One God-awful Team in Ottawa

Do not think that will happen anytime soon with Evans out possibly for up to 6 weeks.

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Don’t think it would have happened this year in any event.

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I think as long as they speak Football, that’s the only criteria I would think.

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AND, Marcel Desjardins’ can not under any circumstances get an extension to his contract, I am a long long time C.F.L. fan and this guy has dropped the ball more times than all our current receivers put together. and That is a lot,

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Well lets be fair. He put together an expansion team and was in two GC winning one in 5 years.
But something has gone terribly wrong with this exodus and I doubt it can be fixed without a refit.

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There are some guys I don’t think we will see in this league again. Popp is one of them. Jones, Barker, June Jones, Trestman.Tillman are others.

There is no room in a cost control league like the CFL for these grandiose spenders and salaries.

Trend is to promote young guys who have climbed the rope the hard way like Edme and others.

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I’m just amazed every year

It takes a few years with a good GM to produce results. It’s not the immediate stuff like trades and free agents, its the drafting, scouting, planning so you have a ratio where you can play more imports in skill positions.
It happens time and time again. Tillman in Edmonton. Don’t laugh. He was the guy who set Jones up for success when he was here. We had so many Canadians playing he never had to worry if someone got hurt because either a Canadian was next man up or he had to loose two or three other guys to get to where there was ratio trouble.

The crazy part is GM’s all get judged in the here and now, and way to many teams dump GM’s, win, (ie: the current GM is good) then a couple years down the road it all comes apart, and no one saw it coming, except all the guys in the front office who jumped ship.

You guys had a pretty good run with Lancaster (RIP) and McManus running the show back then. Maybe Lancaster stretched himself a bit too thin as both head coach AND GM. It looks like the talent started to go downhill quickly after 2001. McManus couldn’t carry the team all by himself. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and speculate
 that IF Ron Lancaster had pulled a ‘Cal Murphy’ and handed off the coaching reigns to someone else, THEN he might’ve been a better GM and the 2003 Cats nightmare might not have happened. :thinking:

Team got older, owners had no money to bring free agents in. Darren Flutie and Andrew Grigg both retired before the season, and pretty sure Archie Amerson suffered a long term
Injury early on so we were basically down three starting receivers from 2002. Also may have lost one of our really good starting tackles in Seth Dittman to Ottawa in expansion draft. Apart from that it’s a real blur and not too many of us want to go back and relive it😃

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I don’t blame you. There’s a season we don’t want to relive either. Remember what happened after my all powerful '72 Bombers got upset by Saskatchewan in the final? Winnipeg sunk to the depths of dispair while Hamilton went on to Grey Cup glory (you guys were host city that year). There couldn’t have been a greater contrast.

Then to make things worse (why lord?) the Bombers fell apart BEFORE the next season started and we became the worst team in the league. Oh the humanity. :tired_face:

Yes, that sounds exactly like something Desjardins would have - - a useless “value chart” for decision making.

The blueprint for winning in the CFL is ridiculously simple, my friend - - get the best possible Canadians that you can to go along with a decent QB.

Never, EVER, pay $200k for an import receiver. They’re a dime a dozen, along with Import RBs.

You don’t need a “value chart” to understand that.

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I hated seeing them lose like that. Man. Really like Ottawa.

I think there has been some misses in the last few drafts and I think he has overvalued replacement players. He moved on from Harris and Ellingson which is fine if it blows the cap - but his picks for replacements was were it went wrong. I also think that his support staff has not been as good as in the beginning. I do like him but his program isn’t working.

There are issues in Ottawa. Ownership? Management? both?

Kinda wondering if this was just a write off year to compete with low expectations and get a foundation started .

Only good way of looking at it .

A lot of self-inflicted wounds. Tossing a young and promising Huff/Dickenson trained Arbuckle in the garbage to grab Graybeard Nichols should get Lapolice and Desjardins fired on the spot IMO.

Arbuckle looks like the obvious choice .

Wondering if Arbuckle would have done much better under the system with the available talent and would have wasted his continued transition .

Not trying to make excuses but I find the CFL with it’s small budgets and philosophy make it hard for the fan to enjoy the sustained familiarity needed and the drop in competitiveness hurts it’s product in those down years in whatever city it circulates to for their turn to be horrific .

Rather the last team to be more competitive .

One good thing about the CFL though it really only takes one season to correct the futility with the right ingredients .

Doesn’t matter, at least there is upside and you can build long term around the kid. Nichols is 34, what can they sell the fans now?

Unless they were not sold on Arbuckle for whatever reason long term and Nichols is just a placeholder for the next one .

Trying to give them the benefit of the doubt .

The league especially in the East does appear to be a ebb and flo type of pattern to it . Lately there seems to be a rotating pattern of who’s up . It helps a bit I guess with spreading the wealth but I would rather they all play better against western opponents consistently .

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Certainly not the first time for that.