Great news to have a quality kicker signed...
WINNIPEG — The Winnipeg Blue Bombers announced on Friday that the club has agreed to terms on a one-year contract with free agent American kicker Sergio Castillo.
Castillo (five-foot-nine, 197 pounds) returns to the Blue Bombers for a fourth season in 2024 in his third stint with the club after initially signing in 2015. He was acquired via trade during the 2021 campaign and then signed last May following his release by the Edmonton Elks.
Castillo's 2023 season was record-breaking, as he connected on 46 of 51 field goal attempts, with his 90.2 percentage establishing a new Blue Bombers standard. Castillo was a perfect 31 of 31 inside the 40-yard line; 15 of 20 in 40-plus attempts and 4-6 from 50 yards-plus, including a season-long of 53 yards.
He was 3-5 in the Western Final and then hit his only attempt in the Grey Cup, extending his streak in championship games to six after he went 5-5 in the Blue Bombers' 2021 victory over Hamilton in the 108th edition of the game.
Castillo has a career field goal percentage of 86.7 (170-196) in 77 career CFL games with the Blue Bombers (2015, 2021, and 2023), Ottawa REDBLACKS (2016), Hamilton Tiger-Cats (2017), BC Lions (2019) and Edmonton Elks (2022). He was a CFL All-Star with the Lions in '19 and also has pro experience with the New York Jets (2020), Houston Roughnecks (2020) and San Antonio Commanders.
Good to get him back even if we bring in competition at TC. Need to have a rookie on the PR perhaps learning the CFL game.
Good signing but he had a pretty average or poor playoff.
Competition is needed to push him.
He's the best of all options at the moment. I consider this a very good signing. If we lost him it may have been disaster. While a NAT around his level would be better from a DI standpoint, not such NAT is available.
Welcome back Sergio! Hopefully we'll win the cup with you this year and you can do your "weehee" thing on camera again.
Now start developing our next guy!
Like who?
Hope we can get a guy (not the recent university grads that we plucked) that can get the job done effectively. Now with our ST coach gone, maybe we can do it.
We did sign Borregales as Kicking candidate. Whether he even makes it to TC is a TBD but at the moment I'd think he's a guy that could be an injury and development player headed for the PR.
OTOH, I wouldn't be surprised if the 3 global draft choices in 2024 are all either kickers or punters. Who wins the competition there we'll see.
In a perfect world we find an import, global or Canadian that is more of a dual role candidate to be a development guy.
If they can get a combo punter/kick off guy, that would be great either in the draft or international. Sergio is fine for field goals, but his kickoffs need more distance. Giving up an extra 10-15 yards normally with every kickoff compared to the other team at times.
Good. Can't underestimate a strong kicking game.
Interesting video on Sergio Castillo. He gives his perspectives on football as well as life in general.
https://www.bluebombers.com/2024/02/26/sergio-castillo-february-26-2024/
His FG % was decent but we need to get better/deeper kickoffs for sure this year.
Quote from: dd on February 26, 2024, 11:40:53 PMHis FG % was decent but we need to get better/deeper kickoffs for sure this year.
What we need is better ST downfield tackling....we were atrocious last season.