DL Solutions

[Throw Long Bannatyne]

Bighill's comments regarding Jeffcoat from the Wpg. Sun.


"A guy like Jackson is not replaceable," Bighill said in a one-on-one interview Wednesday.

"In my mind, the best all-around defensive end I've played with in the CFL. In terms of first down, second down, his impact on the game has been the best I've seen. You look at his numbers in the playoffs and it's a whole other level. He'll be missed. He's a guy who's not replaceable but hopefully a guy people in the building will be able to learn from."

Bighill, who is on the executive of the CFL Players Association, can't help but be gutted for the players who played such big roles in getting the team to four straight Grey Cups but were not offered contracts this year.

Jeffcoat lamented that there was almost no communication with team management in the lead-up to free agency and Bighill did not like the way things were handled either.

"It sucks," he said. "It's part of the business that everyone understands, but it's the terrible part. For some of those guys, if the club was able to figure out who they were going to be able to offer contracts to and who they weren't and could have come out and provided that information immediately, as opposed to waiting toward the days of free agency starting, it just would have been better for guys ... to have more of a heads up.

"It's just a better way to approach things. More communication is often better than none to little or waiting till the end. But it's part of the business. The most unfortunate part."




https://winnipegsun.com/sports/football/cfl/winnipeg-bluebombers/bighill-thrilled-bombers-were-able-to-sign-big-names-devastated-for-players-let-go

[TecnoGenius]

"It's just a better way to approach things. More communication is often better than none to little or waiting till the end. But it's part of the business. The most unfortunate part."

Biggie gets it as Biggie will be in this same boat before long.

This was a weird year with our top $$ FA questions unanswered for an extra couple of weeks.  Biggie hints that this may have caused the comms trouble.  Maybe.

My question is: so how did we handle top-10 player shedding in the past?  Is this normal for KW?  Or is this year really out of the ordinary?  Who are the departing stars in previous years, and did they get better comms?  No?  Then this is normal and just the way KW does it, for whatever reason.

We all know the famous AH debacle, but how about non-AH players?

I'm sure there are very good reasons for the way KW handles it other than "I'm a mean guy".  You could also try to compare to how other teams handle things...

[Blueforlife]

Jeffcoat when healthy is one of the best.  Some hard on him and it's clear based on what Biggie has said that it's a giant hole.

[Pete]

Biggie gets it as Biggie will be in this same boat before long.

This was a weird year with our top $$ FA questions unanswered for an extra couple of weeks.  Biggie hints that this may have caused the comms trouble.  Maybe.

My question is: so how did we handle top-10 player shedding in the past?  Is this normal for KW?  Or is this year really out of the ordinary?  Who are the departing stars in previous years, and did they get better comms?  No?  Then this is normal and just the way KW does it, for whatever reason.

We all know the famous AH debacle, but how about non-AH players?

I'm sure there are very good reasons for the way KW handles it other than "I'm a mean guy".  You could also try to compare to how other teams handle things...

this year is a unique one because of the amount of top free agents we have that were coming off elc.
of the top 10 cfl free agents this year only 3 were coming off entry levels..schoen, Olivera and Oullette(Who also didn't sign til free agency window) These contracts present a big problem to the salary cap meaning if they sign you have to cut elsewhere ad until they sign you are hamstrung..
A second issue is the uncertainty in the market this year as to what is market value. If we had signed shoen early it would have had to be for close to 275k , it wasn't til he found out that teams were no longer paying that premium for receivers that he came down to 230k.
One way to get more certainty of what you can afford is to sign players to longer contracts. It feels like we do more 1 year terms than most, meaning more players to negotiate with and more uncertainty.

[ichabod_crane]

As much as we want to win it all every year, I think in the back of Walters mind is next season with the home Grey Cup. Season some younger guys this year while still remaining competitive, but going for it whole hog next season. Even go over the cap by $100,000 to win that home Grey Cup if you must as you only pay a $1 to $1 fine for that. Over that and you lose draft picks + the fine. I believe that is what the Riders did in 2013 with their Grey Cup in Regina. Sask pushed all their chips in that year (when they were still getting full houses) and with the Bombers hauling in BIG moolah lately they could afford it. I have no qualms about doing this as the old Eskimos had the biggest payroll in the 70's and 80's BEFORE the cap era. They bought many of their championships back then as they had regular high attendance in those days as well. Even gigantic Commonwealth stadium had many sellouts unlike lately when it seems like a ghost town! Money talks, B.S. walks a fan once told me at the old Ottawa Landsdowne park when those RoughRiders (maybe owned by the farcical Glieb's at that time) were being blown out by the Flutie led Stamps!

[Jesse]

Biggie gets it as Biggie will be in this same boat before long.

This was a weird year with our top $$ FA questions unanswered for an extra couple of weeks.  Biggie hints that this may have caused the comms trouble.  Maybe.

My question is: so how did we handle top-10 player shedding in the past?  Is this normal for KW?  Or is this year really out of the ordinary?  Who are the departing stars in previous years, and did they get better comms?  No?  Then this is normal and just the way KW does it, for whatever reason.

We all know the famous AH debacle, but how about non-AH players?

I'm sure there are very good reasons for the way KW handles it other than "I'm a mean guy".  You could also try to compare to how other teams handle things...

This isn't a Walters thing, it was a Brady and Dalton thing. They took negotiations into FA and made it impossible to complete other moves.