The 2025 Winnipeg Blue Bombers will have the inevitable pressure of hosting a Grey Cup looming over their shoulder all season long.
For the umpteenth time, the issue with the Bombers going into 2025 is they are old in the wrong places - specifically on both sides of the LOS.
Their 2 starting DEâs are 34 & a soon-to-be 32 yr old. The latter, Vaughters, was unwanted by the Stamps. The 5 others currently listed @ DE have zero games played. Thomas is 34, Lawson maybe starting on the IR.
On OL Lofton, 32, is the baby of the family of the 4 returning starters. It is highly rumoured that the Bombers will be starting Randolph in the vacant guard spot. So whatâs the message here? Eli isnât good enough 4 years in, Wallace isnât ready?
The bigger problem is keeping up with the Riders, Lions & Elks. The Bombers just donât measure up in the trenches to their brethren out West.
This just in - Patterson released so the QBâs are all set.
I seem to recall you having a similar opinion the last few years. So itâs going to be another trip to the Grey Cup and a loss? Generous of you to say. How do
you see your team doing? Will they even reach being second best which you have the Bombers pegged for again?
And you know as well as anyone that 32 is baby age for an O lineman and a QB. Not so much for a running back or receiver or DB .
Well, Jon, Iâve been stealing your lunch money for 3 years now on the Grey Cup Winners so, by all means, take the old guys to the GC & go for the 4peat. Losing never gets old, I guess, if you have to keep talking about it.
Youâre missing the point. There are OLâs in their division who are much younger & are far better. Yes, the Lions OL ranked last on pass protection in 2024 but they were the only ones who were worse. And they decided to do something about it. The Bombers decided to let their only guy under 30 go, an All-Star.
Most of the Bombers on DL that left had 2-3 years under their belt before Ted came along & scooped them up, along with that fully trained-up All-Star on the OL. So the Bombers, in essence, are in the process of developing players on the farm for the TiCats & even the Argos where Haba ended up. A quick look at the current roster & there are 5 DEâs behind Willie & Vaughters, the Greybeards, with zero experience. So, business as usual. Get them up to speed & in a couple of years time see them off with your blessings.
Just canât win with this guy. Is there any one better at moving the posts? 
Each of the past few years Bombers have replaced great vets, and this will continue. Oline has 4 younger guys that will see regular rotation. This is an Oline that has led the league in rushing on the regular, and likely will again this year.
Iâd say the West still moves through us, business as usual - yup. 
Gotta agree. But this offense of ours might take a while to get right. Barring injury I think weâll need a good chunk of the summer to get Zachâs head up to âfootball speedâ and in sync with his receivers. Brady O will be a force right off the bat so I wouldnât be one bit surprised to see us lean heavily on our run game while our super stingy defense picks up where it left off last season and keeps those pesky âpoints againstâ ridiculously low.
All systems are go Houston. 
Well said.
I donât know how the year is going to go, but I do know from experience with the Calvillo-era Als that you can win games with veterans and be productive in the playoffs and fans will think everything is hunky-dorey ⌠until it isnât. The fall off the cliff comes up fast with age. Or to quote an old Isaac Asimov novel, âThe rotten tree-trunk, until the moment when the lightning splits it in two, has all the appearance of strength and majesty that it ever had.â (quoting from memory â hope I got it at least mostly right lol)
Edit: looked up the quote. ââŚthe rotten tree-trunk, until the very moment when the storm-blast breaks it in two, has all the appearance of might it ever had.â OK, not bad, self. Memory isnât totally in the crapper. 
The west was comically inept last year. Calgary and Edmonton tanked, BC shot themselves in the foot with the Rourke-Adams thing, and Saskatchewan kept finding creative ways to lose close games. And even then, it took a gust of wind to send Winnipeg to the top of that division.
I look at the rest of the west and I see that every team has tried to improve at identified areas of weakness. I look at Winnipeg and I do not see that improvement. Just the same (great) core a year older and the addition of a few cast-offs from other teams.
I get a little tired of the moral superiority, especially when it comes from a team who has soiled the sheets in historical fashion in 3 consecutive years. But letâs ignore that & talk about the consecutive West titles please. When asked who was the best team any given year, people rush off to google who won the Division, not who won the GC, donât they?
