Cam Cole Article
Cole: This CFL season all about the Argos
By Cam Cole, Postmedia News February 15, 2012 7:06 PM
It’s probably fair to say that the Canadian Football League hasn’t quite got the hang of this Free Agent Frenzy thing yet.
(fren•zy/’frenze/ Noun: A state or period of uncontrolled excitement or wild behaviour.)
Maybe no one had a dictionary at CFL HQ.
The league did agree with the media, i.e. TSN, that a midnight Wednesday deadline made no sense for promotional purposes, so this year it pushed the business of tying up the talent back to daytime hours . . . but evidently forgot to tell the general managers.
Oh, well.
One thing we did get established, even before the day began: this year, it’s all about the Toronto Argonauts.
Conspiracy theorists may want to look at the Argos’ off-season windfall — trading Zenon Andrusyshyn’s old kicking boot, a pair of tackified gloves and a can of MonkeyButt powder to the Edmonton Eskimos for quarterback Ricky Ray, then signing his Eskimo teammate, receiver Jason Barnes, on Tuesday — through the lens of LeagueThink.
Follow along, if you will . . .
It’s hardly news that the CFL considers it a priority to bolster the Argos and football interest in Toronto in advance of the city’s hosting of the 100th Grey Cup. That makes good business sense.
Commissioner Mark Cohon referred to it in his state-of-the-union news conference in November: Southern Ontario is the focus for the coming season, complete with an extra million in cash.
The money isn’t coming out of Cohon’s pockets, it’s been voted on and approved by the board of governors, which means at the very least there is a tacit agreement among the other teams’ owners to let there be a somewhat uneven playing field for this year, in the best interests of the league.
That’s on top of the perception that the team in the Grey Cup city doesn’t have to stay up nights worrying about the salary cap while they’re trying to ramp up interest in the CFL’s big payday.
And so, if the Argos’ No. 1 need was a quarterback, and it surely was, which team could least uncomfortably weather a lousy season without one, in order to gift the Argos the key to respectability? Why, the moneybags Eskimos, of course.
Perhaps that explains why good old Eric Tillman, the Edmonton GM, was willing to take a first-round draft pick, a kicker of unknown ability (Grant Shaw) and a quarterback of known inability (Steven Jyles) in exchange for Ray, and then explain it all away in a news conference by saying: “Toronto initiated this,” and calling the Argos’ pursuit of Ray “very aggressive.
“We were not looking to trade Ricky — and were very reluctant to do so,” quoth E.T.
Apparently, the Eskimos were just blown away by the Toronto offer. Well, who wouldn’t be?
Now, take it one step further.
Sen. David Braley, owner of both the B.C. Lions and the Argonauts — meaning his teams will have played host to back-to-back Grey Cups — has admitted, reluctantly, to having been involved, with and without the well-heeled Eskimos, in salvage operations in every other city in the league over the years.
“Edmonton kept their heads above water for the most part, because of Hughie. (Former coach/general manager/chief executive officer) Hugh Campbell and I were very close friends,” Braley said at the 2009 Grey Cup. “But yes, Edmonton put money into various franchises, Edmonton and myself put money into them. There was no secret about what we were doing, we just kept those teams together . . . in all cases under the auspices of the chairman or commissioner. Those were all things that were necessary.”
Then he bought the Argos, and since then, he’s found a whole new definition of necessity.
That’s why it is difficult to view the acquisition of Ray by the neediest franchise in the CFL, at this critical time — and the Eskimos’ co-operation in their own de-pantsing — as just a shrewd piece of horse-trading by Argo GM Jim Barker, without seeing a larger shadow looming in the background.
To ignore the shadow would be to suggest that Tillman is an inept football man, and he surely is not.
Whatever commerce has taken place between the two teams Sen. Braley actually owns, B.C. and Toronto, has raised few hackles. If CFL and Grey Cup MVP Travis Lulay had moved to the Argos, the howls of conflict-of-interest would still be echoing.
But Braley doesn’t own the Eskimos. His Eastern team needed Ray, though. And the CFL owed him. And those who could best afford it, paid.
End of theory. You got a better one?
