Atomic

But then you can point to O'Shea's emphasis on ST's. If we have one guy handling both jobs kicking and Wild as the longsnapper again, we'll have extra bodies available on D, they'll just have to be Canadian. True, it'd just be so unorthodox. Our Canadian depth scares me as it is. Our first rounder likely isn't going to contribute on D. I just don't know where those bodies would come from. Rene Stephan might work until he gets injured in the first half of week 1 We'll have a shot at a decent backup linebacker in round 3 I think. I don't know what we're going to do with our picks, but I could see us landing Travis Bent or Max Caron. Maybe even Beau Landry if he drops further than expected.

Limits which can be up to 12 years long depending on the member. Not surprisingly, Asper qualifies for this upper limit and will be on the Board long after the rest of the members' terms have ended. And the guy with the second-most pull, Gene Dunn, is next up to retire (wow what a coincidence), leaving the Board fully under Asper's control. Rabb would be a good thing for the Board, the reason they are giving for rejecting him is a total red herring. It is 100% political. Asper doesn't like Rabb, so he doesn't get on the board. It really is that simple.

Immigrants! I knew it was them. Even when it was the bears, I knew it was them.

Brian Simmons in Hamilton is in the mix for #4 as well. Joel Figueroa - their RT - is a fine player as well. Not top tier yet, but could be in the next year or two. Good call on Figueroa. He was a beast for them at the end of last season.

To live like the rest of us & maybe have to contribute to society. Oops, sorry. Racist comment. So the government buys them all houses in the city? Is that how it works? They certainly won't have money from selling their reserve homes if we are abolishing reserves. Ahhh, so maybe we just move them into the city but don't pay for their homes? I've always said the people of Canada could use more homeless citizens.

I would rate January as the 4th best import tackle in the league behind Jovan Olafioye, Stanley Bryant, and Xavier Fulton. He is vastly underrated here for some reason. The attitude that an import OL has to be some dominant monster is totally unfounded. There isn't a guy in the league like that these days.

Lol... abolish the reserve system?? What exactly does that mean? What happens to the people on reserves? Force them into cities?

That's a bit of a leap. More like they want a strong kicking game and won't accept a mediocre Canadian there just because he's Canadian, like we've done for the past 4 years.

CIS scouting is still spotty. Lots of guys fall through the cracks. That's what makes the CFL combine so important. The level of competition varies so greatly between the CIS conferences, so getting all the best players together and competing in one-on-ones can totally change the perception of a player. It's not really about testing numbers for Quinn Smith, it's about how he came in and absolutely dominated every OL he faced.

Pocket change. Every team should be doing it.

Could we target Evan Gill if Lavertu goes to Ottawa as expected? Take O'Shea's comment about needing someone who can start right away, and weigh it with this comment: Or even Quinn Smith: But I still believe Lavertu is the number one target. I just don't think we are going to take Goossen or Foucault if Lavertu is gone.

I read an article that suggested that may be a possibility. But I just can't see them passing on Lavertu. He is just a perfect fit, with their OL needs and the fact that Ottawa is going to want French players on their team. Drafting a Franco first overall will be great for relations with the French fans.

Gotta go with an olineman unless they are officially told their pick is gonna go NFL if Bombers take him. btw - I believe all CIS players should be forced to play 1 + 1 in the CFL before going into the NFL draft. Officially told? So go with Foucault, and then watch as he signs in the NFL the next day? Yeah, no one would be cutting down the Bombers for that one. Hamilton didn't think Gaydosh was going to the NFL so they took him first overall. Not doing them much good now. We need someone who will contribute this year. Our Canadian depth was poor and it took a hit this off-season. We need someone who can come in and make a difference. That likely won't be an OL if we can't get Lavertu.

I still feel like we go with a DL like Gill or Smith if Lavertu goes to Ottawa. Foucault is too risky... NFL interest scares me off. If Goossen isn't good enough to start this year, then he shouldn't be our pick. We need someone who can contribute to our ratio right away and IMO that means Evan Gill or Quinn Smith.

Rank Name Position School 1 (1) Laurent Duvernay-Tardif OL McGill 2 (3) David Foucault OL Montreal 3 (2) Pierre Lavertu OL Laval 4 (--) Quinn Smith DL Concordia 5 (4) Devon Bailey WR St. Francis Xavier 6 (6) Evan Gill DL Manitoba 7 (15) Dylan Ainsworth DL Western 8 (9) Anthony Coombs RB Manitoba 9 (5) Matthias Goosen OL Simon Fraser 10 (8) Andrew Lue LB Queen's 11 (13) Adam Thibault DB Laval 12 (11) Casey Chin LB Simon Fraser 13 (--) David Menard DL Montreal 14 (-) Antoine Pruneau DB Montreal 15 (7) Beau Landry LB Western http://cfl.ca/article/final-scouting-bureau-rankings

Oh please. The system has given us the country we live in today. I'd say the people of Canada are doing pretty damn well for themselves, wouldn't you?

