Bratton & Estelle signed?

Alouettes de Montréal
1

I don't understand Herb's blog. He says that Brian Bratton and Mark Estelle agreed to deals with the Als, then goes on to say they are eligible for Free Agency? Can someone fill me in, is there something I'm not understanding? If you signed a contract with a team, you are still eligible for the market?

2
http://www.rds.ca/alouettes/chroniques/269225.html

You are wondering the same thing as me. RDS says they are signed than goes on to say that there signing isnt for sure yet?

3

They’ve agreed to contracts but till the paperwork is returned, Als ususaly leave it at “agreed” This being the weekend…Herb talked to Sheean, Bratton and Estelle and they all confirmed the deals.

4

On a side note…that article says they released Dave Stala

5

So far only Estelle has been confirmed.

6

Glad to see Estelle back in the fold. Bratton I'm indifferent to one way or another. If he signs, fine, if not, no great loss.

Question now is, what are we going to do about MLB? Are we going to bring in competition to compete for the job, or is it going to be Hunt or Taylor again?

7

Mo Lloyd is the only quality MLB out there…and my guess is we have no shot at him, I’m sure BC and Edmonton would out-bid us for his services.

8

I wonder if working some 3-4 fronts into our playbook would be beneficial. Not on every down or in every situation, but we should be looking for ways to maximize the effectiveness of our linebackers (Ferri, Hill, Hunt, Taylor).

9

I'm not sure Burke will go to a 3-4 D...

In 2007, when Burke replaced Denny Creehan in Calgary with 5 regular season games left, he basically revamp the whole D to a 4 front.

3-4 in MTL could it work ? As long as we don't get beat on 2nd & long like last season...I'll be happy !

10

Which is stupid if you have the personnel to run a 3-4 front in certain situations, and only convinces me that Burke is not a particularly bright defensive mind.

3-4 in MTL could it work ? As long as we don't get beat on 2nd & long like last season...I'll be happy !
Second and long is precisely when a 3-4 would be useful, because you get that extra linebacker as a joker to mess up the Qb's pre-snap read. Even if we drop 8+ men into coverage, he won't necessarily know where the LB pressure is coming from if we do a good job of giving him different looks (maybe an outside LB pass rush sometimes, then an inside LB pass rush at other times; maybe we drop all four back or blitz all four).

Keep in mind that we wouldn’t be a 3-4 team all the time, we’d just run that front when the situation called for it. =