O’Leary: A detailed priority list for non-playoff teams
The majority of CFL players and personnel will wake up Monday morning to cooling weather and the feeling that the real season is about to begin.
Six teams are focused on the playoffs, all of them convinced that they can end this final stretch of the year on the field in Ottawa with commissioner Randy Ambrosie handing them the Grey Cup.
For the three teams that didn’t make the playoffs — the Montreal Alouettes, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and the BC Lions — Monday morning will be different. The focus is first on what went wrong this year and how it can be improved next year. Once the lockers are cleaned out and the exit interviews are conducted, they step out into a long off-season that promises, as it always does for non-playoff teams, to be full of change.
Here’s a look at they key issues for each of those teams.
Hamilton Tiger-Cats
In Tiger-Town, there’s a lot to be taken into stock. The 0-8 start essentially doomed them and led to sweeping mid-season change. Kent Austin stepped back as head coach and allowed June Jones to take the reigns. Jeff Reinebold was relieved as defensive coordinator and Phillip Lolley took over. Jones went with Jeremiah Masoli as his starting quarterback, relegating longtime (and pricey) starter Zach Collaros to the bench the rest of the way.
When things looked bleaker than bleak, the Tiger-Cats came to life. Their record shows an up-and-down team, going 6-4 the rest of the way, but they were week-in, week-out drastically improved. Their games were closer, their defence improved substantially and with Masoli as a starter, the offence found its punch. Brandon Banks re-emerged, first as a target for Masoli, then as a returner, where he rediscovered his ability to gain yards and find the end zone.
So after a lot of bad was countered with some promising good, where do the Ticats go? Let’s start with the on-field product. It seems as though Collaros’ time in Hamilton has come to an end and that Masoli — a free-agent in February — is the quarterback the team wants. So if Masoli is re-signed, what does that do for the team’s interest in Johnny Manziel? Is that the battle we see for the starting job in training camp, or would the Tiger-Cats use his rights as a bargaining chip in an offseason trade?
It’s in the upper reaches of the Ticats org that things get interesting.
Will owner Bob Young stay the course with the people he has working for him? What is the status of Kent Austin, who has stayed on as VP of football ops? If Austin moves back into the office full-time, does that impact Eric Tillman? He came in as the team’s director of U.S. scouting and U.S. professional personnel in 2013 but was promoted to GM in 2016 when Austin was entrenched on the sidelines.
The one thing that should be a no-brainer in all of this: June Jones deserves to be back on the sidelines for the Ticats next season. He took control of a team that looked lost on the field and in a short amount of time made them very competitive and watchable. He found solutions to many of the questions that long rang out from the stands: Where is the run game? Where did Brandon Banks go? What could Masoli do with a chance?
We don’t know what the Ticats will look like when June, 2018 rolls around, but whoever the team has in its front office, whoever is the starting quarterback, June Jones deserves to be on the field.
BC Lions
Hands up if you wrote a preseason prediction that had the Lions representing the West in the Grey Cup this year. You weren’t the only one. *stops typing with one hand*
It was just five months ago that the sky was the limit for this offensively loaded, defensively sound-looking Lions team. In a star-studded, talent-laden West, the Lions still looked like they could rise above everyone and take this year’s playoff journey through BC Place. They started out 4-1, but an early injury to Jon Jennings and possibly a career-ending knee injury for Travis Lulay seemed to throw things out of whack for the Lions. From that 4-1 perch, BC won just three more games the rest of the way.
In the West, there was no room for a team to lose its way and try to rediscover itself in time to save its season. Unless you gifted yourself with a 7-0 start. And how often does that happen?
Of the three teams that are missing the playoffs, the Lions may need the least amount of tweaking. That’s not to say what they do doesn’t carry significance with it. In the simplest outcome, they resist the temptation of free agency and stick with Jennings at QB, after he had a challenging season when he came back from injury. The Lions’ upper structure stays the same, with Wally Buono staying on as GM and coach and he possibly juggles his staff around, like most coaches do through the winter months.
We’ll find out how likely that is in the coming weeks.
In the drastic change scenario, Buono ends a legendary career and puts the football ops of the Lions into new hands, leaving the door open on both the GM and head coaching job. Maybe the new GM wants to look elsewhere at QB and brings in one of the many high profile free-agents available this winter.
Speaking of new hands, owner David Braley is still looking for a buyer for his team. New ownership — he’s hopeful that the team will be sold in 2018 — leaves everything open for re-examination, whenever it happens.
Montreal Alouettes
We’ve reached the team where change abounds at every spout of water poking through the creaking dam. With the exception of Kavis Reed returning as GM, this Alouettes team promises to look vastly different than it has through this year, the least successful in its modern history. There’s a lot to dig through, but we’ll start with the most important.
The Alouettes need a quarterback. Darian Durant’s season in Montreal fell far short of expectations and with his age (35) and the price tag he joined the team with a year ago — a reported $400,000 annually — it’s very unlikely that he’s back next season as the starter. Reed should be scouring the free agency market this winter, looking for a younger, possibly cheaper starter.
Then there’s the coaching staff. The bottom fell out on the team’s season when head coach Jacques Chapdelaine and defensive coordinator Noel Thorpe were fired mid-season, leaving Reed the GM to get back on the sidelines and assume head coaching duties for the first time since he’d left Edmonton in 2013. Reed will get to hire his own coach this winter and that coach could bring in an entirely new staff. After the listless finish to the season that the Alouettes have had, drastic change is necessary.
Lastly, and this is painting with a broad brush, Montreal needs an influx of talent to its roster. Linebacker Bear Woods’ absence was felt after he was traded in training camp. On both offence and defence, the team relied on vets that likely won’t be with them next season. Nik Lewis started saying his goodbyes in Regina last week and defensive end John Bowman could be nearing the end of a 12-year career. There’s also still some personnel from the Calvillo-Trestman-Popp era of the Als. Chip Cox, Stefan Logan and Luc Brodeur-Jourdain have seen the highs of the franchise and are now privy to its lows. Age, or a desire for a fresh start on either end could factor into their futures with the club.
If you’re a fan of any of these teams, the one upside of going through a season like this is knowing that in the CFL, change can come quickly and be profound. The Saskatchewan Roughriders and Toronto Argonauts won just five games a year ago and emerged as a Grey Cup contenders this season. The Lions, Ticats and Alouettes will try to start that journey this week.
