Free Agency Countdown

[bluto]

@argofan87: as far as i know, yup.

@Zontar: amazing how that goes on the prairie, ain't it? every 2 or 3 years into their "Unfinished Business" they get a new initial to substitute into their I_WT acronym. but yeah, they have several high priced free agents and one high profile retiree which gives them lots of SMS room being held by the guy with the tightest purse strings in the league. here we are on January 27 and all 3 of their QBs remain unsigned as well as their best WR and NI O-Lineman... throw in a promising young NI DT who i thought was looked at as Doug Brown's replacement (or at least as much as you can try to replace a guy like that... i mean, look what JY said losing Belli did to our D) and Mack has a lot on his plate. (but yes, you can be assured that anyone who would ever ​leave Winnipeg is a mercenary jerk lol)
read this for the lolz: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/spo...137812613.html

[JY26]

@Area51-We ran our system one way under Chip Garber. Once Steinauer took over we ran it differently. There is a learning curve. It doesn't happen over the course of a game or 2. It takes time to perfect the system. It takes time to get used to playing next to new people. Also don't let the bitter taste of losing mislead you into thinking that we never had success running match coverage. If we ran it 30 snaps a game at the beginning of the season we were good on 20 of those snaps. We were trying to find a way week in and week out to perfect the system and eliminate those 10 bad plays. The bottom line is we weren't good ENOUGH at it.
i am going to give you some relative examples. Take the Philadelphia Eagles. They put together one of the most talented defences the NFL has seen in a while yet they struggled this year because they couldn't pick up the system quickly enough. You can't tell me that Asante Samuel and nnamdi asomugha aren't 2 of the best CBs in the league. Despite their PROVEN ability they struggled and looked bad at times because they didn't understand the strengths and weaknesses of the system they ran.
Take the Indianapolis Colts this season. Peyton Manning goes down and what was deemed one of the most aggressive and opportunistic Cover 2 defences in the NFL turned into one of the worst defences overnight. They Colts knew their defensive system very well and were one of the more veteran defences in the NFL. Take away their franchise qb and replace him with subpar qbs and you see what happened. They go from a 12 win team with a top 10 defence to a 2 win team with a bottom 10 defence.

In a perfect world i would love to play man to man every snap and be that aggressive but the rules in Canada are different from anywhere else. They give the receivers a head start on their way to the line of scrimmage. They make the defenders line up a yard off the ball. If 3 men bunch together and all disperse in different directions (a la Montreal, Sask, BC, Hamilton) and you are attempting to play man to man coverage it still turns into zone coverage because its not physically possible to chase them thru all of the traffic. There was not ONE good majority man-to-man defence in the league this year. You need to play some man-to-man defence in this league but you cant' live by it. You have to have some good zone schemes in order to change the look up for the QBs. AND you need an offence to balance out the flow of the game. Ask EVERY qb what style of defence they would prefer to play against and all of them will tell you man-to-man because the reads are the easiest. Ask any QB what defence they don't want to play against and they will say match coverage because it is so hard to read.
I completely understand why you are critical of how we played last season. I am even more critical of the way played. I am not trying to change your mind about how you viewed last season. I am trying to give you some insight into why we struggled. I am trying to get you to understand that we tried and we didn't get it done but its not because of physical ability. There were a lot of factors that contributed to us being unsuccessful. Your advice was to simplify what we were doing (dumb it down) but unfortunately if it is dumb to us it is also dumb to the team we are playing against.

[bluto]

so Free Agency's deadline just moved up 12 hours... not sure if i saw/heard a reason given, but it does seem to make more sense to have it happen at noon rather than midnight.

we still have some very important guys unsigned and not a peep out of our local journos who allegedly cover this beat... (in fact i'm going to fire off a complaint to the local sports section editors and would encourage you guys to do likewise... demanding the coverage and letting them know that it has an audience who is looking for it is the only way we'll get it)

Picard... Pottinger... Pile... Parker... i'd love to see a press conference very soon where the "4 P's" announce their new contracts...

Barks...?

