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<\/p>\nIt\u2019s an exercise undertaken by Canadian Football League franchises every offseason as part of a complete and thorough annual review \u2014 and it comes whether they ended the year hoisting the Grey Cup overhead or languishing in the basement.<\/p>\n
And, truthfully, it\u2019s a process no one with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers front office would have found any joy in doing over the last few weeks.<\/p>\n
So, let\u2019s be very frank here as we begin our annual Year in Review series highlighting the Top 5 Blue Bombers stories of 2025: the club\u2019s work in free agency 10 months ago resulted in some whiffs which then played a significant part in the drop from a four-year run atop the West Division to a fourth-place finish and an early playoff exit.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s simply the harsh reality for an organization which has posted nine consecutive double-digit win seasons, made five straight Grey Cup appearances and won two titles since 2016 while becoming a destination for free agents across the league every winter, from Willie Jefferson and Adam Bighill to Andrew Harris and Justin Medlock among many, many others.<\/p>\n
Expectations remain in the stratosphere in Bomberland and that was certainly the case this time a year ago when the team was coming off its fifth straight Grey Cup appearance \u2014 and third consecutive loss.<\/p>\n
Yet, while repeated success often means a roster gets picked over every winter \u2014 and that was certainly the case in 2025 with the Blue Bombers \u2014 the losses the club took this past year were more significant than the gains made in the free agent market and on the field.<\/p>\n
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Consider what the 2025 winter of change looked like for the Blue Bombers:<\/p>\n
-New Tiger-Cat GM Ted Goveia \u2014 who would later sadly pass away before the end of the 2025 season \u2014 left his role with the Blue Bombers and then feasted on Winnipeg\u2019s roster by offering lucrative deals to game-breaking receiver Kenny Lawler and starting guard Liam Dobson, also adding receiver Drew Wolitarsky, running back Johnny Augustine, defensive tackle Miles Fox and end TyJuan Garbutt along with linebacker Brian Cole II. Granted, some of those players weren\u2019t destined to return to Winnipeg anyway, but that\u2019s a pile of change exiting to just one CFL rival.<\/p>\n
-Over the free-agent period the club also saw Canadian all-star cornerback Tyrell Ford join his twin brother Tre in Edmonton, end Celestin Haba sign with Toronto, with hall of fame linebacker Adam Bighill not offered a contract, while receiver Pokey Wilson \u2014 who would later return in September \u2014 signed with the New York Jets.<\/p>\n
-As well, with Buck Pierce leaving his role as offensive coordinator to become the head coach with the B.C. Lions \u2014 and taking receivers coach Kevin Bourgoin with him \u2014 the coaching staff under Mike O\u2019Shea saw four changes on offence with Jason Hogan promoted to offensive coordinator and then Andre Bolduc, Jarious Jackson and Billy Jean all added.<\/p>\n
Now, every CFL team must deal with change every winter, but too many of the Blue Bombers responses to those losses simply didn\u2019t work. Let\u2019s begin with the good \u2014 veteran defensive end James Vaughters posted a career high six sacks while receiver Jerreth Sterns flashed enough in a reworked pass catching corps to be intrigued, as he pulled in 48 passes for 530 yards and four touchdowns in 14 games.<\/p>\n
But Dillon Mitchell\u2019s season was nothing short of a disappointment \u2014 he had 19 catches for 193 yards and a touchdown in nine games and was arrested last month in Arkansas for a series of driving offences \u2014 while fellow receiver Reggie White, Jr., quarterback Shea Patterson, defensive end Brock Gowanlock, defensive back Josh Haggerty never even made the team, let alone play in a game.<\/p>\n
Running back\/returner Peyton Logan was injured in training camp and limited to three games all year \u2014 Trey Vaval was CFL\u2019s rookie of the year and special teams player of the year as his replacement, so that worked out \u2014 but linebacker Jonathan Jones appeared in just three contests. As well, receiver Gavin Cobb dressed for four games at the end of the year, starting two, and did what he was supposed to do as a depth player, but is once again a pending free agent.<\/p>\n
Again the return on the free agent investments couldn\u2019t offset the losses, let alone enhance the organization\u2019s overall position.<\/p>\n
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GM Kyle Walters<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was disappointing,\u201d said GM Kyle Walters last month in assessing the 2025 season. \u201cThe bar that has been set organizationally is four years of winning the West and five years of Grey Cups and to not sustain that feels like a letdown and a step backwards and it was\u00a0a step backwards.<\/p>\n
\u201cOrganizationally we have to accept the fact it wasn\u2019t as good as it needed to be this year and how do we get back to not taking another step the wrong way but get back to competing for the West and getting to Grey Cups.\u201d<\/p>\n
There have been some important steps already taken in this department since the end of the season, with both Walters and head coach Mike O\u2019Shea both signing three-year contract extensions, along with critical players who were inching toward free agency re-signing in star running back Brady Oliveira, defensive tackle Cam Lawson, dime back Redha Kramdi, receiver Nic Demski and defensive back Deatrick Nichols \u2014 Pokey Wilson also signed an extension \u2014 as the club attacks a long to-do list.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s important here, too \u2014 this organization, one which has set such a lofty bar \u2014 is energized to get back to along the CFL\u2019s elite.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully we look back and say this was a good turning point for the organization, that we\u2019re able to now realize we had a good run,\u201d said Walters. \u201cAnd no arguing that we took a step back. And now let\u2019s re-set and get back. So, I\u2019m hoping that this starts that process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Consider this as well: the end of season roster featured 14 players who made their CFL debuts in 2025, including six members of this year\u2019s draft class in linebackers Connor Shay, Jaylen Smith and Lane Novak, receiver Joey Corcoran, defensive back Ethan Ball and offensive lineman Ethan Vibert, along with Global Draft selection Kemari Munier-Bailey, a defensive end.<\/p>\n
Couple that with the quick fixes available in free agency \u2014 if the additions work \u2014 and the Blue Bombers plan on being a West Division heavyweight again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve stood up here and kind of complained through the years of the one-year contracts, but the benefit of so many free agents in our league from year to year that, I mean, you saw Calgary was last I believe last year and then they flipped their whole roster around,\u201d Walters said. \u201cIt\u2019s easier to do with one-year contracts, to be able to make a quick change for your roster, more so than other leagues where once you\u2019re in that situation you\u2019re in it takes a while to get out of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what we need to do now is sit down and take a deep breath and get all the decision-making pieces organized and then, you\u2019re 100 percent right, figure out how do we fix it. And as I just said, it is a little easier quick fix, for lack of a better term, in our league when there\u2019s so many players on one-year contracts every single year.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026 We were 10-8 this year. So, the idea that the sky is falling and we\u2019re 0-18 and missed the playoffs, that\u2019s not the case \u2013 we\u2019re a double-digit win team with a good core here and a group of decision makers that have been here a while who know how to win. Just trust that we\u2019ll get back to winning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next: #4 | Inconsistency\/Frustration<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s an exercise undertaken by Canadian Football League franchises every offseason as part of a complete and thorough…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-370133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-canadianfootballleague","12":"tag-cfl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}