Chris Jones Watch - Front Office SMS

[Throw Long Bannatyne]

On reflection, I think Jones was one of the reasons the cap came in.  His move from Edm to SSK ws primarily for a paycheck, if I remember correctly. 

Granted, with no SMS cap, we'd see a lot more movement in the coaching ranks, I can't imagine how much MOS and crew would get offered.  I'm sure we'd have matched, but maybe not if it was really, really high. 

There is a place for SMS with players that have "cut anytime, except when injured and salary isn't in the cap anyway" contracts.  SMS in a system where contracts are guaranteed is stupid.

Maybe, hear me out, they should have an "active cap", where the current roster of coaches / executives can only make the SMS limit.  Anyone fired comes off that cap, as their replacements go in.  $$ given to the fired coaches while they were active still count, contracts prorated by games active.

Jones time in Sask. is why the coaching cap was brought in initially, the Riders were rolling in money at the time and Jones was spending it wildly on extra coaching staff and a secret PR roster he housed in Moose Jaw.  Don't know which owners complained, but think it may have been Tanenbaum who also whined for revenue sharing to be brought in around the same time.  I think the CFLPA also wanted to see some level of accountability for football ops spending to share the burden of the hardship the league was claiming during negotiations.

[DM83]

Jones is an enigma.
Edmonton can?t fire him as his contract extends for a couple more years.

What about re-assigning him.  An effective way of saying he is removed from head coaching.

Bring in Barker? As Interim GM, or bump Jones up to that position, and bring in Lapo for either this year( impractical) so promote an assistant as a tentative coach.

They need a Quarterback, and some defensive players with ?heart?.
I suspect they will be bringing in lots of NFL cuts.

The back up QBs in the league are all better than what Edmonton has.

They have to do something.  How Jones lasts is amazing.  They need a QB, and if they have to pay a real one and go over the cap who cares.  They need a real guy there.

[theaardvark]

Jones is an enigma.
Edmonton can?t fire him as his contract extends for a couple more years.

What about re-assigning him.  An effective way of saying he is removed from head coaching.

Bring in Barker? As Interim GM, or bump Jones up to that position, and bring in Lapo for either this year( impractical) so promote an assistant as a tentative coach.

They need a Quarterback, and some defensive players with ?heart?.
I suspect they will be bringing in lots of NFL cuts.

The back up QBs in the league are all better than what Edmonton has.

They have to do something.  How Jones lasts is amazing.  They need a QB, and if they have to pay a real one and go over the cap who cares.  They need a real guy there.

Have to say, reading that first sentence, I first saw "enema".  And thought... that's an interesting analogy...

[DM83]

Lol! Lol!

[TecnoGenius]

Where is this "have/have not" nonsense coming from?

The salary cap is to make teams more profitable and easier to sell.

I think it was Aards who first borught up "have nots".  But I've seen it before, too.  I hate that phrase and concept, but I ran with it for the thread.

The "easier to sell the team" idea might be more key.  Especially since this was only instituted when MTL and then BC were having ownership problems.  But those problems may have been somewhat rare blips.  We change the whole structure of the league to make it easier for Ambrosie to sell the Als?  And now we see all the unforseen downsides... pretty typical of "best intention" changes.

It's funny, the GC and the league have been around centuries/decades without any nonsensical coach cap and for some reason right now the league can't survive without it?  More arrogance from Ambrosie and the "change" crowd.

Well, now that the teams have been sold, can we just go back to the way it was? 

[TecnoGenius]

On reflection, I think Jones was one of the reasons the cap came in.  His move from Edm to SSK ws primarily for a paycheck, if I remember correctly. 

[...]

Maybe, hear me out, they should have an "active cap", where the current roster of coaches / executives can only make the SMS limit.  Anyone fired comes off that cap, as their replacements go in.  $$ given to the fired coaches while they were active still count, contracts prorated by games active.

We talk as though losing cap space is the only punishment, but in the same breathe talk about teams being unsaleable because they are paying coaches too much.  What really matters here, the cap$$ or the real$$?

It seems like no one complains or cares about real$$ unless the team is needing a new owner, then all of a sudden it's paramount.  So right now with no team needing to be sold, can we assume no one gives a hoot about the real$$?  I say this because I've never seen an existing long-term owner, or a community team moan and whine about the real$$ for coaches.  It's simply not a thing.

The billionaire owners, and board-accountable community teams, will not be fiscally imprudent or blow their wad indiscriminately on coaching staff.  And if they do, the deserve to lose their hard earned money or be fired by their boards.  We have to remember that this is real$$ and losing it hurts whoever had that money before; even if you're Bob Young you don't like to pee away $2M unnecessarily without a ROI, otherwise you don't tend to get rich in the first place.  In other words, I think the real$$ aspect is self-policing and never needed to be regulated except in the rare once-every-decade case of an unsaleable team.

And if teams are providing guaranteed multi-year contracts to coaches then they either need to be real darn sure on their due diligence about what they're buying, or they deserve the consequences.  Again, this is real$$ hurting someone's pocket or risking someone's job.

So what is really hobbling a few teams right now is the cap$$ and how fired coaches can hurt your immediate and next-season ability to hire new coaches.  That is a new problem that exists only because of the cap.  It's an unintended consequence and instead of helping the league it ended up hurting it.  As such Aards is right and we should eliminate the cap$$ hit for fired coaches to immediately solve the problem.  The real$$ paid to the fired coaches act as their own punishment and, as would be expected, gives an incentive to make better decisions and shorter contracts.

