Seven Blue Bombers named to Divisional All-CFL Team

[ModAdmin]

Sure, "best in the West", take a gander over the garden wall, the 2 best teams in the CFL now reside in the East.

"Best in the West" is all I said. Never said the best in the CFL.

[TecnoGenius]

Except that it's not a "slight downgrade" and you can entertain whatever you like. I agree that without some change it doesn't seem logical that the starting five will improve next year just based on age and natural regression. I am already on record saying we will need to do something and I am absolutely sure we will.

Then we're in agreement.  I'm just trying to flesh out more of what many are thinking.  Especially after reading a bit of MBB lately and seeing the absolute "sky is falling" attitude over there.  (P.S. The truth is in the middle.)

However, what changes would you have made to the offensive line last off-season? Because that's where you would have had to do it. Would you have passed on Stanley Bryant? Matched the Riders offer on Hardrick? Moved on from Kolankowski or Neufeld? Who would you have got that was available instead? Not so easy.

I don't have all the solutions.  The only solution I offered during the season was start another 1 or 2 IMPs.  The line clearly was better when Randolph was OG (not OT!).  And that's shocking since MOS/others talk so much about "gel" and "you can't just plug & play midseason".  This solution also applies to this FA.  IMP OG's cost NOTHING compared to talented, limited and coveted NATs.  While we have the huge ratio advantage, use it on the OL.  Cheaper, better, plentiful: what's not to like?

You are totally correct and I totally agree: the previous off-season moves were limited, basically because we decided a long time ago we were a OL "seller" (good OL leave here) and we were only going to draft to replace them (never be a "buyer").  We also decided we weren't going to be a top-3 OL-spender.  We had a budget for the hoggies and come heck or high water we were going to stick to it.  (Kind of like our DL.)  Finally, we insisted on being a traditional 3-NAT OL even when we didn't need to be. 

The problem is our hopper was once full of promise: around the time Speller/Spooner were on the dev track we were at our "peak hopper".  All those years of sucky outcomes let us get 1-2 promising OL every draft, and we stockpiled them as others fled.  We didn't rush guys into starting without 1-2 full seasons of dev, unless they were clearly starter-ready (Chungh, Desjar) and/or we had injuries.

Right now our hopper is pretty dead.  Eli is never going to be other than a great 6th (sorry, as a big fan it's painful to say).  Wallace may be a future starter, but he's the least ready of them all right now.  Probably needs 2 full seasons of dev to see what we have (I'm not holding my breath).  And the hopper isn't going to get any better this off-season since we are going to win this cup and have bad drafting choices again.

Ko-man and Dobson may (probably!) not even be starters on the best OL teams (TOR, MTL for instance).  Arguably we can do better here too.  Pains me to say, also.  Neufeld may have gotten too old.  Lofton is barely hanging in there, and was a throwaway from SSK, where he wasn't lauded at all.

I'm sorry it sounds so dreary.  I really don't mean to come down on our OL, ModAdmin, I'm just finally being pragmatic.  I still think they can win it all, as we can compensate for a bottom-half OL, much like SSK compensates for theirs.

Optimistically, the hoggies can form a gestalt and overcome their individual weaker talent by becoming a cohesive unit that surpasses the sum of its parts.  We've seen glimpses of this: the 2nd half in the TOR game, etc.  If they have their best game with the best coaching with the best plan and a hot Zach then I firmly believe we can get to and win the cup with this group.  But it doesn't change the reality of anything I've laid out.

And if there's one thing the Bombers have nailed since 2019 it's a very good offensive line. I'm sure they're working on it and projecting out to this off-season already. If you think you've noticed a decline I am pretty certain they have too. Right?

100% spot on.  The whole league, including The Mafia, has seen our limitations.  I'm sure KW already is formulating a plan to address it in FA/DP.  In the meantime, teams' Ds are lovin' our no-longer-invincible OL and have plans to put Zach on his butt -- or worse.

What I'm most curious about, is who is the "worst", who needs to be demoted first?  Or is it more than just 1 guy?  We've cut or demoted underperforming OL before, back when we had a panoply of talent and too many bodies.  It's not mean or rude or harsh to say we may need to do it again.  It sucks, but that's the nature of the business.

[TecnoGenius]

KALRA, Ethan
Waterloo

MANU, Giovanni (currently Detroit Lions 3rd backup)
UBC

VLAHOGIANNIS, Michael
McGill

If some of these guys could materialize before week 1 2025, that would really help our hopper problem.  But we need help soon.  Can't wait until 2026.

[TecnoGenius]

"Best in the West" is all I said. Never said the best in the CFL.

Might be true.  BC's OL was looking pretty good to start the season.  EDM's was looking better than ours at times in mid/late season.  SSK's is ok, but riddled with injury, is vulnerable right now (hence Trevor always throwing it within 2s).

But compared to all the East teams, we may be the worst.  TOR/MTL are impenetrable unless you have a top DL.  HAM's was darn sharp when they started getting hot.  Even OTT's, though not great, was looking stout (with Desjar).

We're used to priding ourselves on having the league-best OL.  So many years we couldn't be touched.

Zach used to always praise the OL and note how clean they kept him in post-game pressers.  Ya, it's been a looooooong time since he did that!  He keeps his mouth shut about his OL most of the time now.  7 sacks in a critical game will do that to you.