It’s a star-studded collection that includes future hall of famers and key-cog starters. And, frankly, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers list of still-pending free agents is jaw-dropping in its length.
And while there certainly must be comfort in the already well-established track record of the Blue Bombers football operations department in consistently completing this near-impossible task of roster cohesion from one year to the next, this much is certain:
Change is nonetheless coming.
Now, granted, that’s the reality in all pro sports and especially so in the Canadian Football League where the annual free-agent carousel consistently serves up February headlines featuring one star after another changing addresses.
Still, as we serve up our first 1st & 10 column of the offseason this week the Blue Bombers are faced with a twist to their task of trying to keep together a squad that has been to four straight Grey Cup championships and is 29-7 over the last two years.
And that is this: weighing how much change is inevitable given the salary cap restrictions and how much change simply needs to happen to keep pushing this crew forward? Further to that, how much does the push for roster continuity also potentially close the doors to upgrades in CFL free agency or by the talent the scouting staff delivers every year?
Some of that was discussed when GM Kyle Walters met with the media via conference call from CFL meetings in Nashville – the link to that story is here https://www.bluebombers.com/2024/01/09/once-those-higher-ones-get-settled-whether-they-come-back-dont-come-back-lock-into-a-dollar-value-then-i-think-the-rest-should-move-along-fairly-quickly/
– but to get a feel for the big picture, not just who is a pending free agent, but which players are already under contract, now is a good time as any to take a peek at where things stand overall.
Here’s a position by position look at the current Blue Bombers roster with the names listed alphabetically and *indicating Canadian players:
Quarterback
Signed: Zach Collaros, Terry Wilson
Pending free agents: Dru Brown, Dakota Prukop
Burning question: Obviously set at No. 1 with Collaros, but the rest is a mystery with the club expecting Brown to depart. Prukop was outstanding in short yardage, but with the nickels and dimes being squeezed can they afford to pay a veteran that kind of coin for that role?
Running back/fullback
Signed: Damian Jackson, Jonathan Rosery*
Pending free agents: Johnny Augustine*, Greg McCrae, Brady Oliveira*
Burning question: Just how big is Oliveira to how the Blue Bombers entire free agent plans unfold? If he returns, they secure the CFL’s rushing champ and top Canadian. Should he depart, the team is likely looking at a ratio change at RB.
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Receiver
Signed: Ravi Alston, Nic Demski*, Kenny Lawler, Bryce Mitchell, Jeremy Murphy*, Ontaria Wilson
Pending free agents: Rasheed Bailey, Janarion Grant, Brendan O’Leary-Orange*, Dalton Schoen, Drew Wolitarsky*
Burning question: Schoen’s productivity over his first two seasons – 141 catches for 2,663 yards and 26 TDs in just 34 games – is astonishing. Two questions: will he follow Dru Brown to wherever he ends up in the CFL or can the Blue Bombers manage to keep him in a corps that already features Lawler and Demski in a tightening cap? And how would that impact Bailey and Wolitarsky?
Offensive line
Signed: Pat Neufeld*, Liam Dobson*, Tui Eli*, Drew Richmond
Pending free agents: Stanley Bryant, Geoff Gray*, Jermarcus Hardrick, Chris Kolankowski*
Burning question: A picture of stability during all the recent success, this group is in a state of flux right now with just Neufeld having re-signed among the five starters. Management does like the upside of Dobson, Eli and Richmond, but how much of a risk would it be to pencil in those three as starters, given they have a combined nine CFL starts?
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Defensive line
Signed: Willie Jefferson, Cam Lawson*, Anthony Bennett*, Miles Fox, TyJuan Garbutt, Nate Givhan, Celestin Haba, Collin Kornelson*, Tanner Schmekel*, Jamal Woods
Pending free agents: Thiadric Hansen, Jackson Jeffcoat, Jake Thomas*, Ricky Walker
Burning question: The list of pending FAs here is significant. The Blue Bombers have been so dominant on both sides of the line of scrimmage over the past seven seasons, but there has also been change here from season to season, too. Does that trend continue in ’24?
Linebackers
Signed: Brian Cole, Tanner Cadwallader*, Jared Beeksma*, Adam Bighill, Max Charbonneau*, Kyrie Wilson
Pending free agents: Jesse Briggs*, Malik Clements, Shayne Gauthier*
Burning question: So much consistency in this position group, too, over the last few years. Can this group remain intact with younger, cheaper Canadians and Americans in house and available in free agency?
