Please let’s give DM the new GM a chance. We have no idea the mess (if any) he inherited. We lived through years of the good with no plan for the future. We’ve survived incompetence & entitlement. Now we have a GM, with CFL experience, understands the Quebec market and communicates effortlessly with the other media. So let’s give him the season to get it right…
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I appreciate the legitimacy of your approach, Indiens-cah. But you might expect some here to come down on you like a ton of bricks.
I don’t know that anyone actually wants Maciocia to fail (although I suspect there’s at least one) but rather that they expect him to fail. And it is for a reason that you yourself cite. . . his CFL experience. Yes he has CFL experience as a GM, in Edmonton, but that experience was pretty bad.
I was not enamoured at his hire; so I started off adopting your approach, and after a couple of weeks was prepared to give him an interim grade B. But now, after several personnel moves, I’m down to a grade D.
So yes, we should give him a chance to get it right, but at this point I don’t feel terribly hopeful. I won’t use any silly nickname for him, but if, by the end of the season, he’s made a mess of things I will be joining the chorus calling for his firing.
Remember the start of the last season. Khari Jones was suddenly thrust into the HC role. Many questioned that; some even called him an idiot. But look at what happened; he proved all his critics wrong, and did a very good job under very trying circumstances. Those who had been critical of him happily ate the appropriate amount of crow.
So we can hope that the same thing happens with Maciocia.
It’s just that I personally don’t have much hope. Some here I expect have none.
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No offence, but Maciocia’s CFL experience was ten years ago.
As of this moment, with his additions and deletions, not sure he has made the team better.
The other teams in the East division have improved, second place will be a challenge.
Everyone else has signed players whose names we recognize … does not necessarily mean they got better … I am NOT saying DM has done a good job … I’m just willing to see how it all turns out … suspect those other teams may have maxed out their credit cards … but payment doesn’t come due until the regular season.
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Never understood the “we should give DM a chance” argument. He had his chance in Edmonton, and failed miserably. Giving failures second chances is not how you run a good business.
I was cautiously optimistic when he re-signed Lewis, but given the mess he’s made of our defense in just a few days, there is no reason to be optimistic. If you feel happy that he’s cutting guys left right and center to bring in his Carabin buddies at every level – the Gorell thing was the last straw for me – well that’s your right. But it reeks of nepotism, incompetence, and pennypinching to me.
L’argument de la seconde chance aurait pu fonctionner si Maciocia avait suivi la voie Marcel Desjardins. Après avoir merdé à Hamilton, il est retourné comme assistant-DG des Alouettes pendant quatre ans avant d’obtenir un poste de DG une seconde fois, avec Ottawa. De cette manière, non seulement Desjardins a pu apprendre de ses erreurs, mais surtout il est resté connecté avec la ligue.
Si Maciocia n’est pas crucifié c’est parce qu’il est local. Je doute que Kavis Reed, ou un autre DG fraîchement embauché comme McManus ou Rigmaiden, auraient reçu une telle dose d’indulgence s’ils avaient fait les mêmes transactions.
C’est normal d’être frustré si après les deux premiers jours des agents libres il faut espérer trouver des pépites au camp d’entraînement de mai.
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I don’t know about that. At least in the tech startup world most founders who’ve struck it rich have a failure or two under their belt first. The question really is if the person can learn from their mistakes.
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Fair point, but this isn’t tech. And also, Maciocia has spent the last 10 years out of pro football, so it’s not like he went back to the bottom, built up a GM CV the right way, and then earned the job. He was given this job over qualified candidates.
And his actions since taking over do not demonstrate that he has learned from his mistakes. I’m keeping an open mind, because honestly what else can I do but hope? But I completely understand fans being irate with what Maciocia has been doing.
Also, in tech, guys who fail usually get fat buyouts and find another company where they can fail again. The old golden parachute. 
We don’t really know what kind of mess Maciocia walked into.
It is known that his predecessor was circumventing the salary cap, was there a penalty for that??
" He was given this job over qualified candidates."
No, 3 extremely competent experienced people that interviewed declined the job once they saw what it entailed is telling of the mess
Maybe it is better to say, He was the only one silly enough to take the job!
Maciocia came in to the mess only 4 weeks before free agency so time was not on his side to make choices on who stays and who goes.
