Josh Bartel

I saw him kick a few times yesterday and I wasn't that impressed... I didn't think he was bad at all but reading some of these reviews I was expecting a lot more.

I'll guarantee you one thing, Luca Congi will be doing both punting and placekicking when all is said and done.

After the league's first 3 pre-season games, Bartel's 45.7 avg. vs. TOR is second only to a 50.8 avg. in the WPG/MTL game.
That was Eric Wilbur who was also 2/2 on FG's.

pongetti wrote:

            " Bartel is coming over from Australia so placekicking is a skill that will be completely foreign to him."

 If Bartel has ever played rugby (the national sport of Oz along with cricket) and was a kicker...I'd say we have a real winner on our hands.

Rugby placekickers have to be much more accurate and versatile than CFL/NFL placekickers. There are no hash marks so they have to kick from wherever the ball was ruled dead. Many times that is close to the sidelines so they have to be able to split the uprights by kicking from a very narrow angle when they are down close to the goal line.
Whatever his career plan is re the CFL or NFL I wish him luck. That’s quite a chunk he has bitten off…moving halfway around the world to take his chances in the CFL where the whole game is completely foreign to him.

Oh well, cancel my guarantee. The 'Cats seem hellbent on having Bartel as the punter. Congi was never given an opportunity to show what he can do in the punting dept. in either pre-season game. I have absolutely nothing against Bartel but I still believe Congi could do both jobs adequately. The problem I have is that they have to give up a non-import spot where one would suffice. With all the concern about non-import depth I'm sure the team could have put that spot to better use.

If he ever played rugby he would have learned to drop-kick, not place-kick. Wouldn’t it be something to see him drop back on third down and have the defence guessing whether he was going to punt it or drop-kick it for a FG?

Well, giving guarantees in football only worked for Joe Namath and that was more than 40 years ago, so don’t feel bad.

Maybe they don’t think Congi is punting well enough to do both roles. But we’ll see soon enough what the team decides to do in the end.

The non-import depth problem is not having too few non-import slots, it’s having too few good non-imports to fill those slots.
Your 20th non-import on the roster isn’t typically going to have that big an impact anyway, so I don’t see the harm is using it on a punter.

Non-import roster spots from 8 to 20 are all equal anyways. They are all back-ups. I guess the point I’m getting at is that Bartel is a punter only and would never enter the game to replace an injured player. Since Congi can do both jobs, I would rather have that spot filled by a back-up OL, LB or DB so that the team is able to shuffle the roster in case of injury during the game. While nothing is official, this looks like the way the team wants to go and I hope Bartel hammers the ball everytime he punts.

Well he played tonite. Had to love the kick he made on the botched snap from D. Brown. When did he switch to # 44 tho?