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Defensive backs
Signed: Redha Kramdi*, Deatrick Nichols, Evan Holm, Souleymane Karamoko*, Jake Kelly*, Bret MacDougall*, Tyrique McGhee, Jamal Parker
Pending free agents: Brandon Alexander, Alden Darby, Jr., Kerfalla Exume*, Nick Hallett*, Demerio Houston, Winston Rose
Burning question: No position group undergoes more change from year to year with the Blue Bombers than the secondary. How much does that continue this year with Houston getting an NFL look, with Rose out of the lineup for the playoffs and both Alexander and Hallett playing the same position?
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Specialists
Signed: Mike Benson*, Jamieson Sheahan
Pending free agents: K Sergio Castillo, KR Janarion Grant
Burning question: Both Castillo and Grant would be massive losses, yet every CFL team has unearthed a dangerous returner over the past couple of years. That said, do the Bombers risk letting either one get to market?
Lots of questions still TBD.
More on the week that was and what’s ahead in this edition of 1st & 10…
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- Just over a month ago at the Blue Bombers exit meetings the idea of retirement was thrown out by a few players. Walters & Co. said they’d give players through the holiday season before pressing them on an answer, especially as we get closer to free agency.
We now have our answer, as Walters said this week no player – other than Mike Miller, who retired and was named the team’s special-teams coordinator – had come forward to say they were stepping away.
“Any sort of talk after losing the Grey Cup is an emotional time,” said Walters. “Everyone takes a deep breath and gets away from the game for a little bit from a player’s standpoint to kind of rethink it. Anybody that was kind of mentioning potentially retiring I think have changed their mind and want to keep playing.”
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- Among those who has indicated he plans to keep playing is Bryant, the four-time winner of the CFL’s Most Outstanding Offensive Lineman Award and future hall of famer. Bryant will turn 38 in May but there isn’t a soul in Blue Bombers management who doesn’t think he is still elite.
“Stan plans to keep playing, wants to keep playing,” said Walters. “At that position, he’s still playing at a high level in our league. We’ll see if we can figure out a way to get Stan back as well.”
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- Another leftover from the session with Walters that we referenced and included the link to at the top… as the team waits to see what unfolds with Oliveira and Schoen — both in terms of NFL interest and then in negotiations to return – the Blue Bombers GM was asked how that uncertainty affects the conversations with the other pending free agents.
“People are aware of what’s going on, the agents,” he said. “There’s the reality of the situation that I explain to people and things could change. It’s, ‘We want you back, not exactly sure what this is going to look like, just let’s get this sorted out and then we’ll figure it out.’ And what are you thinking from an agent’s standpoint? What range do you want to be in? And then the retort from me will be ‘Well, here’s the range that we will potentially be talking about.’ There is discussions on a few other fronts that I think we’ll be able to execute fairly quickly once some of the higher end pieces get sorted out.”
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- Had a great conversation with new Blue Bombers defensive coordinator Jordan Younger earlier this week. That story can be found here.
Yours truly couldn’t cram everything from a 24-minute chat into that first piece, and one of the intriguing chunks not included was a discussion on how Younger puts his stamp on the Blue Bombers defence. That answer, it turns out, is both complicated and fascinating.
“Let’s talk about blitzing, for example,” Younger said. “it’s not about whether there is more or less of that, it’s when you do it. Everybody’s doing similar things at the end of the day. You’re rushing four, you’re rushing five, you’re rushing six or rushing seven. Those are the options on the table. What makes each play caller unique is how well can you make coverages, systems and reads match up with what the offence is doing. We’ll try to be dynamic that way where we have tools built into the system so we can solve problems in real time and not necessarily have to wait until we review what was going on. That would be my goal.
“Look, play-calling is difficult. Structuring a defence, designing a defence is difficult and challenging. You need a certain number of variables just to have a chance because if you run the same defence all the time, I don’t care who you are, everybody up here in the CFL is good enough to beat that. It’s trying to fine tune and nail down when to do things as opposed to what.
“Every play caller has a unique system or a unique fingerprint as to how they go about things. Football is a pretty basic game in the sense that the quarterback throws it, the receivers catch it, or they hand the ball to the running back the defence tackles the guy. The way you go about doing that, how you throw curveballs in there, that to me is how you define yourself as a play caller.”
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- 5. One more from the new DC… Younger said a great defence – just like a stellar offence – is often difficult to describe in one term because it needs to be multiple in its looks from one play to the next, let alone one half or game to the next.
