The CFL Off-Season merry go around gets underway

The hiring of Campbell, combined with the Eskimos letting head coach Jason Maas go for an under-achieving season, will likely lead to a reunion of Campbell and Maas, who will become the offensive coordinator for the Lions. This move makes sense if you go with the theory that Maas did well as an offensive coordinator in Ottawa because with his intensity he was able to concentrate on just the play-calling as opposed to bearing responsibility for the entire team.

Maas managed to get the Eskimos to the Eastern final as a cross-over team but the team fell short due to lack of discipline and talent on the defensive backfield. With the Lions having Mike Reilly as quarterback, Maas has a known quality running the offense and how to shape the offense to take advantage of what he does best.

The Maas to Edmonton deal makes a lot of sense, but Maas may want another kick at the can and might put his name in for the head job in Ottawa. Maas cut his teeth as the offensive coordinator there and returning to the scene would give him the opportunity to show anger management classes do work and he has learned from his unbridled enthusiasm as the top schmo in Edmonton.

So with Campbell in BC, Edmonton is looking for a new head coach and Paul La Police, offensive coordinator in Winnipeg, has been cited as a potential coach, but let’s not forget there are other candidates including Stephen McAdoo, offensive coordinator in Saskatchewan. McAdoo is said to be a candidate for the Ottawa position which is interesting since Ottawa has no quarterback worthy of the description at this time, so McAdoo would have the opportunity to either groom a young quarterback, which is a 50/50 proposition considering his history with Brandon Bridge, doing better with Cody Fajardo, or Ottawa goes heavy into free agency and goes for either a Jeremiah Masoli or even a Nick Arbuckle.

Whoever takes the head job in Edmonton would be smart to leave Ted Lolley in place as defensive coordinator. Lolley did a good job making chicken salad out of, well, you know, by constructing an impressive defensive line to cover for the deficiencies in the defensive secondary. Edmonton was probably its own worst enemy with stupid penalties, which tended to flow from the impassioned nature of the former head coach Maas, so if Brock Sutherland was able to say, find or draft some decent defensive secondary or linebacker help, the Schmos might be in a position to contend for top spot in the west.

One of the more interesting situations is in Winnipeg where Mike O’Shea a few months ago was penciled in as leaving to take over the top job in Toronto. With Zach Collaros coming in to rescue the Bombers, and O’ Shea a free agent, he is now in an enviable position to choose his spot and there is really is no bad choice to what he decides.

Breaking the 28/29 year jinx is a nice way to cap the year for Winnipeg, but they should be wary of losing La Police to another team – Edmonton, Ottawa or Toronto – but if O’ Shea stays, maybe the Bombers see the emergence of Buck Pearce as offensive coordinator. Pearce would be a good guide for someone like Streveler, who showed while he can run; his throwing rivals that of say, Tim Tebow.

Winnipeg will likely not see the return of Zach Collaros who will likely return to Toronto now that he has demonstrated that if you can keep him upright, he can be used judiciously in various spots and might be a good mentor.

So that leaves Winnipeg with Streveler and Matt Nichols, who will likely return from his injury determined to show that he is a good game manager and can lead Winnipeg back to the promised land.. Having Pearce as a former quarterback in charge of the offense will likely see less of an emphasis on match-ups as La Police emphasized and more on developing a downfield passing game to accompany the running game.

The problem is, and Bomber fans may cringe when they hear this, but Andrew Harris is getting older and running backs in their mid-30’s are usually not as productive as they once were – unless they are using performance enhancing drugs like Harris did last season. Winnipeg may want to keep the band together for another run at the Cup, but in an era of one year contracts and a lot of movement, Winnipeg maybe should look at what kind of club they will have to be in the future.

O’Shea is in position to cash in no matter where he goes, but he will have to work within the framework of the football administration cap and after bringing a Cup to Winnipeg, would the challenge of making Toronto relevant again be enough to attract his attention back home?

Toronto is an interesting situation because Cory Chamblin has been twisting in the wind since the Argos replaced GM Jim Popp with Mike Clemons. Clemons brings name recognition and credibility to the Argos, but while he did coach, his strength is not yet known in personnel management and acquisition.

The Argos do have John Murphy who can help out in that regard and overall has had a mixed bag in delivering players. He did goodish in Calgary and Saskatchewan and his stint in Winnipeg was nothing major. Chamblin has another year on his contract and under the ever so flexible rules of the CFL football administration cap, the opportunity is there for the Argos to claim a mulligan and swallow Chamblin’s contract if they want to move on.

The problem is whether or not the mulligan would extend for the rest of the staff and if not, would someone like O’Shea be stuck with the current Argo assistant coaches until say, next year? Toronto just extended middle linebacker Bear Woods for another two years, a good move considering Woods is a solid player and the two year contract is an acknowledgement that it will take two years for Toronto to emerge as a viable contender for the Cup.

Toronto’s big problem was not so much the quality of the players as the questionable coaching. There is a situation where coaches think too much in game situations and I am reminded of the classic line in the movie Bull Durham – Don’t think too much, you’ll only hurt the team.

