Milton Article

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The Ticats must soon decide upon which of their two dozen pending free agents to try to sign quickly.The Ticats must soon decide upon which of their two dozen pending free agents to try to sign quickly.

Ticats are already into 2023
Quick decisions needed on which of their own free agents to pursue, and which coaches will return, writes Steve Milton
By Steve MiltonSpectator Columnist
Wed., Nov. 9, 2022timer4 min. read
As the page turns on a season that ended with a whimper not a bang, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats are already into 2023.

“That process starts today,” head coach Orlondo Steinauer conceded as his players emptied their individual lockers on Monday.

Who will refill those lockers next May will be the subject of winter-long debate in circles where the CFL matters — and much of it will revolve around coaching and quarterbacking.

The wha’-happened buck stops at Steinauer’s other portfolio, president of football operations, and he has to make detached and honest evaluations about some difficult, textured situations: including the work of the head coach.

Ultimately when things fall short on the field, it comes down to the head coach. He doesn’t throw ill-advised interceptions into coverage, fumble footballs, drop a pass, miss a key block, whiff on a tackle, shank punts, make predictable offensive calls in the shadow of both goalposts, or inexplicably start setting the wrong defences late in games. But he must bear the overriding responsibility when those same things recur throughout most of the season, when a team is regularly beaten by division rivals and when it is not ready at the start of a semifinal game.

Tunde Adeleke chats with TiCats president Scott Mitchell in the locker room Monday afternoon. Adeleke and Tim White, seated, were at Tim Hortons Field cleaning out their lockers.

In a town where the first reaction is always overreaction, some avid Ticat fans want Steinauer gone. Sorry, but that’s way off. Stability at the top and consistency of principles has driven this team into two consecutive Grey Cups and four in the last eight seasons. And while the team started 3-9, Steinauer never lost the room, and the Ticats rallied mightily in the final third, before coming up lame against Als’ quarterback Trevor Harris, who definitely has their number.

But Steinauer made clear mistakes this year, one of which might have been a failure to overrule his co-ordinators at enough critical moments. There were also numerous debatable tactical decisions. This was only Steinauer’s third full season as a head coach. He has a piercing understanding of the game and of education so we expect that over the off-season he will parse his portion of the blame and act upon it.

When you lose 11 of 19 games — most of the time with a variation on the same themes — coaching is always a big part of the problem, so it’s unlikely the entire staff can return. Offensive co-ordinator Tommy Condell and defensive co-ordinator Mark Washington have had long-term success but each exhibited some fault lines this year. Both talk about returning but are also expected to be interviewed by other teams looking for head coaches.

And then there’s the shadow of Khari Jones, a former Alouettes head coach who didn’t come to Hamilton early in the season to remain in a consultant’s role.

While there were several critical injuries to offensive starters all season, Dane Evans would be — and was — the first to tell you that much of the team’s offensive underachievement falls to him — specifically the fumbles and interceptions that started early in the season and helped undermine his confidence. He took over as the starter for the first time as a pro, was responsible — along with Chris Van Zeyl — for practices and solidarity during the brief pre-season strike, and not to mention his first child was due when he was hundreds of kilometres away in Regina. He has said that without counselling from team sports psychiatrist Dr. Carla Edwards he’d “have never made it through the season.”

“It was a lot,” Evans said this week. “I really view this as two seasons: when I wasn’t me; and when I was me, which you could see when we got hot at the end of the season.”

The Ticats will have to decide which one of those quarterbacks is most likely to return after an off-season of self-review and mental rest. Especially since his backup, Matt Shiltz is a pending free agent. Evans is under contract, should be healthy for 2023 and has shown that, when he’s in rhythm, he’s a starting CFL pivot.

The Ticats must soon decide upon which of their two dozen pending free agents to try to sign quickly. They’d certainly want to retain star receiver Tim White, defensive end Julian Howsare, running backs Wes Hills and Sean Thomas Erlington, and as many of their four strong linebackers, as they can. Franchise exemplar Simoni Lawrence is one of those, but played only nine games because of injury. And Kam Kelly, Jovan Santos-Knox and Kyle Wilson will probably require significant pay hikes to stay.

Because it’ll cost more to retain some free agents, others will have to go and some players may be quietly asked to restructure their contracts. The Ticats are paying too much of their salary cap to the offensive line and defensive secondary, and it’s similar on the defensive line where Howsare, Ted Laurent, Micah Johnson and Malik Carney are out of contract.

The good news for the Ticats is that only seven of their free agents are Canadians and the bulk of their solid corps of young Canucks is all returning. And this was a season with far less good news than bad.

Maybe it's just me, but I don’t put a lot of stock into losing 2 GCs in a row.

Dominating the league in 2019 & coming out completely flat in the GC game seems like it should have been a clue as to what kind of coach Steinauer is.

Just be happy we have a team.🙄

Milton could have just tweeted out "Keep your chin up, Orlondo, its not your fault we're rootin' for ya".

This is pretty much how I've felt since we lost last year, except the drunk part is only intermittent.

Went looking over on the Prowl for the posts raking Rourke over the coals for crying on the sidelines like they did to Dane....odd thing, couldn't find any.  It's almost as if there's....some kind...of....bias.

Imagine, getting upset over having a QB that cares that much.