In the month of December the Winnipeg Blue Bombers were able to get a few guys re-signed from their pending free agent list.
Those players included: long snapper Mike Benson; defensive backs Desmond Lawrence and Winston Rose; defensive lineman Jake Thomas; and linebacker Kyrie Wilson.
That leaves some fairly notable names yet to be re-signed.
However, it cannot be missed that on the Bombers 2023 schedule is a graphic of Jackson Jeffcoat, even though he remains unsigned at this time. That has to make you believe that the Bombers have some type of verbal deal with Jeffcoat – or we will be saying “Bye-bye” to whoever put that graphic on the 2023 schedule.
What adds a little intrigue to the Jeffcoat story for me is that on December 13, 2022 the Bombers released a ‘home only’ schedule but this time the graphic had Zach Collaros on it.
Still, I believe that Jackson Jeffcoat is all but a done deal as it would have been a massive blunder to put his graphic on the full schedule.
While free agency does not start until February 14th I am quite convinced that they Bombers have not stopped their attempts at re-signing players. In fact I suspect they will re-sign another one or two players in the coming days.
On January 4th the Bombers sent out an enigmatic tweet for an autograph signing on Saturday January 7th.
I have to believe at least one of those players will be a guy who is currently on the Bombers pending free agent list. If I had to hazard a guess I would guess that one of those players would be Jackson Jeffcoat to finally put ink to paper. If it is not Jeffcoat, is it one of the offensive lineman?
But tell me, what do you make of only one of the stickmen saying “Hi”? Does that suggest that the Bombers are signing someone released from another team, or maybe a new player to the league? I guess we will have to wait to find out.
But it could be possible that the Bombers are doing the same thing the Argos are doing…adding American free agent players.
In order for the Bombers to continue their success into 2023 and look to recapture glory in the 2023 Grey Cup a high priority must be protecting Zach Collaros. Currently Stanley Bryant, Michael Couture, and Jermarcus Hardrick, are all on the Bomber’s pending free agent list. You have to think that many of those players are high priority to get re-signed.
It would not surprise me to see something like this shake out: the Bombers re-sign Jeffcoat, then the next couple of signings are mostly offensive linemen, next they sign a wide receiver or two (Nic Demski and either Rashed Bailey or Janarion Grant while Greg Ellingson is not re-signed) and then we see a lot of line backers, defensive linemen, and defensive backs signed.
When it all is said and done I would hope to see Bailey, Grant, and Demski all re-signed.
Without a doubt there will be some players that decide to test free agency. For those players I would suggest they need to make a splash quickly or else give a quick call to the Bombers stating their interest in re-signing. In past years the top money has gone quickly and you have seen players taking to twitter trying to tout their value hoping to land somewhere. The CFL is a league where you can quickly find yourself without a home should you make the wrong decision regarding testing free agency.
Who do you think the Bombers need to prioritize re-signing? (I can only guess somebody is going to say “Medlock.”) So rephrasing the question, who do you think the Bombers need to prioritize re-signing from their pending free agent list?
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Written by a Bomber fan, for the Bomber fans.
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