Courtesy Winnipeg Free Press:

Welcome to Doug Berry’s worst nightmare: trying to slice down what is arguably the most talented collection of prospects in these parts in years into the unit that will suit up for the 2008 regular-season opener in six days.

Yes, welcome to cut-down day, when coaches sweat over every single decision and players pray they don’t get a knock on their hotel room door or the dreaded phone call that begins with: “Go see the coach. And bring your playbook.”

It is, in essence, a combination root canal-proctologist visit all wrapped up in one positively evil experience.

“I hate it. I hate it,” said Berry Friday, during a break from film sessions and coaching meetings in advance of today’s roster-declaration deadline. “I don’t like having to tell guys, ‘There’s not a spot for you on this football team’ and then try to justify the reason for it when in fact they’re probably good enough to be playing here.

“We have a lot of guys who are going to fit that mode and we’re not going to have a spot for them on this team and I believe in prior years they probably could have played here.”

The Bomber staff has been meeting essentially since Thursday’s pre-season finale victory over the Montreal Alouettes to assess their overall talent. And the debates surely would have begun almost as instantly as the team weighs each player’s skill set, character AND salary. Ultimately, it’s Berry who has the final veto power.

“Guys will stand up and say, ‘I want him’ and the special-teams guy will say, ‘I want him’ and the head coach will say, ‘I want that guy,’ ” said Berry. “We’ll all have input and (GM) Brendan (Taman) will have an idea of the SMS (salary management system) plan and we’ll have to put it all together. This is going to be interesting.

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