What?!!? 9000?!?! I'm expecting a 9-9 record. I have several reasons to be this optimistic.

I'm surprised you're giving Walters and co. a free pass just based on effort. I'm still interested to see the results of all these camps before I go on praising the wonderful job these guys are doing. Sure it looks great in the media but how about on the field? The jury is still out.

Classic Liberal guilt-mongering!

Darrin Bauming said the Bombers are high on kicker Johnny Mark and will try to get him with a mid round pick in the draft.

I'm as nervous about Etcheverry as anyone else, but let's not forget that he has had some success, including going to back-to-back Grey Cup finals in 2009 and 2010. That 2009 defence especially was not only effective but also exciting to watch. Yes his comments are bordering on insanity, but I'm willing to wait and see what he gives us.

Etcheverry's first comments since being hired. Interesting gentleman... http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/football/bombers/new-defensive-guru-looks-only-at-future-255124031.html BRADENTON, Fla. -- If you were thinking getting fired from his last job after just five games had humbled Gary Etcheverry, well, think again. The new defensive co-ordinator of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers was defiant here Sunday when asked about his brief -- and winless -- stint in 2012 as head coach of the University of Ottawa Gee Gees football team. Asked how the Ottawa experience -- in which he was abruptly fired after opening the 2012 season at 0-5 -- had changed him as a coach, Etcheverry invoked the memory of one of the world's most famous firings. "Kind of the way maybe getting fired by the company he founded changed Steve Jobs 11 years later when he went back to save Apple," Etcheverry said Sunday on Day 1 of the Bombers' first-ever spring mini-camp in Florida. "They weren't ready for me, and I wasn't ready for them." Well then. It was one of just two Apple references Etcheverry invoked Sunday in what were his first public comments to the Winnipeg media since he was hired as the Bombers' new DC in February. "People always talk about a playbook. We don't have a playbook," Etcheverry said in reference to his unique -- and famously confusing -- defence. "Well, when you used to have a VCR you had a playbook like this," Etcheverry continued, holding his hands several inches apart, "and you still couldn't set the damn clock. And nowadays if you have an Apple product, what's the playbook? What's the user manual? "But they say we're behind the times because we don't have a playbook? S , we're so far behind the times we're ahead of the times." Confidence What emerged here Sunday is that the Bombers have secured for themselves a new defensive co-ordinator who, if nothing else, is certainly not lacking in confidence. But then why would he be? Now in his 35th year in coaching, the 57-year-old Etcheverry has coached everywhere from college to Europe to the NFL to 10 years in the CFL, which included a brief stint as head coach of the Toronto Argonauts in 2002. A Grey Cup winner in 1997 with the Argos and more recently the architect of stingy defences in Saskatchewan from 2008-10, Etcheverry is considered a master of a defence that can best be described as organized chaos, with defenders expected to play all over the field and in strangely named positions such as rover. "I believe he's thought more about football than a lot of people and he's thought about it in a lot of different ways," says Bombers head coach Mike O'Shea, who played under Etcheverry in Toronto. "He's very thorough in his thought process on how defensive football should be played and how offensive football should be played." The admiration is mutual. "I've told people that there's nobody that I've worked with at any point in time that I've had more respect for," Etcheverry said of O'Shea. "It's very exciting. Certainly he's elated and I am for him. Our job now is to get us to where we need to be." So how will he do that? With fleet and finely tuned athletes, instead of the physical behemoths so commonly associated with CFL defences, Etcheverry says. "We do a lot of things that require interchangeability among our players, so we can't have a bunch of 300-pounders out there, because they can't run on this big-ass field... "We cause confusion, there's no question about it," Etcheverry continued. "We want to be multiple, and to be multiple you gotta have interchangeable athletes... Multiple everything. Multiple alignments, multiple movements, multiple coverages, multiple, multiple, multiple... "If we're gonna err, we're gonna err on the side of speed."

Rick Zamperin ‏@rickzamperin 2m BREAKING: Former #Ticats centre @marwanhage will announce his retirement from the #CFL Monday. #REDBLACKS #HamOnt Not totally unexpected. Ottawa kinda took a risk on this one.

Who? Quentin Saulsberry? There not much. But he is #55 in this video: http://www.patriots.com/media-center/videos/2012-Draft-Prospects---Quentin-Saulsberry-C/70478f85-2110-4d6c-8dc4-e21621c735ac