Medium term changes

[dd]

As much as we need to move on from the old guard, this is not in MOS DNA. He's loyal to a fault. We should have moved on from bighill last year when he was hurt and Sankey was available, but no, we chose to stay with an old dog, watch him limp through the playoffs and season and cost us a grey cup.

I don't think the 'mafia' has it in them to replace old vets. It will be up to the old vets to decide to retire before we move on and that's going to drive this team into a downward spiral, which if you haven't noticed, we are already in it.

[Blue In BC]

Collaros has some guaranteed money for 2025. That's a problem. No way I'd believe Streveler is a better option and he's on a 1 year deal IIRC.  Not much we can do about this at the moment.

At what point does MOS look to make other changes on the roster: Alexander, Bighill for example. We aren't far away from vet guaranteed dates. We don't necessarily need to cut them outright but we could rotate in others more often.

If the back ups aren't any good, then what is the succession plan?

[dd]

Collaros has some guaranteed money for 2025. That's a problem. No way I'd believe Streveler is a better option and he's on a 1 year deal IIRC.

C mon now, let's all be serious here for a second. Streveler is NOT a better option, not even close. His style of play is not sustainable, and even if it was, his passing game isn't adequate at the pro level. He's a short yardage running Qb, that's it. We had our Qb of the future and let him go. Guaranteed if we had Brown under centre, our offense is running a whole lot smoother. Think back to the Edmonton game last year that Collaros had us down 22-0 and brown came in and won the game for us. If that wasn't the cold hard slap in the face we needed to wake up, nothing is.

When Kelly comes back from his time out, Toronto will have arguably 2 QBs worthy of starting and only 1 football. Not sure of dukes contract status but I d be taking a run at getting him here next year.

[BomberFan73]

The question is... Is Stev better than Collaros right now? I'd say yes.

Is Streveler a top QB? Nope. Does he have some upside? Yup. Would giving him 8 games this season make him more ready to take over the team next year? Maybe. Would giving Collaros those 8 games make him any better? Not likely.

I think the answer is if we roll with just one, we'll likely not make PO's.  We signed Strev to be that which Zach is not, and we need to use him more 100%. I don't get why we don't put him in more often on 2nd & short, and why we don't occasionally keep him in for that 1st down play in hurryup.
Also why aren't we doing more with them both on the field?  If we're keeping that ace in our pocket, we might play it too late.

[CrazyCanuck89]

I Am not sure many of the old "timers"  will be jettisoned until AFTER next season unless they truly want to retire or are so injured they can't play anymore. The HOME GREY CUP in 2025 is what I said they were truly gearing up for this season in the PRE-SEASON already. Not to write this year off that early, but next year is the golden nugget if you ask me. That is when the Bombers can pocket a nice stability fund hopefully. This season's first priority was setting up for next season I think in the bowels of PAS!

If you are playing 10 Canadian starters and you can't find at least ONE BIG BULL DL guy, something seems off with that. There is little pressure up the middle on QB's and the run stopping game is not the best either. There was that 6'9" monster that Toronto let go....he would have fit the bill probably beyond a Stove even! They have flexibility, WHY NOT USE IT? Loyalty is nice, but it does not bring wins always and pro sports is ALL about winning in the end mostly. Having a long run is great for the players I am sure being together for this 4-5+ year run, but that is not the norm. 

You guys have good Canadian Dlinemen, the problem is Lawson I'd injured and Smeckel isn't getting reps.  Plus Hubert at DE is the steal of the draft.

[theaardvark]

Biggie does more than tackle, but he still tackles.  Is he 2019 Biggie?  Nope, not statistically.  But he may actually be better as a play caller today than then.  Is it time to platoon him?  Yes.  Is it time to move on?  No.

We have a group of receivers that, when healthy, could be the best in the league.  We have an oline that is just getting in sync and will be better, and some good ones in the pipeline. 

You can't be the top of the league every year, $SMS and injuries prevent you from stacking a team and having reserves that are all veteran and ready to step in.  So its draft/recruit and develop, and over the years we have been top of the league in that capacity, and end up feeding other teams our vets in FA. 

