Winnipeg Blue Bombers General Manager Kyle Walters isn’t pulling out any more stops than usual in 2025, the year of the Grey Cup being played in his team’s home stadium.
That’s because, he says, the team pulls out all the stops every season, no matter where the November championship is played.
The notion that ‘okay, NOW we’re gonna be serious’ brings out the GM’s incredulity.
“I don’t want to say it’s insulting, but I think it sends a terrible message to the players,” said Walters over the phone during a break in the CFL’s Winter Meetings in North Carolina. “Well, why wouldn’t we try to do this every year? Like, are we gonna try extra hard to win the Grey Cup? Because it’s in Winnipeg?
“I think, you know, from a locker room standpoint, from an organization standpoint, you should be doing everything you can every single year to win the Grey Cup.”
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The good news for fans of the Blue Bombers is that the usual number of stops pulled by Walters and his management team have led to five years of football prosperity, with four straight West Division crowns and five consecutive trips to the Grey Cup, including two victories.
And already this off-season, the team has retained centrepiece players like defensive end Willie Jefferson and offensive linemen Stanley Bryant and Patrick Neufeld as well as defensive backs Jamal Parker Jr. and Evan Holm, alongside linebackers Kyrie Wilson, Shayne Gauthier and Tony Jones.
As the off-season progresses and free agency starts to heat up, however, there is work to be done by the Blue Bombers, and some of it is born of the team’s consecutive losses in the last three Grey Cups, that last one in particular.
Those are my words, by the way, not his. But in quizzing Walters about the state of the Winnipeg quarterbacks room, one gets the impression that the Blue Bombers might well still be searching for an experienced slinger to back up Zach Collaros, the team’s 36-year-old starter who Walters confirmed is fired up for the 2025 season.
“He’s dialled in and ready to go,” said Walters of Collaros, who’d quietly suggested retirement might be an option for him, in the days just following Winnipeg’s loss to the Toronto Argonauts last November.
In that loss, the Bombers were left in a lurch when Collaros suffered a bad cut to a finger on his throwing hand with the game still very much up for grabs. The Blue Bombers were forced to make a decision; either hand the ball over to the inexperienced Terry Wilson, or to the more experienced Jake Dolegala – who’d only been with the team a few weeks and had not thrown a pass in blue and gold – or go with a stitched up Collaros, a glove on that painful throwing hand.
Winnipeg’s best option was still not a good one, as Collaros understandably struggled mightily with touch, and the Argos defence made a meal of the situation.
Does this mean the Bombers need to upgrade their back-up quarterbacking?
“We’re talking through all that,” said Walters.
“I mean, it’s no secret,” he continued. “Obviously, the quarterbacking position is huge.”
Back-up quarterback Chris Streveler, who’s 2024 season ended in September when he suffered a serious left knee injury, is slated to become a free agent next month. Do the Bombers try to extend or re-sign him? Do they sit tight with Wilson and Dolegala? Or do they look elsewhere?
“We’ve just started these types of discussions the past couple of weeks,” said Walters. “What do we do? How do we feel about Jake and Terry moving forward? Do we need to add an experienced guy?
“So that’s all up in the air to figure out. What’s going to make that (quarterbacks) room the best?”
Some of the more tasty options – at least when it comes to championship seasons or experience – are no longer available for the Blue Bombers.
Cody Fajardo and McLeod Bethel-Thompson were traded for each other, landing in Edmonton and Montreal, respectively. Calgary’s Jake Maier was dealt to Saskatchewan where he signed a new deal with the Roughriders.
“It comes down to the salary cap,” said Walters, “where you look at what does the ‘Quarterback One’ make in the room, and then what can you afford for ‘Quarterback Two’?
“And Zach, with his experience and success and, you know, been to five straight Cups while he’s been here, he has a contract that’s rewarded him for that. So it makes it a little more challenging when other teams with ‘Quarterback Ones’ making less money that they can afford to maybe pay a little bit more for a backup, right? That’s just the facts.”
There are still some possibilities out there, lurking, if Walters and the Bombers choose to add an arm.
Perhaps most enticingly, Nick Arbuckle – who showed the value of having a bona fide plan B quarterback in place when he led Toronto to its Grey Cup win over Winnipeg last November – might be a free agent next month, should he not come to terms with the Argonauts in the meantime.
Ottawa’s Jeremiah Masoli is a possible free agent and so is Calgary’s Matthew Shiltz.
Quarterbacking aside, Winnipeg has a couple of primetime pass-catchers who might make their way to free agency in Kenny Lawler and Dalton Schoen. Walters has blunted the sting of possibly losing one or both of them with the signing of veteran Dillon Mitchell, who was released by Edmonton a week ago.
But what will the price tag be? Where is the threshold for primo receivers in 2025?
Edmonton Elks’ general manager Ed Hervey made noise this week when he said he expects star receiver Eugene Lewis to hit the market next month.
“We’ll let the market reset itself with the receivers,” said Hervey, adding “I think Geno’s an excellent receiver… but we’re not paying that kind of money for receivers in Edmonton.”
For Walters, a price tag similar to what Lewis made in Edmonton last year would be problematic. “It would be tough for us to make a $300,000 receiver fit with the way we’re built,” he said.
That does not mean, however, that he’s certain he can’t make a pre-free agency deal with either Schoen or Lawler. Or both.
“I’m hopeful we can talk (further),” said Walters. “Their agents are paid to do their job, and they’ll do their job.”
You can see how a team’s finances get caught up in myriad computations, and permutations and we’ve really only touched on the offensive side of the ball here.
The Blue Bombers still have some key defensive pieces they’d love to retain, led by All-CFL corner Tyrell Ford.
“Varying stages of discussion,” said a close-to-the-vest Walters when asked how all of his renegotiations were going.
In other words, he’s pulling out the usual number of stops. And that’s worked pretty well for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in recent off-seasons.