If Clemons, Murphy and MLSE decide that confidence in coaching decisions will lead to greater public confidence and even bums in the seats, then O’Shea coming in will help and him knocking off or even moving Chamblin over into defensive coordinator, assuming the Argos will try to stretch their paltry Argo budget, may help the team more in the next year or two.

Where Toronto has a problem is at offensive coordinator and deciding which quarterback should lead the team. James Franklin was a roll of the dice that did not work out and Franklin has not lived up to his hype since being traded from Edmonton to Toronto. McLeod Bethel Thompson has emerged as a quarterback with the ability to lead and go deep, all he needs is an offensive coordinator who can develop an offense best suited to cashing in on his skills.

I am not going to pretend to know where O’Shea would go, but he does have options and if he stays or goes, he will have challenges to face in order to repeat the Grey Cup experience either with Winnipeg or elsewhere.

Ottawa will be focusing on a coach or staff that can best develop a new quarterback. Ottawa screwed up by letting their offensive coordinator go last year to the XFL after refusing him permission to interview elsewhere in the CFL, like Saskatchewan, although it seems to have worked out for the Riders.

The way the Redblacks handled their free agency with Trevor Harris, Greg Ellingson, William Powell and Sir Vincent Rogers – losing all of them to other teams, makes me think the problems in Ottawa reside in the GM position. Marcel Desjardins now faces the challenge of bringing in a coach who can bring some respectability back to the Redblacks, who have defined mediocre under Rick Campbell despite three Grey Cup appearances and one win.

That’s the price you pay for playing in the weaker eastern conference and with Hamilton and Montreal coming back and loaded for bear, Ottawa will have the make the right decisions in nearly every major move – from coach to free agency – to bring this team back to contention and keep the fickle fans entertained.

According to Henry Burris, Ryan Dinwiddie makes sense as the boss of the Redblacks, and for female fans, they can lose themselves looking into his eyes and perhaps miss the unholy concoction on the field in the meantime. Whether it is Dinwiddie, Mark Kilam, Calgary special teams coach who might follow in the footsteps of O’Shea and Craig Dickenson into the top dog position, whoever takes the Ottawa job will have to not just work at making it work, but be inventive and creative in doing so.

So let us know go back to Riderville, where the Riders are now in the process of reloading and looking to repeat the miracle season of 2013 when they not only hosted, but played in and won the Grey Cup. The Riders have been making slow steps towards getting better each year and last season under Craig Dickenson showed fans the team is not that far away from being a Grey Cup contender.

The Riders have been busy signing their practice roster players who were free agents when the 2019 season concluded. The Riders have signed Canadian offensive lineman Logan Ferland, Canadian linebacker Jacob Janke, American running back Jamal Morrow, Canadian offensive lineman Vincent Roy and global receiver Max Zimmermann to the roster.

The Riders also signed offensive lineman Cameron Jefferson who spent last season on the Rider practice roster and has NFL experience. The Riders found in the western final they might need some offensive linemen with the ability to actually do more than finesse block when inside the opposition 10 yard line. Not sure if Jefferson is the answer, but the team at least is asking the right questions and looking in the hopefully the right places.

An interesting situation has developed with the NFL Players Association objecting to the CFL window where players can try out for NFL teams and if not successful, return to the CFL. THE NFLPA would like those players to be true free agents available to whatever half-assed player personnel director is smart enough to recognize a diamond in the rough.

For CFL players who are free agents, like Derrick Moncrief or Shaq Evans, this won’t affect their ability to get NFL tryouts. Those players though will be looking for NFL teams to show some investment in them by putting out money since CFL players going south will not see any real payment unless they make an NFL roster and that won’t be until September, leaving them with no income until then.

Charleston Hughes underwent surgery for a broken arm he had been playing with, and he sounded like a new deal was very much on his mind. While the broken arm probably explains Hughes drop-off in sacks in the second half of the season, one of the challenges for the Riders will be how to use load management to ensure Hughes is fresh enough for the playoffs while giving other players the opportunity to see some reps and make contributions of their own.

The Riders will have interesting choices to make with players like Solomon Elimimian and Manny Arceneaux. Arceneaux made an impact on the team other than the stats sheet by showing he was willing to do what the team needed. His ability to block on running plays was the reason Arceneaux made it back on the roster after Jordon Williams-Lambert returned from his NFL tryout.

The Riders will not bring Arceneaux back at the same salary, but a reduced salary would help juggle the cap and perhaps pay for a judicious free agent choice here and there. Elimimian on the other hand deserves to be brought back, assuming he wants to come back, and fits in the Rider history of bringing in experienced middle linebackers like Rey Williams and Greg Battle.

From here until the end of the year, the focus in the CFL will be on coaches and who goes where. That will set things up great for the next free agency rush in February and who knows, maybe by that time the Atlantic Schooners will be a real team, or just the latest in a series of failed efforts to bring the Maritimes into the rest of Canada.

by Greg Urbanoski

The CFL Off-Season merry go around gets underway

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