O'Shea has a reputation for sticking with his guys, and that has as much positive as it has negative.  You get more long term out of a player you support than one who knows the team can cut you after a bad game.  I'm not saying ti is as black and white as that, but there is a dark grey side and a light grey side.  Walters, the scouts and MOS all need to work on quality and continuity with the team.  This is a challenging moment, injuries, rookies, new DC, struggling QB all add to the issues.  But this management group hs shown they can find the way in the past, and there is no reason to think they cannot do so again.

[TBURGESS]

We've won 2 games. One with Streveler when we took out Ottawa's starting QB in the first half. One with Collaros when we played our best game of the season and beat Calgary by 4.

What we are doing at QB is obviously not working, yet folks want to continue with Collaros anyway. Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome is insanity. 

[Throw Long Bannatyne]

I think the answer is if we roll with just one, we'll likely not make PO's.  We signed Strev to be that which Zach is not, and we need to use him more 100%. I don't get why we don't put him in more often on 2nd & short, and why we don't occasionally keep him in for that 1st down play in hurryup.
Also why aren't we doing more with them both on the field?  If we're keeping that ace in our pocket, we might play it too late.

I don't see Strev. as Zach's future replacement but it's super disappointing how little they've used him this season, remembering back to 2019 it seemed he was involved in the offence a lot more and even had his own packages.  When they re-signed him this past spring for very little money I would have thought it would have been with the promise to give him an opportunity to play more than 3rd down short yardage. 

[theaardvark]

In 2019 with Lapo, Streveler had packages that extended after the SY plays to take advantage of tempo and the D having their jumbo package on.  Streve makes the first down, and then they go right to the line, play precalled, and boom, effective play against a D that is not ready for it.

Having CS17 come in for a play and then exit gives the D time to recover change personnel, and prepare for the next set of downs.

Buck needs to go back to the 2019 playbook now that he has the 2019 QB corps back.

[Blueforlife]

Hard no replacing Schoen or Lawler imo

Schoen will be tooooslow if he steps onto a field again.
Lawler, also too old, and for me as a tax payer too expensive for four games a year.
These guys have little of no tread on their tires.

An era of change has started

Disagree all but change is coming, Schoen will be fine and Lawler is great when healthy.

Trouble in Bomberland but let's not get carried away

[Jesse]

We've won 2 games. One with Streveler when we took out Ottawa's starting QB in the first half. One with Collaros when we played our best game of the season and beat Calgary by 4.

What we are doing at QB is obviously not working, yet folks want to continue with Collaros anyway. Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome is insanity.

You can say that exact same thing about rolling Strev out there and expecting him to be a different QB than he's always been.

[TBURGESS]

You can say that exact same thing about rolling Strev out there and expecting him to be a different QB than he's always been.

That's a fair point, but I'll still go with the hope that Strev could get better over the hope that Collaros will. 

[Blueforlife]

We live or die on Zach's success which will rely on BO and the health of our receivers and play of our O line.  8-10 is my bet.  Would be 5-13 with Strev imo.

[Throw Long Bannatyne]

That's a fair point, but I'll still go with the hope that Strev could get better over the hope that Collaros will.

Zach looked pretty good last weekend against CGY, which is the most bewildering thing.  It seems to me his inconsistency could be mental health related, but the examination of a QB's mental fitness is not something that is likely to be evaluated anytime soon so there's no way to know if it's an issue.

[dd]

I said after Lawler's injury we d be lucky to be 3-3 without Kenny and here we are 2-5, after being fleeced by the refs in Regina. So ya, we re going to struggle without Kenny and we are. We need him back ASAP to make a run at the third playoff spot.

Calgary collapsing in Montreal 2 weeks ago was huge for us, they have 2 games in hand but will lose to B.C. tonight so really only 1 game on us.

We need to go .500 the remaining games as finish no less than 8-13 to have an outside shot at a playoff spot, anything less and we re on the sidelines come playoff time