CFL Free Agency 2012 - Winners and Losers

and Toronto also lost Shell, Parker, Eiben. . .

Haha, forgive me, I take back what I said. I just saw the topic saying 2012 - Winners and Losers and just assumed we were talking about our predictions for the upcoming season.

Well, in that case, I suppose Hamilton is certainly a candidate for the biggest winner, but I don’t count Toronto out either. Maybe I’m just overestimating Jason Barnes, but I consider him and Ricky Ray as a better deal than Burris and Andy Fantuz. This is, of course, nothing but my opinion, but I’d put TO and Hamilton side by side as duel-winners.

Montreal, on the other hand, did the best as far as retaining players in free agency is concerned. Some great signings on defense as well. But that probably doesn’t put them near TO or Hamilton in terms of FA signings.

What's the point of assessing winners and losers based only on free agency? That's retarded. You don't measure a team's improvement in isolation, or only based on one phase of team-building. You measure its progress by assessing all transactions against the current state of its roster. So, trades, FA signings, departures, new coaches, etc.

The spirit of this thread is a spot judgement on free agency and perhaps the season’s potential but not for sake of who is going to win the Grey Cup and so forth. Let’s not mix that up as apparently more than a few have done.

What I am reading too much from some folks all over the place on the forum is either revisionist views/sour grapes on any given player, i.e. some combination of “well he’s not worth THAT much,” “well he’s not really that a good player anyway,” “they did not lose that much and the new guy is almost as good anyway,” and other mindless rants, parroting, and cliche’s after perhaps too much of the local flavour of homer media Kool-Aid.

Man up, as for the most part either a team did well or it did not do well though of course there is no need to jump to conclusions about the playoffs with training camp and a long season ahead.

I’ll just call it for my Eskies that they did not do too well and lost more than they gained.

Other Eskie fans will disagree but often that is just an attempt to overload some sour grapes with sugary local Kool-Aid.

I don’t see many but a few other Kool-Aid drinkers claiming other than that Winnipeg, Saskatchewan, and Calgary also did not do very well.

Everyone else seems to have come out ahead.

Some offer excellent commentary about how any given team did in free agency, but to me much of it is drivel with Hamilton the far and away winner as surprised anyone honest about expectations before free agency began.

You can lock the thread on that count for Hamilton Chief et al. :lol:

Oh I would not say they did well offensively and came out behind overall on both sides of the ball. Re-building year is what I see.

Always trade a doubt for a certainty. Given the results at hand overall, they should have found a way to keep Ray.

Most of us knew and posted when that trade happened that it was bad news, and here we are now.

Okay, grow up. The use of the word “retarded” is offensive on many levels. Suely u can come up with something more suitable.

Second, the thread is perfectly valid. If u find it ridiculous then don’t read the thread. Various people have posted that true winner will be the team that wins the GC. Fine. Thread is still valid. It concentrates on FA, period.

It’s the off-season. Expect a lot of these topics. We need something to fill the void until June. As long as it isn’t expansion or ridiculous rule changes or complaining about the Toronto media… :lol:

BC Won Resigned AB3 signed Byron Parker Kept 90% of Grey cup Team togther.

Okay, I’ll use the word ‘ridiculous’ instead, since you used it. And I still see nothing to vindicate the thread. It’d be more suitable to have a “Offseason - Winners and Losers” thread, so we could assess the entirety of a team’s progression since the previous season. But free agency? Just add up who spent the most on the biggest names, I guess – do we even know what the criteria is?