Younger's defense

[Blue In BC]

Longer term none of these excuses matter, all 4 are extremely good athletes that they need to hang onto and develop further.  You have to watch for Ayers as he doesn't play that much behind Griffin but last game he made at least 2 outstanding plays on defence.

I saw Ayers make one good play. I'll take your word he made a 2nd good play. That said, he's a 3rd year player and does not appear to be moving up the depth chart to start.

He's only had 4 DT's in 2025 and only 2 so far in 2026. That's 6 DT's in 21 games.  You don't hang onto a defensive player with that record. He's a forced rotational player due to injury to Woodbey in particular and rookie DE's.

Nobody has responded to WHY Shay is not getting reps. Is he a wasted 1st round pick?

[Pete]

When you consider we could have got Fortin, Beauchemin or Findlay it wasn't a great pick. The problem is we've seen so little of Shay in regular reps its hard to judge. Right now it ranks as low as the Bennet draft in 2023

[Blue In BC]

When you consider we could have got Fortin, Beauchemin or Findlay it wasn't a great pick. The problem is we've seen so little of Shay in regular reps its hard to judge. Right now it ranks as low as the Bennet draft in 2023

Smith was drafted later than Shay so it's really a puzzle. We aren't getting great play out of MLB so I think it's time to get him some reps. Maybe somebody that goes to practice can see something that helps explain?

[Throw Long Bannatyne]

Smith was drafted later than Shay so it's really a puzzle. We aren't getting great play out of MLB so I think it's time to get him some reps. Maybe somebody that goes to practice can see something that helps explain?

Only thing I noticed about Shay in pre-season he over shot his tackles a couple of times like Bighill occasionally did, getting an extended arm on the ball carrier but not able to bring them down. 

[Tecno]

Longer term none of these excuses matter, all 4 are extremely good athletes that they need to hang onto and develop further.  You have to watch for Ayers as he doesn't play that much behind Griffin but last game he made at least 2 outstanding plays on defence.

Just as I was going to say.  Ayers was in a good spot and doing good things enough times that I was like "who's #49 again?  Ayers -- wow!".  Just one game though... but he was impacting things a few times, and he was probably out there not much more than a few times.  He seems to be trying to work himself into more than just a STer (finally!) so he can keep his job.

With the D as it is, I bet no one feels 100% confident their job is safe -- even knowing Mafia almost never cuts anyone.

[Tecno]

Yes you can complain about both. Just because the offence stutters doesn't mean the defence should allow an opponent to march down field.

Yes 2nd last drive but yes the need was to maintain ball control and eat up the clock. We punt and the Elks march downfield and score which is the complaint.

Not sure we're arguing the same thing.  In my post you can see me quoting your two points, one basically says we were too aggressive, the other bemoans us being too conservative.  Both were about O.  That's the contradiction I'm pointing out.  Sounded like a cake & eat it too moment.  Maybe you were trying to say something else...

[Tecno]

The odds of completing a short pass almost always has a better statistical chance of success

... when your team isn't named The WPG Blue Bombers.  I have less faith in our short curl/slant/screen than I do in the mid zone sit.  In fact, I would guess our zone sit got us more total yards than all short passes combined in the last game.  That's the opposite of the good quick-game teams like SSK.

So yes, you're 100% right given a normal functioning O.  We aren't normal.  We aren't functioning.  We've had a garbage short pass game since at least 2022.  I can dig up my posts whinging about it from back then.  And no one has fixed it.

[Tecno]

I don't think Kyrie would work as the QB of the defence, mainly because he gets subbed out almost every series so he's often not even on the field plus he's not a great communicator.

Great point about subbing out.  Though it may not be as much as you think.  I think he gets normal, regular spells like Willie & Ceresna; and maybe out for special long passing down sets.

But I see no indication he's not good at communicating.  I've been watching pre-snap direction intently in these last 2 games and he's directing things as much as Kramdi.  (Yes, maybe he sucks at it, hard to tell!)

Solutions could be to force Tony Jones into that role over time, train Conner Shay, or find a MLB that already comes with the ability to communicate well.  Maybe Younger saw this issue coming and brought in JSK to help out?

You nailed it.  JSK was precisely that.  So perfect for our D needs!  Such a shame.  JSK would almost certainly have taken over Ayers' role, and maybe eventually edged out Kyrie as starter.

they might have to look at trading him, potentially for a highly intelligent MLB like Adam Konar who is currently waiting behind Sankey in BC.

That wouldn't help us at all.  Kyrie & Jones aren't going anywhere, and both are good enough, Griffin looks set... so the need is FS.  If you can find a genius one to obtain, by all means go for it.

[Tecno]

It's also an either or question or of adding a receiver or another DB. It can't be both.

I totally can be both.  You didn't see my bit about the 25-snaps.  Ceresna has never taken much more than that since coming here, from what I can see.  Ceresna becomes DNA, takes 25-snaps, and one of the spare NAT DL is charted as "starter".  That has us effectively starting 6 NATs, which is 100% legal for 25-snaps.

Think of using Ceresna like HAM used White for like 3 seasons and are using Kenny now.

Of course, that means we lose the free 2RDP.  And it means MOS/Younger's brains have to hurt a little bit more tracking all of this.  But desperate times call for desperate measures.  I'm not saying we SHOULD do this, but we COULD -- IF we had a quality brainy IMP FS we wanted to field.