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CFL 2025

bone said:
Way too premature to declare that. Seen many teams blow their load only to not have the team gel.

I'm certainly hopeful since they've agressively looked at addressing areas of weakness, but our receivers and kicking game is a major question mark. Fortunately those are two positions that you can sometimes find cheap unknowns that can do well with the opportunity, but those positions can also easily lose you games if you don't get some reasonable talent. Fortunately Hervey has found some rookie gems at the former position. Not sure if he's got the chops to find the latter, but hopefully a Special Teams specialist as head coach might be able to give some good advice on what to look for.
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Not premature at all. When was the last time you saw a team sign the #1 FA at almost every position?
 
Jeffrey Pedler said:
Not premature at all. When was the last time you saw a team sign the #1 FA at almost every position?
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Well technically no one is signed until at least Tuesday morning. Assuming everything happens as has been reported, for sure it looks like a slam dunk right now, but sometimes grabbing all the prime players doesn't get the results you'd expect. Though I'm less concerned than usual because some of these guys have already been here before.
 
Cloned said:
Is that what happened? I’m not familiar with the players anymore.
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It's close to that. This is a neutral list from CFL.ca as a sample.

www.cfl.ca

CFL.ca's top 30 pending free agents - CFL.ca

CFL.ca has released its top 30 pending free agents ahead of the market opening on February 11, 2025.
www.cfl.ca www.cfl.ca

Ford (#1 on the list and highest QB, extended)
Ford (#4 on the list and highest DB)
Ivey (#10 on the list and highest OL, extended)
Ceresna (#14 on the list, 3rd DL but highest to change teams)
Leake (#15 on the list, highest RB and highest returner, extended)
Morgan (#21 on the list, 3rd LB, extended)
Beard (#22 on the list 3rd OL, but highest to change teams)

Though they did lose #13 on the list in Geno Lewis (4th highest receiver on the list). So his comment is reasonable as the only common position they didn't get the highest on the list that didn't stay with their existing team was Receiver and Line Backer.

There were no kickers on the list, but they did sign a guy who's been doing it for the last few years in Calgary and was one of only 3 free agent punters available and the first to sign with a different team than last year. He doesn't replace Julien, and I'm not confident he was the best of the three and don't know the other 2 guys' plans, but at least he should be competent and is a known player to our new coach who likely knows his potential better than anyone in the league.

A positive about Grace also is that despite having a slightly lower career punting average than the other 2, is that his career net yardage average is a full yard better than the other 2. Considering he's working with the same coach, he may be the best suited to execute this coaching staff's game plan.
 
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bellagiobob said:


He’s not wrong. Need to have this number before the neg window opens, not a week after.
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If this Salary Cap increase was announced earlier, do you think the Elks would have been as successful in signing the players that they did? Or would teams have retained their players?
 
samiam said:
If this Salary Cap increase was announced earlier, do you think the Elks would have been as successful in signing the players that they did? Or would teams have retained their players?
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I think the salary cap hike was only 10% so it would have made a small difference but not a large one.

What's happening now (I think) is that the EE are seen as a team that has stabilized and are on the rise so that's incentive to come here. From what I have heard the Stamps are a real mess right now --an example of a team that is headed the other direction.

It also helps that guys who are returning know Ed Hervey. They know all the positives and negatives and are voting on "net positives."

We'll have to see if all these guys actually sign on Tuesday. They are still free to change their minds.
 
14 receivers (including 6 Canadians) on the current roster but take away Lewis and there isn't one name that speaks "standout."
 
MoontoScott said:
Does anybody have the complete list of EE signings today? If so, please post them.
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Are doing medicals tomorrow and are planning to announce the bulk of them after that. Only official ones so far are Julien-Grant and Kobe Williams.
 
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Another year and another big turnover for CFL clubs including the EE.

On defense--5 starters gone: Oakman, Brown, Moncrief, Anderson and Purifoy. Brown and Anderson might return.

On offense-- Mitchell, Lewis, (2 best receivers) also Jones and Kevin Brown.

Bedde and Julien also toast. Julien is the biggest loss of all the free agents.

Let's hope the newcomers are an upgrade.

Oh well, that's the league. Right now the EE are long shots to make the playoffs.
 
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MoontoScott said:
Another year and another big turnover for CFL clubs including the EE.

On defense--5 starters gone: Oakman, Brown, Moncrief, Anderson and Purifoy. Brown and Anderson might return.

On offense-- Mitchell, Lewis, (2 best receivers) also Jones and Kevin Brown.

Bedde and Julien also toast. Julien is the biggest loss of all the free agents.

Let's hope the newcomers are an upgrade.

Oh well, that's the league. Right now the EE are long shots to make the playoffs.
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I thought we'd make an attempt to keep Jones. I really like what he brought last year in limited games.

Should be easy to update on Bede, not so much Julien.

Oakman and Anderson are big losses, but at least there is likely a 50/50 chance for Anderson to come back, I guess we stripped the Argonauts roster of so many starters, that had to at least get one or two back.;)

Let's hope they can find a bunch of diamonds in the rough that no one ever heard of, like Hervey did back in 2014-15.
 
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MoontoScott said:
Another year and another big turnover for CFL clubs including the EE.

On defense--5 starters gone: Oakman, Brown, Moncrief, Anderson and Purifoy. Brown and Anderson might return.

On offense-- Mitchell, Lewis, (2 best receivers) also Jones and Kevin Brown.

Bedde and Julien also toast. Julien is the biggest loss of all the free agents.

Let's hope the newcomers are an upgrade.

Oh well, that's the league. Right now the EE are long shots to make the playoffs.
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CFL is such a crap shoot, who knows. Edm lost a lot of players, but a lot of the players they've signed are at minimum reasonable bets to be as good as or possibly better than the players they are replacing with the exception of the receivers and the punter, but all-star receivers are born every year and this will be a run heavy team to start the year, so I wouldn't panic yet especially with Dunbar still out there and he has history with both Hervey and the Elks.

I like where the team is right now more than Calgary, we still don't know whether BC will rebound from a terrible second half (easily the worst team to make playoffs in the 2nd half and likely worse than Edmonton and Hamilton down the stretch). Winnipeg should still be good, but at some point they could hit a wall. They almost did last year until getting on track after the first third of the season. Saskatchewan won't be taking teams by surprise early in the year now and Harris is even older with Meier being a huge question mark. I see the west pretty wide open overall.
 
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