O’Leary: Hervey’s exit signals clear mandate from Esks management

This could have been a cut and dry affair for Len Rhodes.

The Edmonton Eskimos’ president and CEO stood in front of a stunned group of reporters on Friday morning. In the time it took them to hastily assemble in the locker-room at Commonwealth Stadium, word had already trickled out that Rhodes would be announcing the firing of the only GM he had hired, Ed Hervey.

Disbelief and fury swirled together on Twitter as fans and even Esks players tried to wrap their heads around what was happening. The announcement would be difficult, there would be no way around that.

But there was an easy out for Rhodes.

Hervey’s contract was set to expire this season and as Rhodes explained, the two were far apart on terms for an extension. It’s bad business for any team in any sport to have its GM operating in the last year of his contract and Rhodes and Hervey had apparently reached an impasse.

That’s not to suggest that Hervey would act unethically if he knew there wasn’t a deal to be had beyond this season. Hervey was an Eskimo for 18 years. Having spent seven of those years around him, I know that he bled green and gold. But general managers need to make long term decisions, and having a lame duck in the job could be unfair to all parties. If he trades a draft pick or young prospect or even star player, the scrutiny could be terribly harsh.

So Rhodes could have limited his comments to the contract dispute.

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Instead, while praising Hervey’s football acumen and on-field success, he chose to draw back the curtain on a different dispute: He said he and Hervey didn’t see eye to eye on how much access the media, fans and sponsors should have to the coaches and players.

“Yes, we did win a Grey Cup, but it’s not enough,” he said. “We’ve got to do more than have a good product on the field. We’ve got to expose our product. We’ve got to adjust and evolve in terms of what’s going on in the marketplace. We’ve got to approach this differently and we want to work with our stakeholders by allowing access at all levels.”

And with that, Rhodes shed a spotlight on the pressures facing sports and entertainment entities in the age of the selfie.

Winning, he suggested, remains hugely important. But when technology can deliver anything a sports fan or any consumer wants as often as he or she wants, it is no longer the only thing.

The hometown team can deliver something the Premier League or Aussie Rules Football or the myriad of other global options available on screens cannot: access to the local heroes.

Hervey is a lot of things – smart, tough and tenacious, a product of elite level football who survived as a child the toughest streets of L. A.– but most observers wouldn’t say accessible is one of them.

Hervey had strong views and was seen as fiercely protective of his football operation.The team closed its locker-room to media in 2014, allowing them in only after games, while allowing interviews with players on the field after practice during the week. The Eskimos caught the ire of the league and other teams when Head Coach Jason Maas refused to have his team wear live mics during a game last year, when other coaches had followed an unanimous directive from the CFL Board of Governors.

The Waggle Extra: Hervey Out in Edmonton

The Eskimos shocked the CFL world on Friday, announcing that General Manager Ed Hervey had been relieved of his duties. James and Davis break down the stunning development and what might be next for both Ed and the Eskimos.

Whether that was Maas acting on his own or not, it seemed consistently evident that what Rhodes saw as stakeholders, Hervey saw as distractions, and in his mind, winning demanded complete focus.

Hervey’s stance on access was in the opposite direction of where Rhodes wants to go.

Hervey and Rhodes only appeared to butt heads on off-the-field matters. Hervey proved to be a gifted football GM, building the Esks from the ground-up in the wake of the Ricky Ray trade into a Grey Cup champion in three seasons. He survived Chris Jones’ jump to Saskatchewan and replaced an entire coaching staff with another skilled one and watched the Eskimos come within a single win of playing for another Grey Cup last year.

General Managers who win, just about anywhere, get opportunities. Expect Hervey to resurface.

Rhodes, on the other hand, now seeks a GM who can win and, in his estimation, do more of the other things that he says help grow the Eskimos brand.

In Rhodes’ office, he has kept a shiny, buttery yellow Eskimos helmet behind glass casing at his desk, commemorating the first hire he’d made as the team president in 2012. Hervey’s bold, swooping signature was on the helmet, with a thanks to Rhodes for taking a chance on him.

At the time, Rhodes had said he’d keep the helmet for the rest of his life. In football, these sunshiny moments always seem to quickly give way to stormy weather. Rhodes spoke highly of Hervey’s accomplishments as a GM on Friday, but you have to think that these two parted without pleasantries.

The bottom line may have been the wide distance between them on contract terms. But there was a philosophical gulf as well.