I agree with Crazy Canuck to a certain degree. I think Dean will command large dollars especially since Bighill went for so much so I think it is 50/ 50 that he signs with the cats.
Since we have former BC DC Washington and two other ex BC coaches I feel they may go after free agents DE Lemon and LB Micaw Awe and a few db’s out of rose, orange. Peters and Yell.
Micaw has not played a complete season but the BC coaches are likely high on him and may persuad Coach O to go after hin as he would likely come cheaper than Dean and posibly Simoni. I could see them signing Awe over Dean to save money to go after a good DE like Lemon or better yet Jefferson or J’Gared Davis . I think Awe is a beast and could play Wil or MLB.
I am thinking not signing beloved leader Simoni would not go over well with the fanbase. He still has a few good years in him
I feel two players had career years and thus might have over inflated price tags for their their first good season. Mike Jones put up big numbers when our receivers were decimated thus getting more balls thrown his way. I noticed his catch to ball thrown to him ratio was one of the worst in the league. He dropped two sure touchdowns one went off his helmet and the other he lost in the sun. Goid pkayers make those catches .I also seen him out of sync with Masoli many times hence the poor completion ratio
So , I think our money would be better spent elsewhere especially since he is a national which would drive his price up. I think Buren has a higher upside and June Jones loves him. CHambers would come pretty cheap having missed a year as well and we drafted a good receiver in the third round but went back to school. He was drafted a round before Buren and looks good on youtube
I feel since Unamba had a career year / breakout year and was a CFL all-star at SAM that we may not spend the big money on him as he only did it for one year and his value will be through the roof and we can’t sign everyone due to the cap. I’d love to keep Unamba but not money to spend on Breaux; Dean, Simoni, a good pash rusher,:offensive Tackke to replace Rycker, an RB, and maybe a FA db from BC or two. I also noticed we signed a beast of a SAM linebacker out of Michagin State named Chris Frey.
Check out the film on him on youtube as he looks like a Chip Cox type. Also Jackson Bennett looked really good at SAM and special teams. He is a national and could be ratio buster.
I think with Orlondo back in charge I think Courtney might be back starting at safety as he was when Orlondo was the DC with Daley on the roster. I think Courtney will come cheaper now than his last large contract since he wasn’t a starter last year. If Courtney asks for 180 k like he had when he was a starter then I’d pass and give Daley, Langa snd maybe Bennett a shot at safety
Ideally I’d love to see Breaux back but he is by far the nist expensive DB in the CFL at 200 k and Brooks and maybe Orlando may want to reunite with FA Rico Murray.I think Freddie Williams and Josh Johnson showed well enough to be invited back to compete for jobs. I think BC coaches will likely lobby to sign a BC free agent DB or two. I think Leonard is expendible.
I am not certain that we have a guy in house to replace Rycker. We may want to bring in some guys we think could start. I know June Jones is high on a few young imports we have in house. My gut feeling is that Rycker won’t stick with New England but we shall wait and see. I am not a big Filer fan and if he asks for too much Girard can move in there nicely and we could draft a center with one of our high picks .
I think if we sign Lemon at DE or one of the other star DE’s we still might be able to sign Tracy at the other end for a reasonable price tag since he had an off year and he just got engaged to a Hamilton girl so we may get a hometown discount. I think Howsare showed enough promise to be invited back. I am not a fan of Neill and I think we need an upgrade at Import DT likely from a rookie
June Joned seems to really like Whitlock as a part time DT, fullback . and supreme special teams player. I think Jamal Westerman had an off year last year not worthy off 225 k even being a national. I think he is better than he showed with us and if we could convince him to renegotiate his contract down to the 150 k range then we might have a DE national ratio buster.
I am not a big fan of Lirium and it concerns me that June Jones didn’t have confidence in him in BC to seal the game away in BC.
However, I feel we should try to keep him if the price is right because he is a national playing 2 roles at an average level. There are not many good national punter or kickers around and we might not want to use one or two import spots because by having Lirium taking two roles with one national spot it gives us the luvury to dress a few more imports to play in situations and improve our special teams play and provide backups to give players on the line a rest and to be there in case of injuries.
