MODDEJONGE: It's previous time for the CFL and Elks to place the followers first

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There’s an outdated joke about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Many counsel that’s precisely what the Edmonton Elks did with their try at ass masking in Monday’s workers change announcement.

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One downside: Nobody in Edmonton is laughing at this joke.

At 0-8, with 21 consecutive dwelling losses and a scoreboard that’s develop into out of attain, nothing is humorous. And minor strikes aren’t going to pacify a justifiably livid fan base. Or what’s left of it, anyway.

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Head coach and normal supervisor Chris Jones and membership president and CEO Victor Cui are straightforward — and truthful — targets. However what in regards to the present and former board of administrators?

What in regards to the Wally Buono-led search and then-chairman of the board Ian Murray, who determined to supply Jones 4 years, (and what could also be a totally assured 4 years)? They, together with present board members — Tom Richards, Kara Flynn, Brent Hesje, Mike Bacchus, Darryl Boessenkool, Kevin Parkes, Zahra Somani, Paul Ingram and Jordan Slator — are the actual captains of this ship that simply hit all-time low.

And at this level, Jones ought to think about himself fortunate to go down with the ship at a later day. On Monday, it was offensive coordinator Stephen McAdoo and beginning quarterback Taylor Cornelius who discovered themselves within the crosshairs of a demotion, preserving Jones’s job — or jobs — intact.

That’s the actual difficulty.

Sure, some golf equipment do that, however it’s extremely harmful to offer one man this a lot authority. You’ve zero checks and balances. Being a confirmed head coach doesn’t make one a confirmed GM.

However once more, blaming Jones is simple. In equity, he signed what was provided to him by Murray. And why wouldn’t he?

Complete management was given and, on reflection, a complete disservice was thrust upon the as soon as proud, sure, ESKIMOS fan base.

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Let’s be sincere.

Any group that values its followers above all else would have canned the top coach/normal supervisor/defensive coordinator the primary time a bye-week alternative introduced itself. In fact, Canadian Soccer League golf equipment just like the Elks might have already got their fingers preemptively tied. And with no wins and eight losses at this level, no resolution or choices might salvage this shipwreck of a season.

However what about subsequent 12 months? And the one after that, when Jones will solely then be getting into the ultimate 12 months of his four-year contract?

4 years with full authority? Gimme a break.

The way in which Cui has publicly addressed questions on Jones’s deal, there could also be no option to make alterations to its time period with out leading to detrimental impacts, financially, to the membership, which is already staring down tens of millions extra in losses this 12 months. Or that’s their argument, which can — and may — fall on deaf ears of a fan base that is aware of it’s been screwed.

This, my buddies, is the impression of the league’s self-imposed football-operations wage cap, which has to this point proven to excel at one factor, holding again struggling groups from doing no matter they have to in an effort to rise from the depths.

What a joke.

What a travesty to the fan base.

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Earlier than lengthy, the dwindling crowds are going to be so small the staff would possibly as properly return to taking part in subsequent door of their unique dwelling at Clarke Stadium.

The difficulty right here is just not Jones’ defence, which has been going all out all season lengthy to try to preserve them in video games most of the time. Their greatest downside comes when opposing offences draw back afterward, after their very own offence has left them on the sphere previous the purpose of exhaustion.

And it’s not Jones’ prowess or decision-making as a head coach, both, as Edmonton followers can attest throughout his first go-round in inexperienced and gold, main the membership to its most up-to-date championship in 2015.

No, the place he has faltered has been carrying his third hat, the membership’s crown. Chris Jones, the GM, has failed Chris Jones, the top coach. And miserably so.

Proper right down to all of the factors left on the sphere this 12 months by a rookie kicker — make {that a} 36-year-old rookie kicker — whom Jones says he’s snug with from all of 40 yards out. It’s too dangerous the final field-goal try was from the 48, falling properly quick to make sure B.C.’s unprecedented two-game shutout streak in opposition to them held.

In the meantime, the Elks’ predecessor, Sergio Castillo, is main the league along with his leg in points-scored on the season in his return to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

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And that’s earlier than we even start speaking about Jones’s ineffectiveness to seek out some type of semblance of a quarterback room, which at the moment has all of six seasons of mixed expertise between its three arms — six and a half in case you depend Cornelius’s XFL 2.0 stint — as rookie Jarret Doege and second-year Canadian QB Tre Ford will now sling it out for the highest job.

What good is the very best paid receiving corps within the CFL and not using a high quality beginning quarterback who’s taking part in behind an ineffective offensive line?

And maybe that O-line wouldn’t be in such a shemozzle if Jones hadn’t traded away gamers reminiscent of high homegrown expertise David Beard final 12 months in an effort to stockpile picks for a promising draft class. Or, at the least, it will have been had half of the expertise not deferred to subsequent Could.

This 12 months, Jones has already needed to launch a private favorite in defensive deal with Daniel Ross because of salary-cap constraints, whereas additionally having to bid farewell to gifted younger receiver Maurice Ffrench in a my-way-or-the-highway effort to keep up management of the locker-room.

Little question Jones’ time right here will go down as a case research of why golf equipment shouldn’t assume simply because somebody makes a great head coach they may routinely be capable to maintain down the GM duties. By no means thoughts having the ability to juggle each jobs on the similar time.

However the backside line? The followers are getting screwed. They usually deserve higher from the membership and from the league workplace.

Controlling prices is just not the answer. Fixing brutal choices should be allowed. Torch the failed football-operations rule. Present the followers the respect they deserve.

As for Monday’s rearrangement of the Titanic’s chairs, it doesn’t even float the boat.

E-mail: [email protected]

On Twitter: @GerryModdejonge

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