Karma – more than a topic for Boy George

The idea of a spring football league is nothing new, check out examples like the USFL, XFL version 1.0, and maybe even the WFL for precedent, but the problem is while the AAFL will perhaps go down better known as a laboratory for technology that can be sold to the NFL down the line, there was not enough backing to keep the league going for probably the minimum three years that would have been needed to see if the venture could succeed.

The collapse of the AAFL before its first season even ended resulted in a number of players on the market for the NFL and CFL and the CFL had to re-juggle their negotiation lists to reflect the accomplishments of the players who managed to distinguish themselves. Of course, considering the way the CFL had hand-cuffed teams scouting departments by placing a cap on personnel and budget, that may or may not be something that works well.

Among the casualties interestingly enough is former Montreal quarterback Johnny Manziel whose behaviour got him released by Montreal in an effort to find another comeback vehicle in the AAFL. Manziel’s hopes probably now hinge on either the XFL or maybe a really desperate NFL team. Like really desperate.

The Riders for their part were busy working out former University of Regina Ram punter Jon Ryan, who you might remember from such teams as the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Green Bay Packers and Seattle Seahawks including a Super Bowl win. Ryan has been out of the CFL for 12 years, when he set a record with a 50 yard kicking average and his appearance at a free agent camp was a good way to determine if he was still capable of kicking it old-school.

With discussion of the CFL lowering the Canadian ratio to five instead of seven starters, the Riders will be to determine the value Ryan punting for the Riders. The Riders punting game, at least from a fan’s perspective was not as good last year as it was two years ago.

It was not as good as like the worst punting average in the league. Whether that was a result of design, the Riders punting for specific locations on the field and putting in the appropriate coverage, there may or may not be a window of opportunity for the Riders to either upgrade their punting game or even better, reaching out to fans by signing a home-grown football star.

It’s highly unlikely Ryan needs the money considering he has served enough time in the NFL to qualify for an NFL pension. Ryan is 37 and looking to prove he can still punt professionally and to show the Riders aren’t an obvious shoe-in, Ryan will be kicking at a Toronto Argonauts free agent camp as well so there will be competition for Ryan’s services, especially if he can still punt consistently after a year on the sidelines.

The Riders also made some moves at getting their roster in shape prior to training camp. The Riders signed offensive lineman Tyshon Henderson, who is 6’7” and 315 pounds and was in the AAFL with the . The Riders then released Canadian linebacker Adrian Clarke and international defensive back Reggie Hall.

The CFL will be holding an international draft on April 11, following the CFL Mexican draft and well, this will be a learning process for fans and the league. The Riders will be picking sixth, and whether there is anyone who has enough skills to be developed is an open question. CFL Commissioner Randy Ambrosie feels the way to grow the CFL is to help develop overseas markets, which will presumably be interested in what players coming from Mexico and Europe will do in the CFL.

Ambrosie’s hope is the nature of the CFL will be more open and offensively minded than what the NFL brings to football. When you look at the dud of the last Super Bowl, that seems like a possibility, but this is going to be an effort whose success will be measured in years, not months or weeks.

While the CFL is looking to expand its impact on the Canadian marketplace, the addition of a 10^th team in the Maritimes is a slowly unfolding effort which seemingly got a boost with the proposed Atlantic Schooner ownership group uniting with Sport Nova Scotia for a stadium plan that would consist of government support for 12,000 seats and the ownership group springing for another 14,000 seats to allow the stadium to host everything from soccer to rugby to football to whatever they can think of.

So by eliminating the stadium as just a football issue and framing the question of a stadium as something the entire community can use, the Schooners may have found themselves actually in a position to get going on the project, with presumably the team playing in Moncton for two years until the new stadium is built.

The trade-off for Ambrosie on getting a lower Canadian starting ratio is the agreements with various football leagues in Mexico and Europe will provide Canadian players with opportunities in those leagues where they can presumably get enough experience to hone their skills and perhaps make it back to the CFL.

There is another option to develop players and perhaps even coaching and football administration staff and that would be an arena type league which would play in the winter in arenas in cities across the country, with smaller rosters and the ability to help develop talent for CFL teams. Even placing some arena teams in areas with no CFL teams might help to develop players and interest in the league.

While the CFL is taking steps towards getting established in the Maritimes, it seems the Montreal Alouettes may or may not be for sale. There had been some tweets suggesting the team was being visited by the bailiffs for not paying their debts and the Wetenhall family was said to be looking to hand the franchise to the league and then walking away.

The Wetenhalls, who took over the Montreal franchise and rode it to a couple of Grey Cup championships before quarterback Anthony Calvillo was retired thanks to a head shot, had kept the team alive since its move from Baltimore, but ran into problems when it placed its football future in the hands of Kavis Reed, whose record of futility is outshone by the way he manages to land job after job in increasing responsibility.