Having Lirium as a national taking two spots with one roster spot allows us ti dress players like Ken Wacha, Josh Johnson or Freddie Williams , or Whitlock, John White or an extra import receiver like Lawrence, Tolliver or Chris Williams all as upgraded import instead of national situational and backup players and specialty teams.
. Lirium is pretty young and his best years are likely ahead of him. I think he had an off year especially kicking balls out of bounds. Maybe cosch Reinbold can instill a better work ethic in him sort of like Medlock.
I think June Jones is pretty high on Dane Evans as the backuo QB and he has had a year of the offence under his belt and is on a cheap contract.If possible it may make sense to bring in either Drew Willy or Durant as insurance in case Masoli goes down for a while. If the price is right i’d go for it as there is not much demand for them and they both have had sucess in the CFL as starters and still have some gas in the tank.
As for runining back, will say Timmis and Erlington are great national assets to play s bit on offence and provide good special teams play and act as backups both able to start and be successful in case of injury. I think that if Timmis were to ever get alot of touches I think he may make the next step and be considered as a ratio buster starting RB.
I know June Jones his high on Grreen and White at RB.Green knows the offence well from his days in Hawaii and he is very good in the red zone as he has the will and a nose for the endzone.
I have been impressed with Green at times especially on screen passes and he can be a load to bring down when he gets a head of steam .i think due to June Jones love affair with him that they will sign him providing the price is right and the RB job will be his to lose.
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I will say that he did not perform well in Otrawa in the eastern final and I think he had more average games than good ones. My hunch is that he won’t be able to keep his job mainly due to his lack of breakaway speed.
John White deserves a longer look as he looked good last year and he has had time to fully recover from a recent injury. He also has had much success in the past with EDM.I noticed the cats signed an RB named Lowry who looks good on tape and could be in the mix.
As for the receivers. I am excited that Banks and Tasker are back and healthy. I am glad they signed Saunders as he was on pace to lead the league in receiving before his injury. So let’s hope he makes a full recovery and is available before labour day. I think Addison’s 3 games and solid play in practice impressing Jones likely gives him a shot to start. I would prefer that we only go with one national receiver and that would be Buren. I am not sure why we signed Rashad Lawrence as he did not impress yet he wasn’t targetted often enough to prooperly evaluate. I am ok with signing Chris Willians, Tolliver, or Sinjkfield ar the right price. I think all 3 are better than they showed last year.and are capable of starting until Saunders is back.They would act as insurance in case of injuriies or Adidison not panning out .All 3 of them are also familiar with the offence. If I were to guess I’d say they will sign Williams as he was starting to gel with the offence just before he got injured and he can return kicks.
For some reason June Jones chose to go with Marquay Mcdaniel and 2 national receivers instead of Sinkfield down the stretch and it was a major reason why our offence sputtered in Ottawa. I was at the game and noticed that Otrawa’s supreme safety Pruneau was cheating towards Tasker all game thus eliminating Tasker as a factor in the game and leaving Masoli with guys that were not getting seperation and generally less skilled than he was accustomed to.
I am a bit concerned about our kicking game situation as Lirium is reaĺly a question mark and will likely command a decent wage seeing he is a competent national that can punt and kick and allow the team to dress an additional import. If we were to go with
two import kickers then that would mean we can’t dress 2 imports and that would hurt the quality of our specialty teams play and decrease the quality of our backups and players who may play in certain situations .
I think if June has his way Lirium would not be back at least not as the place kicker.
The kicker, punter situation is a tough one to figure out .
I think our punt and kickoff returning was pretty bad last year. I figure it was a combination of lack of quality kick returners and ineffective blocking and blocking shemes. The ex NFL spcialty team coach has to take part of the blame.
I am hoping the arrival of Reinbold will bring more effective schemes.
Now the question is who will be our return guy. Do we go out and sign Chris Rainey or do we go with Freddie Williams and Chris Williams and maybe a bit of speedyb as he was so successfull under reinbold in the past.
I am very excited about next year because of our coaching staff. Coach Orlondo is very well liked by coaches and players as we saw june jones step aside for this multi talented man.
We saw our ex OC tommy condell come back as a receivers coach and likely successor to OC June Jones as we know june has indicated he will retire soon. In a perfect world we win the 2020 Grey Cup bid and then go on to win the Grey Cup due to the formidable June jones offence and excellent coaching staff. Then June can retire on top and pass the torch to Tomny.
