Is it time to trade Fantuz?

Trade him to Ottawa for Matt Carter.

I said this to numerous people in the Tiger Town bar in Vancouver during Grey Cup week. We need to trade Fantuz while we can still get something for him. BUT!!! That was before we re-signed Banks when I thought that would be a way to free up the money to pay Banks enough to keep him. Just another reason why I am not the GM.

A few thoughts...

Fantuz has been very good, works hard, very competitive, has had a few injury issues, hard to say if those will continue or were an aberration.

It's a business, no one is indispensable.

Better to trade a player too early (you have to give value to receive it) than too late (when you will get little in return).

What's best for the team is always a complex equation, with intangibles being significant factors along with objective performance stats.

I like our players and hope we can keep many of them.

I trust Kent Austin to make good decisions about the team and its future.

All very good points…Cheers

I agree with the place DCF is coming from.
I don't want Fantuz gone now, but looking at the past and how he has been unable to stay healthy, why couldn't we go into next year with Fantuz/Giguere/Watt/Tasker/Banks as our WRs? In 2 years when Fantuz is done we're gonna wish we had a guy like Giguere in the slot. We already have/had his AF's replacement so why not go in that direction?

I was skeptical of the Burris for Collaros move but I knew in the long run it would work out. If Giguere was given a realistic shot to be a featured slot in this league I feel he would do quite well.

Speaking as an outsider, I think Fantuz is one of the best, if not the best in the league, at reading blitz hot and finding the soft spot in the zone for a hot read. That is no small ability, and not easily replaceable even if the replacement receiver is as or more talented in other ways. As for Giguere, what I've seen of him makes me skeptical that he has the necessary elements to be an effective CFL slotback. He's not physically tough enough to fight through jams and consistently make contested catches in traffic, nor is he effective at running a variety of routes with success -- his bread and butter seem to be go routes deep or bang routes where he turns and sits on a pass thrown right into his numbers. A slotback needs to be able to get over on ins (intermediate or deep), crosses (all zones), and slants/sluggos if he wants to succeed, because he'll be facing aggressive jams at the line plus the possibility of over-under coverage help from the enemy safety. Is Giguere that guy? At almost 30, he hasn't, to me, shown evidence of it.

Giguere did pretty well when in for Fantuz, But Giguere is not near the player that Fantuz is,
Fantuz is elite, Giguere thinks he is, but he is not even remotely close to Fantuz
To trade Fantuz to sign Giguere to nearly the same money, would have hurt the team
If we re-sign Fantuz after next season to a reduced contract, it would open some cap for another player

Giguere is looking for his home run contract, he will not get it, OTT passed on him in favour of Sinopoli
MTL will offer less than $100k, they have little cap left, He is now caught up in a #'s game, most teams have spent most of their Cap and free agents still available are

Hickman, Giguere, Sears, Glenn, Grigsby, LeFevour, Barnes, Grant, Marsh, Kelly, Lewis among many others

Respectfully Grover - this is what bothers the heck out of me. To the OP’s point, Sam gets a reputation based on what? The fact that the media and others on the forum had high hopes for him? Because he had NFL aspirations? What did he do to be so disrespected by the fanbase?

Nobody knows what Giguere THINKS he is, and nobody knows what he wants from his contract. We don’t know what was offered to him and more importantly what role within a team’s offense he was given. he’s never tweeted anything disrespectful or cocky, never mouthed off to the media, never said a word about anything to be honest and everybody is so happy to ship this guy out like a bad apple. Hes a Canadian receiver with a skill set, he’s been given very little chance actually in the spotlight to prove anything and everybody is so down on him.

If you want to question his ability that’s one thing, but the countless comments about his attitude, work ethic, and now what he thinks… is truly unbelievable for a guy that hasn’t done anything to anybody.

X2!!!

To be clear here IMHO, this is not a situation that is Chris Bauman Lines Up In The Slot As The Invisible Man 2.0. Giguere has produced far more on the field than Bauman but had far more static from the fanbase for his delay in coming back to Canada from a NFL stint than anybody I can remember. From where I am writing this (Montreal), there has always been more of a pressing assumption that the Als and Sam have been having this googly-eyed yearning one another from afar than I have ever sense actually listening to the football media here. I can understand if he has the opportunity to play closer to his roots he might take that up…but that goes for most Canadian-based players in the league (see Fantuz, A.). Yet I get this sense that because of those two things at play, many folks have never given Sam a straight-up perspective that they welcome him in Hamilton and would watch the results with interest.

