Bombers did all their heavy lifting before free agency opened

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This article was published 14/02/2024 (572 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers didn’t even dip a toe into CFL free agency once the player market opened on Tuesday, let alone making a giant splash as other CFL teams did.

That’s the beauty of doing a lot of the work beforehand, as general manager Kyle Walters and his staff spent the previous weeks and months locking up as many of the team’s players as they could. When the off-season began, the Bombers had 35 pending free agents, with half of those players eventually securing extensions, resulting in 18 of the 24 starters in last year’s Grey Cup coming back in 2024.

“This is the way we’ve operated and this year was no different than the past few years, where we put the majority of our December, January, and early February time in trying to figure out how to get our core group back and we were able to do that again this year,” Walters said during his media availability at the Stadium Wednesday. “I had said at the (league) meetings in January that we’ll probably have a little more turnover this year than in years past. It seemed like it went on longer this year, right down to the deadline more so than other years.”

The Bombers are happy where they are months ahead of the upcoming season, and Walters believes — with the roster they’ve assembled — there’s a real chance of returning to the Grey Cup game for a fifth straight year.

While they were able to return much of the core leadership group, including last-minute deals with all-stars Brady Oliveira and Dalton Schoen, they weren’t able to make it all work.

A handful of key contributors signed contracts elsewhere across the league, including offensive lineman Jermarcus Hardrick (Saskatchewan) and cornerback Demerio Houston (Calgary), while the Bombers were also forced to move on from a few familiar faces as they work to stay under the $5.58-million salary cap.

Here are the main takeaways from Wednesday’s chat.

— For weeks, there was a narrative brewing it would be near impossible for Oliveira and Schoen to both be re-signed. Walters admitted not even he thought that was possible until about 24 hours before the deals were signed, giving it a “less than 10 per cent chance” of happening before that.

Much of the fear had to do with their price tags — both signed for $230,000 in 2024, but were asking for significantly more — once it was clear each player was willing to lower their number, Walters said it became a “full-court press” to get it done. He didn’t say this part outright, but club president and CEO Wade Miller and senior director of public and player relations Darren Cameron also played an integral role in bringing them back.

— Walters noted a few times the Bombers were able to extend a majority of last year’s starters. Of the six that aren’t returning, two (Hardrick and Geoff Gray) were on the offensive line and another two (Jackson Jeffcoat and Ricky Walker) were on the defensive line. It’s well known across professional football a key to winning is owning the line of scrimmage, which, for the Bombers, is suddenly thin compared to previous years. Walters said those holes will be either filled in-house — with Liam Dobson and Tui Eli capable of replacing Gray and a combination of Celestin Haba and Miles Fox — among others — easing the blow to the D-line, or by a scouting staff that continues to look for hidden gems down south.

Asked which departing player stung the most, Walters said they were all difficult to stomach, adding when you run a successful team, it means giving out pay raises, making it impossible to keep everyone. That said, it was clear Hardrick leaving for the Roughriders will be the hardest to replace, as big American tackles are difficult to find.

— Walters said Gray, a Winnipeg native who’s been on the team since 2018, was “the odd man out” when trying to assemble a new O-line. Veteran cornerback Winston Rose was told he wouldn’t be back, that the Bombers are going younger at the position. Walters also said he doesn’t expect receiver Rasheed Bailey to return after Bailey informed the club that he would be exploring other options. Bailey took a significant pay cut last season to stay, and with all the money being paid out to receivers this year, there just wasn’t enough to go around.

— There wasn’t much of an update on where things are in negotiations with kicker Sergio Castillo other than talks remain ongoing. Both sides want to get a deal done but money remains an issue. Things seemed a lot more promising last week, which makes you wonder if there might be something else at play. Castillo has a young family in the U.S. Might he want to see what the new United Football League has to offer? Might the Hamilton Tiger-Cats have second thoughts after signing Marc Liegghio? After all, the Ticats scooped up former Bombers special teams co-ordinator Paul Boudreau in recent weeks, and Castillo has a relationship with both Boudreau and Hamilton, where he had his breakout season in the CFL before tearing an ACL.

— There’s still a chance Bombers returner Janarion Grant will be back this year. They just need to find him. Walters said Grant has been difficult to reach, with even his agent struggling to nail down his whereabouts at times. It’s not the first time this has happened, though, and the Bombers continue to see if a deal can get done.

“His agent actually shot me a note last night,” Walters said. “So we’ll kind of circle back and see what can or can’t be done with Janarion.”

Winnipeg has signed Aron Cruickshank, who comes to Winnipeg with a stellar college resume while at Rutgers, followed by a brief stint with the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers, as a potential backup plan.

— Jeffcoat had some disparaging words about the way the Bombers treated him this off-season in a report last week, claiming he felt disrespected for what he said was a lack of communication from the club. He said Winnipeg didn’t reach out to him about an extension until the negotiation window neared and by then it was too late. Jeffcoat looked into some other teams, but with those talks quieting after a few days, he opted to retire instead.

Walters didn’t want to get into specifics but offered this: “Frustration can build up through the process when it’s not in the timeline or the dollar value that either side wants. And I think that’s an example. It goes both ways. There’s certainly some frustration from our end throughout this process dealing with timelines, dealing with dollar values. Because there is a domino effect for a lot of people. Which is a challenge.”

— Walters was excited about the club’s influx of Canadian talent on the way. Not only do they have a CFL-high 10 draft picks this year — including a pair of selections in the second and fifth rounds, plus four players they returned to college in 2023 — they also got word that Tyrell Ford is leaving the NFL and returning to Winnipeg.

The Bombers drafted Ford in the second round in 2022. Ford, who is the twin brother of Edmonton Elks quarterback Tre Ford, signed with the Green Bay Packers early in 2023 but was cut after training camp. The 25-year-old spent the whole year unsuccessfully trying to sign another NFL deal before returning to the CFL, where he’s under contract with the Bombers through this season before becoming a free agent.

— Walters said he doesn’t expect to sign any CFL free agents in the coming days. In fact, the club released 31-year-old fullback Damian Jackson on Wednesday, in what could be the first of more to come in order to create some much-needed cap room.

“We just don’t have any money,” he said. “The spots that are available are going to be for training-camp battles for young players, for first-year players. If somebody wants to come in on a minimum contract, we might kick the tires on that.”

Jeff.Hamilton@freepress.mb.ca

X: @jeffkhamilton