Banjo Bowl Pre-game.

[Jesse]

High of 15 for the game.

Wow, good bye summer, eh?

[TBURGESS]

I can see Skn being expected to win, especially if they get back some of their 5 or 6 players from injury.

[RebusRankin]

Ayers looked fairly solid on Sunday so he likely takes Woodby's reps.

On Shay, on the one hand he appears to be a bust but honestly given MOS's tendency not to play young guys until forced by injury (see Smith and Singer), he might be pretty good.

[CrazyCanuck89]

Yes, the bright side is kramdi being out for game 6 was more a sms thing than injury thing. He'll be desperately needed with woodbey season ended. He'll get SAM. Kelly will stay fs.

We've heard nothing of griffin in forever. I doubt we see him until playoffs, if at all. Same with Allen.

Who knows what's going on with moxey. But who knows who is less bad between moxey, Nichols and Texada. The main thing is people being healthy so we have options.

If ceresna is out, which is very possible, we'll be hard up for sure.

But losing pokey will hurt most as he command full respect from the d. I guess clercius will take his spot and singer stays in. I really doubt we start Frederic or whoever that pr guy is.

And yet we injured zero riders and they'll probably get a piece or 2 back and be stronger. If we're gonna lose the ldc we should at least be taking out as many riders as they are Bombers.

The way Smith is playing, he stays at SAM and Kramdi goes back to free safety.

[CrazyCanuck89]

I did find it weird last game that Smith, Holm and Vaval were playing on the boundary/shortside/weakside.  Jones, Nicols and Williams were on the fieldside/ wideside/strongside.

[Tecno]

Ayers looked fairly solid on Sunday so he likely takes Woodby's reps.

Ayers spelling at SAM?  Out of Kramdi/Smith/Woodbey, Ayers is by far the slowest.  Not sure he's any use at SAM on potential passing downs -- which for SSK is all downs.

However, SSK rarely throws deep so in that sense maybe Ayers can blow up a REC as he's catching it rather than playing chase mode.

The problem is SSK has perfected the short-pass in zone in-stride with a quick turn up-field.  It gives defenders along that same plane almost no time to make a move, and then they are all in chase mode.

It's really funny that SSK really has like 3-4 short passes they have perfected more than I've ever seen any team, and they just hammer you with them all game.  To be a star REC in SSK you just need to master these few timing routes and in-stride catches, and all Trevor has to do to look good is pick the one that is worst defended.

It equally strikes me as odd that D's (like ours) haven't equally planned & perfected defense against these 3-4 plays.  What I would really like to see is 1-2 flat-roving guys who are tasked with guessing a REC and running the opposite way to blow them up when they catch.  Like we saw Pickett do in the other LD game.  Doesn't matter if we guess wrong most of the time, because when we guess right we'll have Jones or Smith destroying Busby or K.Johnson and knocking them out of the game -- like they did to our guys.

And the instant you get those short crossers/slants second guessing who is about to hit them, you'll start getting dropsies and t.rex arms.

[Tecno]

Surprised to see Vegas have SSK as the favourite by 1.5.

The roughriders won that game in part because it was in regina.

But they knocked 2-4 of our starters (well, and Woodbey who is important right now) out of the game.

If we could barely keep up in the LDC with all those guys healthy, how are we going to do with no Pokey, no Woodbey, no Ceresna, maybe no Vaval.  That means Corcoran will be dressed, and what, Schmeck, as full time DT?  Does that make us stronger?

On the bright side, maybe we get Kramdi back.  I really want to see the difference on our D with Kramdi out there making sure we make less mental mistakes.

[Tecno]

An example was his forced fumble on Mimbs ( IIRC ). Great that it caused a turnover. Bad that it appeared that was his man and the tackle made 8 - 10 yards downfield.

Obviously it's not certain it was his primary responsibility rather than a scheme issue failure that he had to adjust accordingly.

Jones should not ever be left alone on a REC.  If he was then that's 100% a failure of scheme, or a player brain toot.  It's the exact same thing with Kelly.  In no world should he be one-on-one with someone.  Ever.

When I do my rewatch I'll figure out for you who blew the Mimbs play.

[Tecno]

Thanks Jones has been great all year, some don't give him enough credit for the season he is having.

Jones is simply incredible and our D would be 10X worse without him.  If you watch how we use Jones, it's not just as a rover, but as contain, spy, pass-rush, etc.