Orlondo is very positive friendly confident aggressive smart and CFL snart having had a very long and successfull career as an all star db and Grey Cup champion. He knows how to win and how to play defence in the CFL
He went on to coaching defence for the Argos and then went to 2 straight Grey Cups as the ticats DC .He ran a very aggressive blitzing style defence.He spent a year in US college DC.Then last year he acted as Junes and Glanville’s right hand man and was there to help them with the CFL game… Now he is Head Coach with a great coaching staff with Year 2 of June Jones offence.
Players around the league know how good this offence became with Masoli Banks Tasker and Saunders tigether.Players know that if Banks, Saunders, Tolliver and Chris Williams had not gotten injured that the offence would have led them to a Grey Cup victory.
Players are going to want to sign with hamilton because they see another year of june jones offence getting better with Masoli Banks, Saunders and Tasker already on board and our new BC coaches will know doubt further entice FA BC Lions to want to come to Hamilton
A year where A CFL guru in Coach O will be making all in game decissions instead of NFL minded june jones that cost us a few ganes like in BC.
June Jones can now focus solely on the Offence hitting the ground running with a bunch of stars that have a full year under their belt and one can then expect the offence to continue to improve with familarity with the offence and eachother.
Our Defence is in good hands with Orlondo watching over a like minded DC in Mark Washingtin who like Ciach O had a long and successfull playing career as a DB in the CFL.He then went on to be the DC of BC for several years working closely with head coach and CFL guru and legend Wally Buono. The combinatiion of Orlondo
and Mark seens lethal. Mark was given the luxury of bringing very experienced
dline and linebacker coaches with him fron BC. This will help to hit the ground running in defence and attract BC lion Fa’s especially on defence. We’re also bringing back Jeff reinbold who was very successful here coaching special teans. Jeff brings a very positive and confident approach as he has so many years of experience in so many roles with specialty teams likely his best role.
I am not a fan of promoiting Burke and Allemang . Burke started out as the communications guy and Drew was in charge of Canadian draft. Neither have played the game professionally or coached or managed at the college or University level. Do these guys have damaging pictures of Scott Mitchell or is Scott helping out a couple of buddies that babysat his kids. I am hoping that these two guys are not our long term solution at Gm.
I am hoping they are just given the grunt work and are not responsible for finding and evaluating talent. That is a scary thought as most Gm’s have played the game and have years of experience in scouting and coaching and managing at many different levels and in different leagues and teams and having many contacts in the US and relationships with players and CFL player, coaches and GM’s.
There is a reason Tasker is in Hamilton because he played under Austin at Colgate. Kent knew Luke’s character and skill set would work in the CFL. I think if luke stays healthy he will be a hall of famer. Also Austin and Tillman were wise enough to know that EDM had a really good linebacker who was stuck behind all’star MLB Sherett. Likely through their contacts they were tipped off a great talent waiting in wings behind an all-star. This player is Simoni Lawrence. They also were aware of a third string QB in EDM that had an outstanding College career at oregon but considered too short for the NFL but was very mobile and suited well for the CFL.This man is Jeremiah Masoli.I credit Kent for hanging onto Masoli so long as third QB and for Masoli being patient and confident. As it turns out the Ticats traded some players that quickly amounted to nothing to EDM for Simoni and Masoli. This trade was so successfull because of quality contacts and knowledge.and talent evaluation of University. players and identifying those that should thrive in the CFL.
I really don’t see the logic Mr Mitchell. A real quality GM is one like Bob Obilovich , Jim Popp, Wally Buano. Eric Tillman, John Hufnagel or Hugh Campbell. This reminds me of when Harold Ballard promoted from within the leafs organization with non hockey people like Gord Stellick.
Luckily they hired a real GM as a consultant in Jim Barker and added Zimmerman who was the argos assistant GM. Why not just hire one seasoned GM instead of trying to groom non football guys.I hope they realize their mistake and hire a real GM. I know from talking to Tillman last year he basically said that June Joned was calling the shots but i am sure they utilized Eric for his scouting and talent evaluation abilities and all the contacts he had in the US. I am almost certain that Burke and allemang have liitle to no scouting or talent evaluation ability and hardly any US contacts . Scott I really think you could have found a veteran GM.