Letâs not talk about trends, like the descent in regular season wins, the ever more lopsided pastings in the 2nd half of championship games. Letâs talk about our QBâs finger which cost us the game. Letâs ignore that the Argos were w/o THEIR starter ALL game & the backup was leading before the injury. In the post game rant, LaPo, hardly biased vs the Bombers, didnât mention the finger at all. It was the total domination of the Argo OL & DL that, in his opinion, cost them a game. But what does he know?
If I was green, a planaria or a tuna fish sandwich, Iâm still going to look at the facts. And if we want to diminish the East champions & shrug when the Als ran off 10 East titles in 14 years this century, keep in mind the Bombers were in the East being run over by the Als for much of that run. Teams donât decide their schedules. A run of East titles is just as great as a West one.
I see a gradual decline in the Bombers from year to year, regular season or GC. If others donât see it, thatâs fine - doesnât mean it isnât there.
Yeah, look, I picked WPG to win handily against Toronto in the 2024 Grey Cup. I was wrong. I was not expecting them to get hammered by Career Journeyman Nick Arbuckle of all people, or to be dominated on both lines. That was an ass-kicking, but the response from Bomber management seems to be âbusiness as usualâ with no plan in place to actually develop fresh talent. That should worry Bomber fans. It reeks of complacency. Ass kicked in our third consecutive Grey Cup loss? Lose our OC, some good prospects, some solid players like Lawler and such? No problem. Weâll keep trucking on with a well-over-30 core and no succession plan in place at pretty damn key positions: QB1, DE, O-line.
The only reason to be optimistic about the Bombersâ chances at dominance in 2025 is history. As in, past-oriented optimism. On paper, in the present, and looking toward the future, if youâre halfway rational (ergo, you donât think Chris Streveler is great at throwing passes), you have to admit that the Bombers arenât really anything special in 2025. Theyâre not going to finish out of the playoffs, at least not yet, but the days of penciling in a Bomber win against most teams are definitely over.
To be clear, i picked the Argos in 2022 because they were the best team in the 2nd half going into the playoffs. AND there was a lot of pressure on the Bombers to get a threepeat⌠AND the game was played in Regina, so the crowd wasnât necessarily in their favour.
I bet on the Bombers winning in 2023 & 2024 BUT not to cover the spread. The Bombers both years were dominant in the WF so I was kind of torn in '23 because the Als came in REALLY hot. I figured the Bombers just might pull it off because the pressure was off a bit by losing in 2022.
In 2024 I couldnât bet Argos but I was pretty confident to put money on the spread. Look, the CFL panel was split 50-50 despite Arbuckle. And going in what I was getting was a smug Bomber team & an interview from Dinwiddie who said his team was well prepared.
The Bombers are way too dismissive of their opponents. You called it. OâShea, despite obvious mistakes in judgement refused to take any blame & said they wouldnât do anything different. They should kick him upstairs IMO & get some new blood @ HC.
Such garbage in these posts.
Fire MOS, LMAO
No plan to develop âactualâ talent, LMAO
I at least respect the clear trolls, and even find them a bit funny. The ones that try and claim to be football experts and hide behind âdiscussionâ while clearly exercising an agenda are the saddest of trolls.
AGAIN: Bomber fans have known for a few years that our team has taken hits with losing key players/staff and that to continue winning will be harder, yet weâve been able to do just that. Not a single Bomber fan that I know of is penciling us in as Champs. But to write us off is foolish - I am adamant that WPG has as good of a chance as any to be the ones holding the Cup at the end of the year.
Yawn 
Criticizing a team or parts of it is not the same as writing a team off.
Seems like when there is something at stake, like running a contest, not every Winnipegger bets for the home team, even in the early rounds. What? Knocking the President Trophy winners? Skewering one of your own MOP relentlessly for not performing under pressure in the playoffs? How often have the usual suspects lauded Oettinger as the âWorldâs Best Goalieâ when many outside Winnipeg would favour yours.
You donât mind exposing the warts, Blue, when a little recognition is at stake. How precious??
This, in a nutshell. I donât think anyone is writing Winnipeg off. That would be foolish. But it would be equally foolish not to be honest about what they have done (or more accurately, havenât done) to stay competitive in the west.