Reed may or not have any football acumen, but the way he has managed to hand-cuff the Alouettes through a series of questionable, if not actually stupid player moves, has managed to strip hope from the dictionary of Montreal fans. Montreal does not have a first round draft pick for the next three years, and to compensate would need a world class scouting department which it does not have.

A potential sale to a group led by former CFL player Eric Lapointe fell through after Lapointe indicated he had a group that was interested but apparently the Wetenhall’s were not interested, which indicates either a lack of depth behind the proposed ownership group or the Wetenhall’s are looking for someone to take over the debts of the team.

So as teams gear up for the CFL draft, there will be the NFL draft coming up and a better idea of which CFL prospects will be trying their luck south of the border, but what will not be coming up, at least to Mosaic Stadium, will be an NFL game.

Which would have been interesting to see an NFL exhibition game between the Green Bay Packers and the Oakland Raiders, even more interesting was seeing how the discussion of whether the best stadium in Canada should host an NFL game played out.

On the surface of things, there was nothing wrong with the City of Regina looking for an NFL game to host, considering how the city sold the prospect of a new stadium as a way of bringing in big ticket items to the city/province. The problem was the turnaround from a proposed date for the NFL game to a CFL game and the apparent appearance of Garth Brooks at the stadium was more than what the stadium could handle.

One thing that will be interesting is how the NHL Heritage Event goes over at Mosaic Stadium. The ticket prices alone make it something that is not for everyone and I am not convinced the provincial economy can handle the many big ticket items like NHL Heritage Classic/NFL Exhibition Game/Garth Brooks Stadium appearance that promoters seem convinced people will buy into.

Of course to float such a suggestion is heresy in Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan, but sooner or later reality will have to make an appearance to prove the point that wishful thinking does not make an event a reality. Then again, maybe the empty seats or perhaps seats sold at discount prices will make a better case.

This will be fodder for those who wanted a domed stadium and didn’t care for the costs of heating and operating such a facility and felt there were more than enough events to fill such a facility. Well, three years in and well, how has that worked so far?

Exhibition games do not do well, especially south of the border, as fans refuse to pay regular season prices to watch a group of fringe players trying to nab a shot at a roster spot and if you look at exhibition games, there are a lot of empty seats. So NFL teams are looking to take their exhibition games on the road to places where people will see NFL and perhaps ignore the exhibition label that goes with it.

So while some in the media wanted to say the Riders were against the game, the fact of the matter is the timing of the game just was not convenient for the Riders to meet their obligations to the CFL. Visiting teams need a day to do a walk-around or practice and to offer less than the full treatment is cheating teams and to put it in terms that perhaps a lawyer/broadcaster might understand – is a breach of contract.

The efforts to grow the CFL game means making the game if not accessible to fans, then perhaps affordable. The CFL is trying to address the concerns parents have about concussions by putting money into flag football and pushing back contact football until later one when kids’ bodies are more developed.

That should encourage both boys and girls to enjoy flag football and leaves the question of how teams can make games more accessible for families. The CFL needs to avoid thinking of the NFL route where tickets are priced so high that corporations buy most tickets and use them for business entertainment expenses.

In Atlanta the operators of the new stadium lowered their concession prices to encourage more people to buy food and drink and the results were increased sales. So maybe this is a route that could be explored by stadiums instead of trying to gouge people based on a projected profit margin.

Other things where fans will be gouged will be coming out with the New Era merchandise as they take over from Adidas. While Montreal has come out with a new uniform design in an effort to re-brand, from initial indications, there should not be any fiddling with the Riders uniform this season, but the new jerseys should be more expensive than they were before.

There was some interesting discussion when the New York Jets came out with their new jersey designs and the resemblance to the Riders was again astounding. Whether New Era comes out with something similar is again, open for discussion, but compounding this is the fact that fans may be less inclined to shell out of a personalized jersey of a player who might be gone before the season is over.

That could be a by-product of the collective bargaining agreement where to make the CFL more attractive to American players, one year contracts appear to becoming the norm so players have the chance to try the NFL after getting game film. So with a reduced number of Canadians, an increase in Mexicans and Europeans and Americans, and with shorter contracts, blank jerseys may be the more financially prudent way to go.

So look forward this week to the European draft on Thursday with the CFL draft on May 2. With the fallout from the collapse of the AAFL and the uncertainty regarding who might be signed south of the border, there will be more than enough stuff to keep fans busy until the start of training camp.

by Greg Urbanoski

Karma – more than a topic for Boy George

What's Trending