How we use him in pass-rush is particularly interesting, and I'm not sure I've ever seen a team do it to this level.  He's often the 4th guy in 3-man pass rush.  But he'll come up late and then rush, or sometimes show rush at the line and drop back.  He's basically as effective as a DE now, and teams have no idea what he'll do.  And he's probably the best at OL-shedding so he can get after the QB on the edge, especially if they roll out.

And he's fast enough to track down every QB (see Alexander!), and the best tackler on the team so he rarely misses.  For physical talent I'd say he's better than Biggie ever was -- but still no one can hold a candle to Biggie's brainpower.

[Tecno]

Good LB's are out their waiting for opportunities, "how soon we forget", final TC cuts Micah Cretsinger and Ja'Kobe Clinton

I can't remember what position Clinton was trying for.  MLB?  He seemed to have enough speed to be a Griffin-like SAM possibly?  Or WILL because he seemed stout?

If Woodbey is season-ended, why not give him a call?

[Tecno]

I had high hopes for Woodbey but now feel he's been average at best. I'm not sure if he has a higher ceiling or not.

I don't know... how long does it take a Woodbey-type SAM/WILL hybrid to reach their full potential?  AFAIK Woodbey only got a couple of dresses last year, and only started being an every-game guy this year.

How long did it take our other great guys like this to turn into all-stars?

It's a bit more confusing as I'm still not sure what we're pegging Woodbey as -- SAM or WILL.  He's been charted at both, though in-game I think it sometimes changes.

[Throw Long Bannatyne]

I did find it weird last game that Smith, Holm and Vaval were playing on the boundary/shortside/weakside.  Jones, Nicols and Williams were on the fieldside/ wideside/strongside.

Trevor Harris mentioned in his postgame comments he noticed the Bombers were keying on WR KeeSean Johnson, I guess what this means is Holm and Vaval were switching sides to follow him.

I recall one earlier game the Bombers switched over to cover a team's best receiver, the memory is triggered by Holm missing tackles along his opposite sideline where he seldom roams. All done to help out Nichols I guess.

[Tecno]

Trevor Harris mentioned in his postgame comments he noticed the Bombers were keying on WR KeeSean Johnson, I guess what this means is Holm and Vaval were switching sides to follow him.

I recall one earlier game the Bombers switched over to cover a team's best receiver, the memory is triggered by Holm missing tackles along the his opposite sideline where he seldom roams. All done to help out Nichols I guess.

If so, that's the smart play.  And it worked.  We full neutered K.Johnson to the point of irrelevance.  However, that's what allowed Meh Busby and The D.wiebe to get explosions.  But always better to take yer chances with the meh NATs than the superstar IMP.

[Throw Long Bannatyne]

Ayers spelling at SAM?  Out of Kramdi/Smith/Woodbey, Ayers is by far the slowest.  Not sure he's any use at SAM on potential passing downs -- which for SSK is all downs.

However, SSK rarely throws deep so in that sense maybe Ayers can blow up a REC as he's catching it rather than playing chase mode.

The problem is SSK has perfected the short-pass in zone in-stride with a quick turn up-field.  It gives defenders along that same plane almost no time to make a move, and then they are all in chase mode.

It's really funny that SSK really has like 3-4 short passes they have perfected more than I've ever seen any team, and they just hammer you with them all game.  To be a star REC in SSK you just need to master these few timing routes and in-stride catches, and all Trevor has to do to look good is pick the one that is worst defended.

It equally strikes me as odd that D's (like ours) haven't equally planned & perfected defense against these 3-4 plays.  What I would really like to see is 1-2 flat-roving guys who are tasked with guessing a REC and running the opposite way to blow them up when they catch.  Like we saw Pickett do in the other LD game.  Doesn't matter if we guess wrong most of the time, because when we guess right we'll have Jones or Smith destroying Busby or K.Johnson and knocking them out of the game -- like they did to our guys.

And the instant you get those short crossers/slants second guessing who is about to hit them, you'll start getting dropsies and t.rex arms.

The SAM has to sometimes cover receivers, can't see Woodbey filling that role, he's behind Griffin, Smith and even Kramdi, his best hope is a spot at MLB or WIL where he's competing against Jones, Kyrie, Ayers and Smith, I think the odds are against him.

[Throw Long Bannatyne]

I can't remember what position Clinton was trying for.  MLB?  He seemed to have enough speed to be a Griffin-like SAM possibly?  Or WILL because he seemed stout?

If Woodbey is season-ended, why not give him a call?

Pretty sure Clinton is one of the players that turned down a PR spot, but I bet he's not fully occupied in his current job, so worth a call. I believe he spent most of the pre-season playing MLB, key factor, he was a playmaker.