I think we were all speculating that Arbuckle was going somewhere other than Calgary for a shot at being a starter. Does the trading of rights allow Ottawa to openly court and hopefully sign him prior to the FA timeframes without being in violation of tampering rules? No guarantees obviously.
Ottawa clearly made this trade because they thought if they didn’t make a move sooner rather than later, Dinwiddie in Toronto would pursue Arbuckle.
In my view, Arbuckle is a decent young QB, but not a game changer. I’m pretty sure the Ticats beat the Stamps twice last year when Arbuckle started for Calgary (which is a much better team than Ottawa).
This Arbuckle move is one of many to come for the Redblacks, IMO. LaPolice obviously believes that Arbuckle is good enough/coachable enough to plug into his Grey Cup winning, ball control, run heavy offence (a la Collaros last year). Next step: look for Ottawa to sign the best available O-Linemen and running backs in free agency to bring that master plan to fruition. Desjardins will be opening the wallet, big time, to get RedBlacks fans excited again (last year the boo birds had season’s seats at TD stadium).
Intriguing that LaPolice has targeted Arbuckle, and not Collaros, Nichols or Streveler, players who just helped LaPolice’s former team win a championship.
Good first step for Ottawa. They should have the money to sign him. If negotiations don’t go well they could always trade his rights to the Argos, I’m sure that would make Dinwiddie’s day lol.
Assuming Arbuckle signs in Ottawa, Marcel will drop Jennings and then go shop for some receivers.
You maybe could build a team around Nichols, possibly Collaros although I see him now as more of a “game manager? than a “game changer?, but I personally don’t see Streveler as a foundation block, if indeed first choice anywhere as a front-line starter.
I see Arbuckle as the future for the RBs, 2020 being his final development year for a 2021 breakout?
This move reminds me of when Austin brought in Collaros as the future Ti-Cat QB. Collaros filled in for an injured Ray and showed enough upside that Austin wanted him as the next franchise QB. Similarly LaPolice and crew have seen enough of Arbuckle to give him a chance.
With Masoli and possibly Arbuckle now off the table it will be interesting to see if Pinball has anything up his sleeve. If not then the Argos are in for another long season.
I don’t really see any free agent Qb out there that would be a game changer for the Argos at this point. Think they would be better off resigning Bethel-Thompson and developing a young guy (Prukop/ O’Connor) and put some money into signing guys on defence for this year at least. If they can attract a good coordinator like Claybrooks
the defence might be able to carry them.
Will be interesting to see how many top F/A’s will want to sign in OTT
after the way Desjardins had his H/C stating he cannot continue to work with him
and last season his QB not happy with the way Desjardins treated him over a contract dispute
and top REC Ellingson and top OL SirVincent Rogers all bailed out to EDM on him.
I would be surprised if Arbuckle signed in OTT before he becomes a Free Agent
I still think he signs with Dinwiddie in TOR because of the new F/A rules
At this point … that may be true. Prior to OTT acquiring the rights to Arbuckle, TOR had the option of acquiring the rights to Arbuckle themselves, but they did not. It had seemed like a logical turn of events for the QB to follow his coach to TOR.
Could still happen, but now Arbuckle is taking a risk if he chooses not to sign with OTT. If he shuns OTT and they go in a different direction, he has no guarantee that his offer from TOR (if he gets one at all) would be better.
Pinball could be seen as a ditherer based on letting this one slip past him, and after taking so long to make his head coaching decision.
Now TOR may be stuck with their own stable of QBs plus whichever one(s) WPG rejects.