“If you want to use a boxing analogy, sometimes you want to be orthodox, sometimes you want to be southpaw,” he said. “Sometimes you want to initiate the fight and take the tempo of the fight, sometimes you want to wait and counterpunch. Then you match that up with your opponent and their ability to do that. That’s the chess match. For every offence and every defence in today’s game the goal is to be as multiple as possible and have as many different styles as you can have so that when you need to be something else, you can.
“That’s the difference in being a dynamic offence or defence. It’s about ‘if this, then that’ being built into your system.
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- Everyone loves to talk QBs and, as mentioned above, the Blue Bombers have Collaros under contract, expect to lose Brown to another team and have Prukop currently heading into free agency. That’s a ton of uncertainty behind #8.
Walters revisited a topic this week he and head coach Mike O’Shea have discussed before and the use of one of the team’s QB spots as a short-yardage specialist who then offers some wrinkles in that package. That’s been a staple in these parts from Dan LeFevour to Chris Streveler to Prukop.
How the team now manages those two spots behind Collaros will be a storyline from now through training camp.
“It’s interesting, we talked about this in years past, but in the CFL you’re seeing a lot of teams allocate one of those three quarterback spots on the roster to a specific short-yardage guy – depending on what offence you run – but in our offence with Buck (Pierce, offensive coordinator) that’s a key part of what we do and part of our run game and the success we’ve had on short yardage is because of the productivity of that third spot. So, it’s almost like a separate position, that third-down quarterback, so the back-up quarterback is an interesting one because then do you go with a player with no CFL experience – most teams would prefer not, so hopefully you would go with somebody who has a little experience in the CFL.
“The traditional 1-2-3 with the third-string quarterback being that young developmental guy you’re talking about is a little skewed in certain organizations where the third-down quarterback has taken up that spot, particularly in our organization so then (the developmental QB) becomes a practice roster guy, which doesn’t get the development or the rep distribution as the No. 2. So, when you talk about quarterback development that is an interesting, I don’t want to say struggle or dilemma, it’s just the way certain teams are set up with the third being a short-yardage guy and not necessarily a developmental young guy.”
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- ICYMI, the Blue Bombers announced some changes to their coaching staff this week https://www.bluebombers.com/2024/01/08/we-need-a-guy-like-mike-that-the-players-are-going-battle-for/ with Jordan Younger promoted to defensive coordinator, Mike Miller replacing Paul Boudreau as special teams coordinator and Richie Hall being retained as a defensive assistant.
Miller is so highly regarded within the building there is little doubt he can be successful in the gig, just as was the case when Pierce retired and immediately became part of the team’s coaching staff in 2014.
Still, there were some honest moments from Miller when he spoke to the media on Monday as he was still wrapping his head around his formal retirement from the game and quick move to coaching.
Like this one when he was asked at what point he knew he’d be a good coach:
“I don’t really know if I’m going to be good at it or not,” he candidly offered. “Yeah, I’ve been able to help guys, one-and-one and stuff, when they have questions. I never really wanted to press upon anything on anybody, but anytime someone had a question, I’d answer the best of my knowledge, if I could.
“I’ve gained a lot of experience over the years, so I think I can bring that to the coaching side of things. But, yeah, I don’t really know if I’m going to be good at it or how it’s going to be. It’s going to be kind of trial by fire. I did get a little taste of it last year and I think it’s something I’m going to enjoy. I get to stay in the football world.”
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- The move obviously doesn’t happen without O’Shea orchestrating the change and his faith in Miller – despite his lack of coaching experience – speaks volumes. It’s also that kind of support clearly made the decision easier for Miller.
“Yeah, obviously, offering me the position, it shows he has a lot of faith in me and probably more faith in me than I do in myself,” Miller admitted. “I didn’t expect to be offered this role, at all. It was very shocking when it did come about. He definitely put me at ease saying you know the game, you know where to put guys, you know what they need to do, and you see it on film when there’s an issue and you know where we went wrong. I answered honestly and said, ‘Yeah, the majority of the time I do see it.’ He said that’s all it really is. You got to know that and you’ve got to put guys in the right position. That will come.
“Obviously, I’m looking forward to learning more from him, you know, coming from being a head coach but also coming from the special teams, as well. I’m looking forward to learning more in how to be successful at it.”
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- One more funny note from Miller, who was asked if the first meeting as a coach with a bunch of players he’s played will with for so many years will be ‘a little odd.’
“Yeah, it probably will be. No doubt,” he said with a chuckle. “I don’t know who it will be more odd for.”
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10. And, finally… ICYMI, our latest Handled Internally podcast featuring Willie Jefferson is up and can be found here:https://handledinternally.buzzsprout.com/