Playing wide-side receiver is not an immediate recipe for putting up huge numbers in the Canadian game. Anyone who has watched the development of Henry Burris’s game over the last six or seven years can observe that his propensity is to underutilize the X receiver far more than any cannon-armed QB would do normally. So it’s not even being left out on an island, you’re basically on an ice floe. When Giguere got more opportunities to play in the slot last year with Fantuz’s injury problems, we saw his in-game production spike quite a bit. For me, the X receiver’s primary role is to be a consistent deep threat that keeps the free safety basically in the middle of the field and keeps him from “cheating” up to the line or favouring the short side of the field, where QBs tend to want to put the ball in the air anyway. Sam has the speed and hands to provide that.

To summarize:
Is it time to trade Fantuz? No.
Is it time to run Sam Giguere out of town? No way. Best wishes to him whatever he decides in this FA period.

Oski Wee Wee,

Russ

Take this anyway you like, but after watching Giguere closely for the last three seasons, listed below are a few one word thoughts that I think apply to Mr. Giguere. And just for the record I saw Sam do some great things with this club...then again I also saw him at times look like he would prefer to be anywhere but on a football field at other times. I understand that there are people that are in his camp and others who are not, then there are others like me who could care less if the team lets him go or keeps him. The way some are talking in here you'd think it's like going back to the 70's when we let a guy named Gabriel get away
and believe me well Sammy is decent enough IMO he's gotten as good as he's going to get and is never going to come close to ever being the second coming of Gabriel or DiPietro or Morreale or even Grigg and certainly will never be close to a Fantuz when talking about great Canadian Receivers in Ti-Cat history.

My top #10 list of one word adjectives to describe Sam Giguere
#1.....Overrated
#2.....Inconsistent
#3.....Soft
#4.....Mediocre
#5.....Indifferent
#6.....Serviceable
#7.....Peaked
#8.....Overpaid
#9.....Replaceable
#10...Gone

I fully agree IMO he was the most over hyped Cat since Casey Printers :cowboy:

How is it Giguere's fault that certain Cats fans massively overhyped him?

In the case of Fantuz, I think it's a situation where one has to see where the club is in relation to its competitors and changing the reflexes that one could expect a 4-14 type team re roster makeovers and that of a back-to-back Grey Cup finalist. As others have pointed out, any trade offer would have to wow me -- and even more so for the guy who is paid to do this for a living, Kent Austin. Better is better of course, but you better keep your foundation better so your closest competitors for the title don't surpass you just by not resisting the urge to tinker the roster to the point where veteran leadership and cohesion are eroded.

The obvious challenge with Andy is to find a way to keep him on the field. His contribution in 2015 will be crucial if we see more integration of Banks and Sinkfield into the receiving corps because Andy could have a monster year as a possession receiver with all the chaos these two burners can add on a more regular basis into the passing mix. Luke Tasker is also primed for a huge year as well. Continuity is key.

Oski Wee Wee,

Russ

NO! NO NO NO NO. Don't even think of trading him.

Remember old age and treachery will overcome youth and exuberance.

Well, he’s on your team now, so the point is moot.

Yeah, I was out the whole day and just came back to this news. I certainly didn’t think it would happen. I sincerely hope we keep at him WR and don’t try slot. We have Green and Stamps inside, which should be fine.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that when Giguere finally signed on here three years ago that most Cat fans figured he would eventually wind up in Montreal at sometime. Myself personally I never saw Giguere as a long term Cat and always figured that at the first opportunity he would most likely sign on with the Alouettes. I believe you can call it fate ? destiny ? Whatever you choose the fact of the matter is that the Al’s and Giguere have finally found each other. I personally hope he does Okay for you guys…except when you play us of course :lol: I can see actually though where most Al fans are coming from with this signing after putting up with the human pylon DesLauriers for so long as your BEST :roll: Canadian receiver,signing a guy like Giguere must feel like the second coming of Cahoon in Montreal. :wink: :cowboy:

Yeah, exactly! :lol: You guys were not quite happy with his production, but we’d kill for that production from our wide-side national receiver position!