2023-2024 off-season

[BeaverSports]

Might as well start looking ahead. 3 Down Nation has an interesting piece on free agents today:
https://3downnation.com/2023/10/22/t...ee-agent-list/

My first thought is if Grahovac was left on the PR to become a free agent, that’s potentially terrible asset management. He’s arguably the best OL from last year’s draft and I’d imagine he goes back east easily.

The other thought is that, aside from Ceresna and Morgan, most of your defensive playmakers are free agents. Will Jones manage to keep them, or are we really looking at rebuilding those units again? Guys like Purifoy and Leonard have to be priorities in the next few weeks.

[Hugoagogo]

Kyran Moore, AC Leonard, Ed Gainey, and Loucheiz Purifoy are the priority Americans.
Tanner Green, Tomas Jack-Kurdyla, and Josaiah Schakel (who did a great job on ST) would be the most important Nationals, in my opinion.

Love to see Manny back, but that is probably his call. Aaron Grymes has always been a fan favourite, but you have to wonder if he's ever going to be at 100% again.

[BeaverSports]

I hope Schakel is re-signed. That was a nice addition.

[Mr.Prez]

Deonte Alexander. He actually returned a kickoff to the end zone.

[Hugoagogo]

Deonte Alexander. He actually returned a kickoff to the end zone.

Alexander is signed through 2024 I believe, but yeah, anyone who breaks that streak gets an invite to camp!

[Ti-Catfan89]

Might as well start looking ahead. 3 Down Nation has an interesting piece on free agents today:
https://3downnation.com/2023/10/22/t...ee-agent-list/

My first thought is if Grahovac was left on the PR to become a free agent, that’s potentially terrible asset management. He’s arguably the best OL from last year’s draft and I’d imagine he goes back east easily.

The other thought is that, aside from Ceresna and Morgan, most of your defensive playmakers are free agents. Will Jones manage to keep them, or are we really looking at rebuilding those units again? Guys like Purifoy and Leonard have to be priorities in the next few weeks.

Grahovic should be your staring LG, next year. The draft is deep in guards this year.

[Sectionq]

Of the list of free agents from that article, I would resign:

RB: 50-50 on Green. Offensively he doesn't have a big role other than block some. On special teams I think he is OK but at the same time, special teams aren't exactly the Elks strong suit.

Receiver: I would keep Moore. Assuming he doesn't retire, I don't bring Manny back. He is 36, going to be 37 during the season. You need someone younger and more of a play maker. If you like him around, make him a coach or advisor.

Oline - I wouldn't bring back either of them and I am looking for upgrades on the Oline. The tackles might be settled, Boyko seemed OK and Ivey was alright. Issues at guard now.

Linebackers: I don't know. They didn't start on defense, Reeves played some teams. Schakel is young so probably keep him because he's a Canadian. Reeves is 33 so maybe move on.

DB: I'd keep Purifoy, the rest can go. Gyrmes hasn't played a game in 2 years and he will be 33 in March. I just don't see how you can miss that much time and catch up especially when you are over 30. Gainey, he's already 33 and I have a hard time wanting to keep a lot of the defense.

QB: I think they need to improve the QB's. Ford will start but I don't see anyone behind him who you can play if he goes down or isn't performing. My guess is the same guys will be back especially since Cornelius is signed and I think has some guaranteed money. That being said, Ford has a lot of work to do. He can make plays with his legs but teams have film on him now so they will scheme to stop him and some have done that. I like the excitement level he can bring but a lot of his big plays seemed to be broken plays where he is able to run around making people miss and then gets a throw off. He needs to learn to be able read defenses and continue to develop his passing game so he can become a more well rounded QB.

Receivers: I'd take a look at it. On paper they had some very good receivers but they seemed to lack playmakers. Part of it was I'm sure the playbook and OC, part of it was poor QB play by Cornelius and then Ford learning to be a QB. I think upgrading on Manny will help. I'd love to have Manny from 8-10 yrs ago. I just think the need a more explosive guy. I questioned the Lewis signing last year and I still question it just because it's SOOOO much money. I just wonder if he can produce enough given he's probably making the money you could pay 2 guys who aren't as big of a name.

Running backs: Brown is a stud.

Kicking: I think punting is fine, place kicking is a huge problem. Converts are 32 yards. When you don't trust your kicker to kick a field goal past 40, that's a problem.

Defense: It needs work still. They get OK pressure at times from Lennard and Cresna but that's about it. They need more push. The run defense isn't very good so part of that falls to the Dline but also the linebackers. The keep saying Morgan is really good but he's your middle linebacker and usually has a big role in the run defense. He gets a lot of tackles, so tough call.

Secondary: I know it had a bunch of young guys so hopefully it improves but again, it needs to be evaluated.

Special teams: Once again a problem with a lack of a return game. They did get a kick return TD the last game for the first time in a very long time so I don't know if Alexander is the guy or just got lucky. It would have been nice to see Alexander get more games just to see if maybe he could do it because 1 game really doesn't give much of a sample.