[ArgoRavi]

I really believe that we have to be prepared to say goodbye to several of our free agents at this point. I still remember Byron Parker saying goodbye to us back in October so he must have known something that we will only find out about over the next week or two. Also, I think that at least one of Rob Murphy and Taylor Robertson will sign with Hamilton who have huge needs on their offensive line. The players who we have a better chance of re-signing IMO are Picard, Pottinger and Eiben (assuming that the coaching staff want either of the last two back) but fans should be prepared to say their goodbyes to several players including some very popular ones.

[ArgoGabe22]

The more BP tweets the more I think (hope not) he's leaving.

[KCargosfan]

The more BP tweets the more I think (hope not) he's leaving.

Agreed. You might as well throw a Lions jersey on him right now.

[Area 51]

WIth Stubler in as the new DC with the Lions and seeing how they jumped all over Shell, maybe BC will end up taking Pile & Parker...maybe even bringing back Pottinger to BC.

As for the idea of Murphy or Robertson signing in Hamilton, it's going to be interesting to see what happens with Jason Jiminez. I don't know about you, but I'd be happy to replace Murphy with Jiminez. I've always liked the toughness/agressiveness of Jiminez - - similar to what Belli used to bring to the team. Jiminez gets a bad rep as being a dirty player, but I think that's really been overblown.

[AngeloV]

WIth Stubler in as the new DC with the Lions and seeing how they jumped all over Shell, maybe BC will end up taking Pile & Parker...maybe even bringing back Pottinger to BC.

As for the idea of Murphy or Robertson signing in Hamilton, it's going to be interesting to see what happens with Jason Jiminez. I don't know about you, but I'd be happy to replace Murphy with Jiminez. I've always liked the toughness/agressiveness of Jiminez - - similar to what Belli used to bring to the team. Jiminez gets a bad rep as being a dirty player, but I think that's really been overblown.

No chance Jimenez comes here to replace Murphy. He has played RT his whole CFL career. I think he's highly overrated not to mention a dirty player. The last thing the Argos need is a cheap shot on Ricky Ray as retaliation of a cheap shot by their OT.

[argolio]

I'd want nothing to do with Jimenez. Even without his deserved rep as a cheap-shot artist, I think he's no better than average.

[bluto]

37 minutes to go...

[1argoholic]

Signing a backup qb will be very important. With Ray most likely playing infront of a whole new O line he may get killed.

[ArgoRavi]

Signing a backup qb will be very important. With Ray most likely playing infront of a whole new O line he may get killed.

I wouldn't say that this is a whole new o-line. The only guy missing from the second half of last season would be Picard. I am excited about the o-line that the Argos have as they have some promising, young linemen in Eppele and Coughman who did not look out of place at all in the final half of last season.

[bluto]

i'd take Jarious at a good (read: low) price. i'm more concerned at this point about defence.

i think we have enough, quality bodies to have a good O-Line again. i think that Ray + Barnes, Mann and the rest will be good through the air and Boyd could be in for a career year under Milanovich.

it looks like the plan to get younger and cheaper is focusing on the defence... so those 10 free agent camps and Barker's tour of NFL camps hopefully will uncover the next influx of talent for us... because we are losing several mainstays here and need to reload.

[bluto]

Stamps ? When did we get him ?

lol, my bad. obviously meant Barnes. corrected.

[bluto]

and... it's after 12...

do we still have a defence?

[bluto]

Eskimos sign Greg Carr... and a RB as yet unnamed (doesn't really narrow it down... Cobourne, Cates etc...)

[bluto]

turns out an Eskie fan trolled everyone by posting about Greg Carr and a RB... and it got re-tweeted by pretty much the whole country...

i guess we walked right into that one. i hope his fellow Eskie fans hold him down and give him wedgies and pink-bellys for getting their hopes up.

i love this day already.

[R.J]

I guess technically this would be the first signing.

TSNDaveNaylor David William Naylor
OL Glenn January's re-signing with Winnipeg, reported as close yesterday, is apparently done.

IMWT

[bluto]

I guess technically this would be the first signing.
IMWT

love it

[bluto]

Some more rumors Oramasionwu is another guy I wouldn't mind seeing in an Argos uni, might be too expensive though.

since he's born, raised and schooled in Winnipeg... and the Bombers have little ratio flexibility, i wonder why they'd let him go? either they're sure that Muamba is their MLB next season... or Donny O isn't up to par (in their eyes)?