Last Pre-Season Game

The silence is deafening.

I thought there'd be lots of posts today about last night's match.

What I liked about the Bombers last night were the following:

  1. D line; even without Philip Hunt, Winnipeg is one tough team to run against (notwithstanding the last play of the game);

  2. Johnny Sears; no way does he supplant Hefney at DB, but they have to find a way to keep this guy on the roster. He's a stud, and terrific on special teams;

  3. Burke basically ran a 3/4 defence, and I thought it was quite effective. Moving Odel Willis to LB and moving him around was effective; I was also impressed with Bowman teaming up with Lobendahn at MLB. . . never was overly thrilled with Bowman last year, but last night he looked pretty good in the middle;

  4. Brandon Stewart on the corner. I wasn't impressed with Stewart at DHB last year; Hefney and Suber is a better combo than Stewart and Suber. . . but I was pleasantly surprised by Stewart's play on the corner.

They are going to have some tough decisions to make as far as cuts go.

I honestly don't know which way they are leaning with half of the 30 or so back up spots.

I did hear Lapo mic'd up say that Sears had made the team at one point.

Can't wait to actually see some real football though, the preseason was fun but you just don't see the same creativity with the play calling. Was pretty disappointed with the whole dink and dunk show the Bombers ran last night, very, very boring to watch.

......I was waiting till after the cats game to comment....It's so tough to really get a good handle on the team other than a few outstanding performances.....What we seen in the 2 preseason tilts is not the final product There will be lot of changes to the teams make-up and play...Pretty conservative schemes from what i've garnered so far...I will say we have to find a way to keep Floyd, Denmark, and Sears....Bishop really surprised and there was some solid play by the linebackers...I will have a few more comments after the Bomber/Ti-Cat opener...Should throw a whole new light on things :wink:

Lapo had said before the game and Buck also commented after that they were primarily working on timing on offence. Expect it to open up during the regular season. We all know vanilla offences (and defences) are the norm during pre-season.

I saw a lot more good than bad in the game. Buck looked good. He was getting the ball off quickly and also shook off the rust pretty quickly. His numbers would have been better if it weren't for a couple of drops from usually sure-handed receivers. Overall I thought the starters looked pretty good especially after the rust has shaken off.

I don't think there will be any changes to the starters based on the game but there were a few players who either played themselves on or off the team. Lapo and staff have a lot of tough decisions to make and isn't that absolutely wonderful.

I personally was very impressed by Corey Wattson and T.J.H. I think those two with Edawards we are going to have a very good receiving core (AKA good to get rid of ralph).

I think we will be seeing Sears mostly on the special teams as we have some pretty good DB's in place already.

The only position on the feel i am a little worried about is the D-line even though they had a pretty good showing last night despite the missed tackle on hall on the big pass and the last rushing play. I hope they got some guys there that can step up big for us this year.

I thought it was fairly dreadful until the 4th quarter. I was concerned with how easily the T.O. defence was handling us. I had a flashback to last year and started to wonder if we do have some amazing talent but are lacking in the coaching department - at least on offence and ST. What I saw concerned me. I'm hoping that this was just a tune up and we have a lot more to show once the real bullets start flying.

The guys battling to replace Hunt made some good plays. I think we’ll be more than okay on d-line when the season starts. And keep in mind that on the two plays you mentioned that it was the back-ups and their back-ups on the field at the time.

I think Killer made a really good point in the CFL Talks section when he mentioned Shea Emry's tweet about the play calls being aired. It certainly seems likely that Lapo used an incredibly limited number of plays because he didn't want that information going out over the air.

The game made the offense hard to judge. Watson looks like a gamer and could develop into one of the better NI receivers in the league, maybe sooner rather than later if he keeps improving. Poblah didn't have much come his way, was hoping to see more of him. Denmark has good hands, not much room for him on the active roster and he hasn't played his way off the roster, just a circumstance of there not being room for him right now with TE, TJH, and Carr ahead of him. If he sticks on the PR he could be the best backup WR around, certainly an upgrade over Chris Davis whom we had last year. Elliott struggled early but got better later on. Some will say that's a good sign but the way I see it he struggled against their first and 2nd stringers and got better against mostly fodder. For better or worse depending on your opinion he's going to be the #2 and is going to need all the work he can get. Also the play calling made it harder to get a read on it as its doubtful, at least I hope it is, that they would be going with that type of gameplan. Toronto's D seemed dominant against the offence but if all you're doing are the short-intermediate routes all game and not ask them to defend a deep ball that makes it a lot easier for them. Bishop made a great play to stay on his feet for a big gain but as we already know that didn't help his cause. Garrett didn't impress at all, Henderson didn't do much either after showing some promise in the mtl game, Freddy Reid doesn't have much to worry from either of those 2.

Sears was a ST beast out there, but as noticeable as he's been for the good on ST he's just as noticeable for the bad on D. He might have made the team but I hope he really develops his coverage skills as the season wears on, not much room for an imp DB that can only play special teams. Vega stood out on a few plays. I'm not sure how much I like dropping Odell Willis into coverage. Last year we were spoiled with Hunt and Willis getting into the backfield with regularity. Without Hunt I can't help but question the wisdom of having your best remaining pass rusher in Willis play running away from the QB. Hope I'm wrong about the pass rush, but it seems so far the QBs have been able to get enough time to throw against the D in preseason. We'll see what happens but for now I think the DL may be the weak spot on the defence and our pass coverage may get tested, a lot. McCoy didn't really establish himself as much as I would have thought going into camp and he was cut already. He needed to beat out JoLo, but in the end, whether he was the starter or JoLo, that spot seems destined for Muamba likely before the end of the year, so even if you're disappointed that Lobendahn keeps his job, he probably won't finish the season as the starter.

Glad the pre-season is over, can't wait for the Canada day kick off.Anyone coming to IWS for the game?