Finally, I'm not convinced "reducing poaching" was a valid rationale behind the coaches cap.  Just look at the results since the cap came in: I don't see any less coach movement inter-season than before.  Tons of HC movement, tons of position coach movement.  Again, I don't think this is a thing.  I don't think anyone really cared.  The sole example so far was C.Jones and SSK: but I would never hinge a massive league-wide change around anything C.Jones or people around him are involved with.  And just the fear of potential problems does not justify the nonsensical and downright harmful policies we have in place now.

(Thought exercise to counter the poaching fear: Did anyone poach MOS in his 6 years as HC before the cap came in?  Add in the fact that coaches often have a degree of loyalty, and purely mercenary ones like C.Jones are almost universally reviled.  More HCs get fired than abandon their teams for greener pastures...)

[TecnoGenius]

Will they fire him then? He ran a once proud franchise into the ground. He just needs to be gone and hang the cost.

$2.5M cap.  Let's say $750k is Jones.  Let's say Zondo is still getting $300k.  All the other staff taking up the rest.  So you fire Jones and still pay him $750k.... where on earth in the cap is there supposed to be room to hire a new GM and HC and DC?

Maybe the reason why Jones will be there until he decides to leave and cancel his contract is because EDM literally cannot do anything else.  Even if they scrounge $100-$200k on the cap, are you going to find a HC to take on that 16-hour a day, high-stress job for $150k especially for a completely disaster of a team that will likely destroy any young career?

It's clear that contracting guys to wear 2 or 3 hats for a huge chunk of cap$$ is death for a team if that guy doesn't pan out.  At least with the traditional one-hat-per-guy setup you have some hope of scrounging and scrimping to make up the salary for just 1 position you need to fire!

It's really an insane situation solving phantom problems that barely existed then and don't seem to exist now, whilst creating real and untenable situations that are ruining the league for everyone.

[TBURGESS]

Selling teams happens a few times a decade. The Management SMS happens every year for every team. Setting up a system based on selling teams instead of yearly gains is incredibly dumb.

Edmonton made a huge mistake hiring Jones for a bunch of positions. Not allowing them to fix that mistake for years makes the team worth way less and makes the games less enjoyable for all fans for years.

An active SMS for each year, where you must stay under the cap would stop teams from hiring a ton of coaches & puts teams on an equal basis salary wise each year.

Allow teams to fire coaches in the off season without any penalty to allow them to fix hiring mistakes. If you fire a coach during the season, then you won't have any money in the SMS to replace them and you'll have to replace them from within your own coaching ranks.

[Waffler]

Elks are community owned and not for sale, never have been. The value of the franchise means nothing, what does matter is that they don't bleed money too many years in a row. They are and will continue to with Jones there.  A change has to happen.

As far as poaching coaches, it definitely does matter. We can't have a bidding war like we have had for QB's. We have been lucky here that MOS stayed but I don't know what he makes or how much he would have made elsewhere. I can't say he'll be here forever. The point of the cap is to give teams an equal opportunity. This little 9 team league of ours is fragile, all for one and one for all or we don't have enough teams. The cap as it is is flawed but I think with tweaks it should be kept.

[dd]

As much as a hate Chris Jones, the problem in Edmonton isn?t coaching, it?s lack of talent and no bonafide starting Qb. To turn the bombers around, we had to go out and get Bryant,  bighill, Jefferson and Collaros, but also we picked up a Jeffcoat, and moved Alexander to safety and brought in a whole new secondary and o line.

So Edmonton has got to go get a stud left tackle, a stud MLB, a stud DE and a stud Qb and then restock the supporting cast shelves. That?s a massive job. Jones has been airlifting in tons of players to try and fill these voids but hasn?t got the results.

The immediate job this off season is to find a #1 Qb and I would bet anything they get their chequebook out for Dru Brown.

[KINGCHARLES]

As much as a hate Chris Jones, the problem in Edmonton isn?t coaching, it?s lack of talent and no bonafide starting Qb. To turn the bombers around, we had to go out and get Bryant,  bighill, Jefferson and Collaros, but also we picked up a Jeffcoat, and moved Alexander to safety and brought in a whole new secondary and o line.

So Edmonton has got to go get a stud left tackle, a stud MLB, a stud DE and a stud Qb and then restock the supporting cast shelves. That?s a massive job. Jones has been airlifting in tons of players to try and fill these voids but hasn?t got the results.

The immediate job this off season is to find a #1 Qb and I would bet anything they get their chequebook out for Dru Brown.

Maybe even Mcleod Bethel Thompson, Dane Evans or Chris Streveler?

[dd]

I d take brown over any of those 3, younger and better skill set.MBT is done, he won?t come back to a tire fire

[3rdand1.5]

With out a proper o-line and scheme a shiny new QB won't change much.

[dd]

The CFL is a Qb lead league, and the first piece you have to put into place, is a good Qb. Teams with good Qb's- Wpg, BC and Toronto, do good, teams with bad Qb's - Edmonton, Ottawa and Saskatchewan do bad.

[theaardvark]

This is why they need an "Active operations staff" SMS, and ignore or at least have a seperate limit on fired personannel that are still being paid, but have no contact with the team.

This would not allow a bidding war for a coach/GM, but would allow for the firing of a poorly performing staff and replacing them with new personnel *at equivalent cost*.  You can upgrade the performance, but you can't increase the salary.