through operations, that's what completely cripples the organization.

The team has no value. The only value is in operating the facility.

The Bombers aren't publicly owned, their a Non Profit Organization, so the Board would have to approve any take over. That means nothing when the provincial and municipal governments are involved. See Osborne House. They ultimately control the team.

Usually when you make a deal and your end of it completely bottoms out, you lose the benefits on the other end of that deal, but in this case, who the hell knows? The government is going to have to eat that debt or drive the Football Club right into the ground. I have a feeling that True North will be handed the team and stadium once the Football Club defaults, which will basically be once they have to start making payments on the loan, they should make enough from the Grey Cup to make the first round of payments, so 2018-19. How do you hand a publicly owned team to a private enterprise? Because the province doesn't want to operate a football team or stadium. My guess is that there would be some kind of leasing deal for the stadium that would kick some money to the province, but really it'll just be a way to wash their hands of responsibility for the Football Club, which has been a thorn in the side of both the city and province for a couple decades. It's not as much a publicly owned team as a publicly owned liability. The team operates at breakeven in a good year, then they come around asking for loans every decade or so, then they ask for those loans to be forgived a few years down the line, or paid through taxes that would be collected either way. The Football Club doesn't put any money into general revenue of the province or city outside of tax revenue that would be collected whether it was operated publicly or privately. A team that's worth $10 million (generous valuation) carrying a $80+ million debt is essentially worthless.

And you have no clue whether the architect was capable of designing the stadium or not. There are ALWAYS redesign requirements and additional costs with all major projects. Ray Wan had never designed a stadium before. Instead of going through the proper process of taking submissions from the three firms with the most experience in stadium design and determine which one was the proper proposal, the Bombers (Asper) choose to go with Wan. The likelihood of having significant cost overruns due to redesign requirements (outdoor pressbox, not providing proper field access from the stands, improper venitlation) are much greater with a firm with minmal or no experience (Wan) than it would be with a firm with plenty of experience (HOK). The biggest cause for overruns is that the stadium was designed to look nice on a postcard, not necessarily function.

Usually when you make a deal and your end of it completely bottoms out, you lose the benefits on the other end of that deal, but in this case, who the hell knows? The government is going to have to eat that debt or drive the Football Club right into the ground. I have a feeling that True North will be handed the team and stadium once the Football Club defaults, which will basically be once they have to start making payments on the loan, they should make enough from the Grey Cup to make the first round of payments, so 2018-19.

Who did Jim Popp, Jim Barker and Brendan Taman play for?

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/football/bombers/Blue-Bombers-board-of-directors-accepting-nominations-205973501.html So it's really no different than the usual process, except they had names emailed to them to choose from. So really they could have just appointed anyone they wanted, not a public process at all.

What exactly is the "public nomination?"

Viable candidates...not Tom Higgins, who says he's interested in any job that will get him out of the league office.

Why can't Miller and Walters handle the expansion draft and hire a GM later in December or early January? Making excuses to avoid making tough decisions already.

Yeah, yeah we all know you love Ross Hodgkinson. Let it go already. I never understood the hate for Ross, but at the same time, I never understood the love. To me, the ultimate testament to his abilities (or lack thereof) was when he was let go -- was he able to surface somewhere else in the CFL? If the answer is no, then he probably wasn't suited to the job. And yet the guy who does the same job in BC, with almost minimal personnel involvement, is a candidate to run our entire football operations according to some.

it's a really, really weird list of nominees this year at MOL Yep, January has a chance to get the Eastern nomination. He's next on the seniority list. Looks like the Edmonton writers just voted for the tallest and heaviest OL on the roster. If Matt O'Donnell is your top OL, your team is in a world of hurt.

According to Lawless, the only candidates are the current GM's of other teams. Everyone else is off the radar. What a knob.

What could he do in half of a season to lose it? Trading a 2nd round pick for a NI OL prospect with a broken leg that hasn't healed since June with a bloated contract is pretty close for me. Walters in the big chair permanently is just the Football Club being cheap and lazy. Burke staying as head coach will be more of the same.

Labatte's the 3rd best OL on his own team this season, but that's how the CFL awards work.