Now that the entire Canadian Football League has had a chance to exhale after the crazy stretch earlier this month which featured the free agency negotiation window and then the opening of the talent market, a few thoughts as it relates to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers…
First, here are some still TBD questions for the club with rookie camps schedule to open on May 6th, followed by main camp on May 9th.
-What happens next with Canadian quarterback Taylor Elgersma, a second-round selection by the Blue Bombers in last year’s CFL Draft?
Justin Dunk of 3Down Nation reported this week that the big QB will be attending the National Football League Combine next week in Indianapolis. Just to be clear, Elgersma has been invited to be involved as an extra arm, not as a formal participant after he already passed through last year’s NFL Draft and attended training camp with the Green Bay Packers.
It will give Elgersma more exposure to NFL eyes, though, after he has had looks from the Packers, New York Giants, Chicago Bears, Miami Dolphins and San Francisco 49ers. He was also selected by the Birmingham Stallions in the UFL’s quarterback draft.
In short, as Blue Bombers GM Kyle Walters has said repeatedly, Elgersma is chasing every four-down option possible right now — as is his right — and while he exhausts that it does leave Winnipeg’s QB picture a bit fuzzy.
The club has Collaros under contract, along with last year’s returnees Terry Wilson and Chase Artopoeus along with former UFL MVP Bryce Perkins — he also dressed for five games and made one start for the Los Angeles Rams in 2022 — and former Auburn/Michigan State starter Payton Thorne. Management is comfortable rolling with that crew behind Collaros, but getting Elgersma — the Hec Crighton winner as the top player in Canadian college football in 2024 with Wilfrid Laurier — in camp would obviously add to the competition.
-Who will fill the receivers coach role on Mike O’Shea’s coaching staff?
There have been some changes to last year’s crew, with Jake Thomas retiring to replace Darrell Patterson as the defensive line coach, with Tommy Condell now the offensive coordinator/QB coach and Jason Hogan returning to his role as the running backs coach.
That leaves the receivers coach position still to be filled. No timeline on that yet.
-What happens at the one cornerback spot seemingly available in the secondary?
The addition of veteran corner Jonathan Moxey, ex of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Calgary Stampeders, clearly fills one spot. Now we can add another in the fight for the other cornerback position — on Friday the club added veteran Deandre Lamont (5-9, 185; Illinois State). He spent the last three years with the Ottawa RedBlacks, starting 39 games over that span.
-How does the free agent haul impact the Canadian ratio?
This won’t be officially decided until training camp is put to bed, but signing Jarell Broxton to play right tackle and landing Canadian receiver Tommy Nield seemingly gives the club some options to use three Americans across the offensive line and start three homegrown players in the receiving corps with Nield, Nic Demski and a third spot to be contested between Kevens Clercius, Joey Corcoran, Gavin Cobb and, possibly, a 2026 CFL Draft pick.
FYI, the CFL’s National Combine will be in Edmonton in late March, and the Blue Bombers currently have the fourth overall selection.
More notes and quotes in this week’s edition of 1st & 10…
Some leftovers… from the media session with Collaros earlier this week that didn’t make our initial story, which can be found here:
Collaros said he’s had input and conversations about Condell’s offensive playbook, which is clearly key after some of the frustration felt on that side of the ball last season.
“It’s been a process of just kind of building what we want it to look like because every quarterback’s different, every set of personnel is different,” said Collaros. “Obviously, (Condell) doesn’t want to do exactly what they were doing in Ottawa or exactly what they were doing in Hamilton (his last two stops before joining the Bue Bombers) and things have definitely changed from what we were doing in 2014 and 2015 in Hamilton.
“But really right now it’s just getting the terminology down and what makes the most sense to be able to communicate it to the entire unit. And then you get into, ‘Okay, what concepts do you like? What concepts do YOU like?’ Does it fit what defences have been doing the last two, three years? And then trying to marry all that stuff together.
“Obviously we’ve had a great deal of success running the football here. So how can we continue that and marry the play-action game with that? And what’s the best way of doing that? So, between the meetings of trying to figure out what the playbook is going to look like, also doing your own film work of the PFF (Pro Football Focus) stuff, trying to watch the NFL, what some of their play-action game was – this is not something that’s just unique to me or him. I’m sure every team does this. But that’s kind of what the process looks like in the off-season. Trying to watch what they were doing down there, what was successful up here last season and maybe the season before? Can we adopt some of that stuff and steal, because everything is basically stealing from each other anyways, and how we can make it better?
“So, it’s been a lot of fun. And yeah, really looking forward to the season.”
A sad tale from Drew Wolitarsky’s media session on Thursday — that piece is here — about his connection with former Hamilton Tiger-Cats GM Ted Goveia, the long-time Blue Bombers assistant GM who passed away last year after bringing several players with Winnipeg ties to Steeltown.
“Ted Goveia… if it weren’t for Ted I probably would have been done at that point,” said Wolitarsky after being released by the Blue Bombers last winter. “But Ted was very excited. He called me the next day and was like, ‘Dude, I want you here in Hamilton. You’re going to be my first signing as the GM.’ I was excited about that. I love Ted. He’s been my guy in Winnipeg for all these years… I’m going to do this for Ted and for my family. I think this could be exciting.”
Wolitarsky said that it was late in training camp last year when Goveia asked to see him in his office.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, am I about to get cut?’ I don’t even have a Plan B. I’m stressing out,” he recalled. “I’m sitting there and he’s like, ‘Hey, can you sit over here?’ so that he’s not facing the window now. He’s like, ‘I’m not going to cut you.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my God, Ted, I’m (expletive deleted) stressing here. What’s going on?’ It just goes quiet for a second and he goes, ‘Drew, I’m dying. Stage 4. Gastro cancer.’ That’s just kind of how the year was, man. It was just bad news after bad news after bad news. Injury… stupid little injury here, stupid little injury there. I’m about to get my starting role on Day 3 and get hurt. It was just one thing after the next.
“I go to visit Teddy because I haven’t heard from him for a while and he’s been in out of the office. He was looking frail and he fell down at one point in the office. So, I got to visit him and he’s not well. It’s when Winnipeg was in town on ‘Ted Night’, that week. I go over there and I’m playing some guitar for him and he’s just not even there. It was scary. Osh (Blue Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea) came by, Danny McManus came by. Next morning I go on a talk show to promote him, promote the game and I get a call from his sister on the way home — Ted passed this morning on Ted Day. I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ We ended up winning the game for Ted. It was a beautiful night. But it was just a sad year. I went through a lot mentally and physically.”
For those who may have missed it and want to listen in to Wolitarsky’s press conference after signing a one-day contract to retire as a Blue Bomber, here it is in all its glory:
We also cranked out another ‘Handled Internally’ podcast this week with Jamieson Sheahan joining myself, Darren Cameron and Collaros. That can be found here:
And, finally, our content team has been busy this week. This was cool…
He’s played with some. Studied them all.
Zach Collaros builds the ultimate CFL QB.#ForTheW pic.twitter.com/O8pi2na858
— Winnipeg Blue Bombers (@Wpg_BlueBombers) February 20, 2026