Esks GM: we're "held hostage" by NFL poaching Canadians

CFL G.M. frustrated that Canadian players prefer the NFL

[b]The Canadian Football League draft takes place on Tuesday, but the league has a problem: Some of the best Canadian players aren’t interested.

That’s the word from Ed Hervey, G.M. of the defending Grey Cup champion Edmonton Eskimos. Hervey told the Edmonton Journal that it’s tough to find Canadian talent at this time of year, while NFL teams have 90-man rosters and the best football players are trying to make an NFL team in September, not play for a Canadian team this summer.

"There are good players in this draft, but when our elite players are being taken and given an opportunity – and I’ve said it before: personally, I don’t think our players, the Canadian player, really wants to play in the CFL if given the opportunity to play in the NFL. And we’re kind of held hostage, to a point, waiting to see what happens and then it kind of throws off our draft.?

If you’re a player who has a chance to make an NFL roster, of course you’d rather play in America: The NFL minimum salary of $450,000 dwarfs the CFL minimum salary of about $40,000. Hervey thinks the CFL needs to find a way to address issues with retaining Canadian talent, but for now he knows that he might go looking for a player who instead chooses to spend the summer in an NFL training camp.

By the time NFL rosters are pared down from 90 to 53 players, the CFL season is in full swing and it’s hard to incorporate newly available players into a CFL roster. So there aren’t a lot of good answers for the CFL, other than to field teams with whichever players are willing to play north of the border.[/b]

[url=http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2016/05/09/cfl-g-m-frustrated-that-canadian-players-prefer-the-nfl/]http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/20 ... r-the-nfl/[/url]

"CFL GM States The Obvious"

But of course, also...

"Pro Football Talk States One Fact And Gets Its Wrong".

Yes, it's obvious.
"Hervey told the Edmonton Journal that it’s tough to find Canadian talent at this time of year"

The obvious solution is "reduce the Canadian ratio"

and so it begins :roll:

No slimjim. bad slimjim. sit. stay. goodboy.

The obvious answer is, get a better TV contract, and pay our players more.

How many TV networks are there in Canada prepared to significantly bid up the value of the CFL broadcast rights?

And even if that happened, and CFL salaries miraculously doubled - and the resulting salary differential vs NFL went from 15:1 to 8:1 - how would that discourage CIS players from attending NFL camps?

Imagine if Jerry Jones (owner, President and GM) of Dallas Cowboys called Ed Hervey and offered him the Cowboys’ GM job, at 8X his current salary. Hervey’s response:

“No thanks Mr. Jones. I can’t let you hold the CFL hostage!” :lol:

The flip side of the coin is that, as a country, we must be doing OK churning out football talent.

that, and/or place a CAP on ever escalating salaries given to coaches/GM’s.

why are the aforementioned positions receiving 2-3X the compensation as compared to a decade ago while players salaries during the same period increased by just 24%?
…which essentially amounts to a -16.5% loss in wages when factoring in the current deflation of Canadian currency with the inflation rate increase during those same years (2006-2016)

Players are actually making less today but there seems to be an inordinate amount of money to throw around for coaches/GM’s and yet scarce when players are concerned.

Min salary was upped to 50,000.

If people wouldve kept packing stadiums from the 80s instead of worshipping america we wouldnt have this problem right now, although edmonton (with the last pick) is the only one complaining.

Geroy and Wally are convinced this is a deep draft.

If some canadians dont want to play here then i dont want them here or to ever know who they are, they sound like the typical idiotic canadian NFL braindead loser we typically run into at bars in sunday mornings betting their sons college fund away. Good riddance

There is really no issue that I can see. Most of these guys come back. This year ONE guy has a serious shot being drafted and the other four are likely to be back this year or next. Some teams who are deep like having some guys in the NFL. Montreal had really no room for Foucault with Bourke and Perrett and now they do and he's coming to the end of his run.

Vaughn Martin in the fifth round is another steal.

The problem is when teams get greedy and use their top picks on these guys and then complain they have to wait.

I didn’t say it, Hervey did…" Hervey told the Edmonton Journal that it’s tough to find Canadian talent"

So what is the solution when Hervey said it’s “tough to find Canadian talent” ? any other suggestions that don’t involve teams breaking the bank?