Overall, I am pretty disappointed by the season. My comment in the other thread was out of frustration loaded with pissed off sarcasm. When you see your team don't win anymore games than the previous year, when you seem them lose a bunch in a row again to finish the season, when you see your team setting losing records in the season, sure they broke the home loss streak but they end up with 1 win at home and you see a bunch of lopsided games to end the season again, it's hard to see/think progress is being made. Then on top of it, you see the GM/coach IMO be extremely stubborn and make so many mistakes. Sticking with the OC who's his buddy for so long when the team is doing nothing offensively. Seeing the GM sign a QB who had big question marks to a big contract, then sticking with him for so long when he was clearly no the answer was hard to watch. Would starting Ford have caused them to win more games? Maybe, maybe not but still it was clear Cornelius wasn't doing the job at all so to watch the GM refuse to try anything different was frustrating to watch. Part of me thinks GM Jones was embarrassed by the contract he gave to Cornelius so he forced coach Jones to play him longer than he should have in an effort to save face and put his ego over winning games. SO when you see all that and know there is still a ton of questions marks once again, it's hard to think your team is on the right path.

[Hugoagogo]

Grahovic should be your staring LG, next year. The draft is deep in guards this year.

I hope he lives up to the potential. And just me, but I hope he has a new O-line coach next season as well.

[Looner]

I hope he lives up to the potential. And just me, but I hope he has a new O-line coach next season as well.

I'm hoping that we'll have some decent coaching additions with the extra ops cap I believe we have now

[Sectionq]

Gregor on Lowtide's show mentioned he heard the league might let the Elks get out of a few coaching contracts without penalty. I assume they see how things are going and feel like the Elks as a franchise can't keep being this bad.

[Beerfish]

Our strat of paying big bucks for a top end WR has failed the last two years. (Lawler and Lewis), move on from that strategy.

We badly need help for Ceresna, our Dline has been just rotating bodies and not doing enough.

Some of the secondary guys did not bad.

I like our punting, FG kicking upgrade if you can.

Everything starts with the oline in football for me so over build that if possible.

We have good rbs and Rbs are easy to find so no issue there.

Overall LB play to me was a nice surprise.

Now the #1 thing, do NOT just assume Ford is the guy at QB. He does some things very well but others not as well and the jury is out if he can lay his brand of ball and win against the better teams. Move on from Cornelius if we can. In any case the single biggest problem for this team will be if they assume ford is the guy and do not upgrade at least QB competition.

[Looner]

Gregor on Lowtide's show mentioned he heard the league might let the Elks get out of a few coaching contracts without penalty. I assume they see how things are going and feel like the Elks as a franchise can't keep being this bad.

I was under the impression that we were getting some relief this off season anyways but I may be wrong with that

[Sectionq]

I was under the impression that we were getting some relief this off season anyways but I may be wrong with that

I think Gregor was going to talk about the Elks. He made it sound like if they were to fire someone this year, they might not penalize them. Like McAdoo.. The guy can't coach yet he supposedly has another year on his deal (based on what was discussed in here). So without relief, they'd have to keep him to do nothing or have a penalty for letting him go.

Personally, I think they need to do something with Jones to reduce his role. Doing 3 jobs is nuts to me. I can't see how any person can do they job of 3 people even with help. So I think they have to make him decide. If he wants to coach, great, they need a new GM. If he wants to GM, they need a coach. I think he's a better coach than GM but that's just my opinion.

Either way, the CFL as a league has to STOP putting up barriers for their teams. The league as a whole is in danger. I think the past few seasons have showed the league that even once strong franchises are showing big cracks in the foundation. Fans of Edmonton, Calgary, Riders, as a few examples, their fans aren't just going to show up no matter what just because that's what their parents did. Those people are either dying off, unable to go or are fed up with a bad team. Putting a cap on front office and coaches, then punishing teams if they have to fire those people because they are bad at their job, is the stupidest rule ever thought of and is just weakening the chances of other teams to improve.

[tigerdar]

Honestly the only FAs I care about us re-signing are Purifoy, Kyran Moore, Schakel and Green and the latter two more for their st play however Green is useful when they bring in bigger personal to run as he's an above average (not amazing but decent) point of impact blocker, his blocking helped K Brown be decent.

I could care less about anyone not named Ceresna on the Dline as most of them were overhyped and probably overpaid and the biggest issue with our D. AC Leonard for all the good hot streaks he has sometimes gets manhandled badly. Linebacks could use an upgrade, secondary could use an upgrade if we to cut a receiver to do so then so be it. O line could use a good right tackle to bring boyko inside to guard as his strength is run blocking not pass blocking. Not a fan of Ivey's tbh.

If we're going all in on Tre next year we better bring in a suitable backup that plays with the same style and we better hope he spends every minute of the offseason working on read/recognition, mechanics and watching game film.

As for the kicker yeah he's a nice story but it's the CFL where missed field goals can be a 10 point swing quite often so I say pony up a few bucks and get someone that doesn't make me tense up anytime he kicks anything longer than a convert.

My fear/concern is if you look at Sask's FAs there are a lot lot of ex Jones guys some that I don't really want (i.e. Nic Marshall) but we shall see.

[Hugoagogo]