Judging someone on what happened 10 years ago may not be right
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Members of the media and some fans have been talking, since Kavis Reed firing, that he was circumventing the salary cap and on and on. Confirmation? None so far.
Yes, 3 experienced persons that interviewed for the job, declined because the League had instructed Pierre Boivin to offer no more than $250,000 for the position. No wonder that they all declined.
Mess: If your team is in a mess, you don’t give an increase of up to $341,000 to a QB that has not proven, yet, that he is worth up to $471,000 and close to $1.5 millions for 3 years; furthermore, that QB had a valid contract for the next 2 years.
There is more a mess now with Danny’s moves in the past weeks. The defensive line-which was the weak link in 2019- and linebackers are weaker now than in 2019 as are the kicking game and the Canadian talent. He basically gave talent away, talent that will improve Toronto and Hamilton. Fabion Foote, Can. DT who became a free agent and signed with Toronto said it best, last week: “if you are not from Montreal or Quebec you won’t receive an offer”.
Richard
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There has also no denial of the Cap Circumvention
All you say is true Richard, but it is what it is (I did not know of the $250K)
I would suspect that Maciocia is getting paid double that,
Jim Popp when he went to TOR as GM was getting $600K
More of what I was saying is along the line of beggers can’t be choosers.
It was a mess to start with long before he was hired
And there were other options mid last year where there were at least three other potential buyers.
One stating he would do his due diligence and management before handing the GM position to Maciocia.
In any event, it is what it is. He is the GM and time will tell how his team performs this coming season.
Excellente observation!
Et pour faire écho à ceux qui prennent l’exemple de Khari Jones pour faire valoir qu’il faut laisser la chance au fou… coureur, Jones est demeuré dans la LCF tout ce temps.
Avec les conneries despotiques du nouveau “Fake GM”, je ne vois pas là de quoi être admiratif de quoi que ce soit. Laisser aller Fabion Foote qui commençait à éclore pour aller chercher 2 québécois qui ne se sont jamais démarqués est une connerie.
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Me sentant visé comme étant celui qui souhaite l’échec du nouveau DG, je vous soumets que je ne le souhaite pas. C’est seulement que je suis très convaincu que ça va arriver, plus tôt que tard.
Et si on considère ce qu’il a fait depuis son entrée en poste, ça semble royalement se confirmer.
No, LeStaf, it was not aimed at you at all.
With this dismantling job in progress, it can sometimes seem that the raison d’être for the team is not foremost “to attract fans/viewers/sponsors by contending for the Grey Cup”.
The image below is kind of a bar chart of Grey Cup victories over the past 42 seasons. 1978 is when the Eskimos began their run of five-in-a-row championship seasons. Since then, Ottawa has won the Grey Cup once, Hamilton twice, Saskatchewan three times, both Montreal and Winnipeg 4 times. Edmonton stands alone, with ten Grey Cups. Edmonton expects a high-performing team, and they quite often get one.
What strikes me as unusual is that only twice in the past 42 years, aside from Edmonton’s string of victories, have there been repeat winners of the Grey Cup.
Toronto and Montreal both achieved that, once each. No three-peats. Weird…
They could have gone back and asked candidates to interview again after the owners were in place. They didn’t. They brought Tiny Dancer in and gave him the keys. Not only the keys, but some multi-year absurdo contract so rich he couldn’t even talk about it at the initial press conference!
Terrible way to do business and they will regret it within one year, two tops, probably as they put the team up for sale.
Well all things aside from the negative.
Bringing in players from Quebec Province that are spread out all over the league Danny M. A decade of HC at U Montreal. Building another Q University to the level of Laval. With all Quebec players kinda unknown around the rest of CFL fans from around Canada except for the top small % of studs.
Let’s give that a chance.
It’s worked in recent years in Sask. Now in Winnipeg.
Also the state of the Big O has left Montreal the ability to host a GC now going well over a decade.
In the meantime every other city has hosted a GC. The last how many have been outdoors and will be for the next couple years in sub below temps.
How bout an indoor game in the biggest party city in Canada for the CFL, the city of Monteal to recoup a lot of lost $$$.
And to remind the rest of CAL Canada that. Hey there still is a team in Montreal. HA
What the