Itâs funny everyone picks on the big dog my big blue bombers are still gonna be cream of the crop yes we lost 3 grey cups in a row but at least we got there where was your team lately with the exception of mon Toronto
I wasnât going to respond, but this a classic hunting blind shot from you and deserves a response. You have now taken another step in addressing me, but not doing so directly. How much time did it take you to research my pool picks? You must be retired or unemployed.
You should have done some further research. I have had the same position on Hellesuck for 10 years. I have even written about it in the Winnipeg Free Press circa 2018-19. I call balls and strikes and as a former goalie for 11 years, like the panel said, Hellesuck just isnât athletic enough and his many weaknesses are exposed and taken advantage of by teams in the playoffs that have time to scout him extensively. I can tell you 5 easy ways to beat him. His accolades come from playing in front of the best defensive team in the league, not the other way around. And no defense can stop him from letting in 35 foot floater wrist shots.
I also picked Dallas in the pool because Scheifele and Morrissey were out and those two players were far more important to the Jets and better than Heiskanen and Robertson, who were also out for the Stars. If I made pool picks only for my favourite teams I wouldnât win any. Itâs called being unbiased. You may wish to try it. I have also been consistently posting that Oettinger is the best goalie in the world since his playoff performance against Calgary a few years ago, which was the best playoff goaltending performance in my opinion since the immortal JS Giguere in 2003.
Not only do I doubt your hockey knowledge and familiarity with hockey nuances, but I see your post as blatant trolling and off topic to boot. Please find something better to do with your obviously ample time.
I have NOT taken a deliberate shot @ you, Jon. Get over yourself. Since I only entered the hockey pool for fun this year I would have no knowledge of your stand on your goalie over the years & could care less. Outside of a thumbs up to Lyle the other day, I donât even post comments there. As for your hockey knowledge or mine, not sure what the point is??? Are you telling me that everyone has to have hockey knowledge to be in the pool?? I like to keep my personal history private, as well as my preferences you seem so eager to dig out. Sorry if that offends you. Youâre welcome to fill in the blanks as you like.
My point is that some Bomber posters jump to the defence of, for example, Zach Collaros & are offended when someone points out he doesnât perform well in playoffs & back it with facts. THAT is a legitimate criticism, as may well be your myriad concerns with your goalie. That some local fans see to take a critical eye is refreshing. I donât see that same standard applied to the Bombers.
For the record, âtrollsâ & âhatersâ are overused to the point where they have no meaning. You might as well hunt elephants with a fly swatter - from a hunting blind if you like. Nobody in my age group uses them any more but my Nana does. No offence, just trying to be helpful, Jon.
Nice try. You took a deliberate shot at me by referring specifically to 3 things I have posted. Are you trying to tell me that was a coincidence? Not buying it. Please find something else to amuse yourself with. I will continue to snicker at your clockwork anti bomber posts which are almost always wrong. Your opinion doesnât matter to me believe it or not, but I will respond if you go after me as you just did. Please find someone else to troll, or whatever you wish to call it.
When did having legitimate criticisms of a team become âpickingâ on them?
Any fool can recognize that a team is past its dynasty era after the fact, when they are crashing and burning in the standings. But itâs harder for that recognition to happen when the team is still winning and still apparently on top. Going into 2024, I had Calgary something like 8th or 9th in my projection of team standings, but I saw no major media outlets expressing any concern about the Stampsâ decline, because hey, they were still making the playoffs and papering over real problems in part with a healthy dose of luck. It took a year of the results catching up to the reality for the talking heads to realize that Calgary was no longer a competitive team.
Losing your last three Grey Cup appearances, and getting your ass kicked in the most recent one, isnât exactly what youâd expect if you asked someone to define âcream of the crop.â Cream of the crop means youâre the best. And I do not think the Bombers are the best anymore. They arenât the worst, certainly, but the dynasty is done. They rode a weak west into a 2024 Grey Cup appearance but got dismantled by a team starting a journeyman backup QB. That, too, doesnât scream cream of the crop.
I think the Bombers are going to have to fight with BC and Edmonton for a playoff spot in the west. Theyâll make the playoffs â I still donât believe that Calgary has turned the corner â but the division title isnât a lock.