Vancouver Sun
ccole@vancouversun.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
By Cam Cole, Postmedia News February 15, 2012 7:06 PM
It’s probably fair to say that the Canadian Football League hasn’t quite got the hang of this Free Agent Frenzy thing yet.
(fren•zy/’frenze/ Noun: A state or period of uncontrolled excitement or wild behaviour.)
Maybe no one had a dictionary at CFL HQ.
The league did agree with the media, i.e. TSN, that a midnight Wednesday deadline made no sense for promotional purposes, so this year it pushed the business of tying up the talent back to daytime hours . . . but evidently forgot to tell the general managers.
Oh, well.
One thing we did get established, even before the day began: this year, it’s all about the Toronto Argonauts.
Conspiracy theorists may want to look at the Argos’ off-season windfall — trading Zenon Andrusyshyn’s old kicking boot, a pair of tackified gloves and a can of MonkeyButt powder to the Edmonton Eskimos for quarterback Ricky Ray, then signing his Eskimo teammate, receiver Jason Barnes, on Tuesday — through the lens of LeagueThink.
Follow along, if you will . . .
It’s hardly news that the CFL considers it a priority to bolster the Argos and football interest in Toronto in advance of the city’s hosting of the 100th Grey Cup. That makes good business sense.
Commissioner Mark Cohon referred to it in his state-of-the-union news conference in November: Southern Ontario is the focus for the coming season, complete with an extra million in cash.
The money isn’t coming out of Cohon’s pockets, it’s been voted on and approved by the board of governors, which means at the very least there is a tacit agreement among the other teams’ owners to let there be a somewhat uneven playing field for this year, in the best interests of the league.
That’s on top of the perception that the team in the Grey Cup city doesn’t have to stay up nights worrying about the salary cap while they’re trying to ramp up interest in the CFL’s big payday.
And so, if the Argos’ No. 1 need was a quarterback, and it surely was, which team could least uncomfortably weather a lousy season without one, in order to gift the Argos the key to respectability? Why, the moneybags Eskimos, of course.
Perhaps that explains why good old Eric Tillman, the Edmonton GM, was willing to take a first-round draft pick, a kicker of unknown ability (Grant Shaw) and a quarterback of known inability (Steven Jyles) in exchange for Ray, and then explain it all away in a news conference by saying: “Toronto initiated this,” and calling the Argos’ pursuit of Ray “very aggressive.
“We were not looking to trade Ricky — and were very reluctant to do so,” quoth E.T.
Apparently, the Eskimos were just blown away by the Toronto offer. Well, who wouldn’t be?
Now, take it one step further.
Sen. David Braley, owner of both the B.C. Lions and the Argonauts — meaning his teams will have played host to back-to-back Grey Cups — has admitted, reluctantly, to having been involved, with and without the well-heeled Eskimos, in salvage operations in every other city in the league over the years.
“Edmonton kept their heads above water for the most part, because of Hughie. (Former coach/general manager/chief executive officer) Hugh Campbell and I were very close friends,” Braley said at the 2009 Grey Cup. “But yes, Edmonton put money into various franchises, Edmonton and myself put money into them. There was no secret about what we were doing, we just kept those teams together . . . in all cases under the auspices of the chairman or commissioner. Those were all things that were necessary.”
Then he bought the Argos, and since then, he’s found a whole new definition of necessity.
That’s why it is difficult to view the acquisition of Ray by the neediest franchise in the CFL, at this critical time — and the Eskimos’ co-operation in their own de-pantsing — as just a shrewd piece of horse-trading by Argo GM Jim Barker, without seeing a larger shadow looming in the background.
To ignore the shadow would be to suggest that Tillman is an inept football man, and he surely is not.
Whatever commerce has taken place between the two teams Sen. Braley actually owns, B.C. and Toronto, has raised few hackles. If CFL and Grey Cup MVP Travis Lulay had moved to the Argos, the howls of conflict-of-interest would still be echoing.
But Braley doesn’t own the Eskimos. His Eastern team needed Ray, though. And the CFL owed him. And those who could best afford it, paid.
End of theory. You got a better one?
Vancouver Sun
ccole@vancouversun.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
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