If someone is offered 10x more money to play in the NFL than the CFL, you think they’re an “idiotic canadian NFL braindead loser” for taking it?

This is quite possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever read.

Anybody with a functional brain is taking that offer, especially with how short football careers are. Gotta make your money while you can as a player.

Albeit frustrating I'm sure. In my mind it is easier to just look at a single years draft as a two year job. Yes our elite college talent will go try out for the NFL but the following year half of them will be back in the CFL. Draft accordingly.

In theory, that wouldn't have ANY effect on drafting since this process has been in effect since the NFL started to pull away from the CFL in the early 70's with money and TV contracts (It's my understanding that they were on par before the end of the 60's, hence why we got Heisman trophy winners choose our league cause we could pay more sometimes). It's just what I've heard, I'm merely in my 20's.

This year some of the top talent from last year who tried out in the NFL may be in the CFL. Not a big deal, or am I just using too much common sense?

I know the obvious front-runner in this discussion (because it always comes up) is to reduce the Canadian ratio. I do think it should be reduced to 5 or 6 if we get another team in the league, however, at the moment, it seems okay right now although I wouldn't be upset if it was reduced to 6.

N’importe quoi sauf la solution.

La vérité, c’est que la LCF ne peut faire compétition à la NFL sur le plan salarial. Lorsque les équipes engrangeront assez de revenus pour payer davantage ses joueurs, peut-être que le taux de rétention sera différent. Mais ce jour n’est pas pour ce siècle alors autant se faire à l’idée.

Ce que je remarque, cependant, c’est que la solidité financière des équipes de la LCF s’améliore avec le temps. Peut-être qu’un jour, il sera plus intéressant pour un prospect canadien de premier plan de venir gagner disons, 150 000$ dans la LCF tout en jouant pour vrai que de moisir 3 ans dans la NFL en réchauffant les équipes de substituts pour finir à la case départ.

That is what successful GM’s like Huffnagel, Buono and Popp do. They look at these guys long term. If your drafting with camp two weeks down the road in mind, you have already failed or dealt a losing hand.

Pour ma part, je serais très fâché qu’on réduise le ratio de joueurs canadiens. Cette règle existe pour donner aux jeunes canadiens l’opportunité de faire carrière dans ce sport qu’ils affectionnent. Il existe un biais évident contre les joueurs canadiens. À mon sens, un gars comme Cornish aurait pu avoir une carrière dans la NFL, mais son origine a joué contre lui. Si on baisse le ratio d’un ou deux joueurs canadiens, la qualité du jeu ne s’améliorera pas. Ce ne sont pas un ou deux joueurs qui font tant de différence. Mais la disponibilité de ces postes fait une différence pour les jeunes canadiens.

Je regarde l’alignement des Alouettes et lorsque je vois les partants canadiens potentiels (Ruby, Matte, Picard, Brodeur-Jourdain, Blake, Perrett, Giguère, Brouillette, Martin, Klassen, Lue, pour ne nommer que ceux-là), je constate qu’ils n’ont rien à envier aux américains à leur position respective. Le meilleur exemple à l’effet que la nationalité n’a pas tant d’importance est le suivant : si les américains était si supérieurs aux canadiens, les lignes offensives toutes canadiennes se feraient défoncer comme des châteaux de cartes au vent. Or, ce n’est pas ce qui arrive, et c’est de moins en moins ce qui arrive. De ces dernières années, on a vu des canadiens se signaler à des positions où ils étaient auparavant systématiquement exclus. Je prends les porteurs de ballon comme exemple. On a vu Harris, Messam et Cornish faire leur place comme demis offensifs, Watt, Gore, Watson, Durie, Fantuz, Getzlaf, Bagg et j’en passe, avoir légitimement leur place dans leurs alignements respectifs, de même que Laurent et Chick se signaler sur les lignes défensives comme parmi les meilleurs. Le talent canadien s’améliore et il faudra peut-être même avant longtemps revoir la règle du ratio pour lui faire plus de place qu’il n’en occupe présentement.

Yeah let’s reduce the ratio since our homegrown guys are now good enough to make the show ! That makes sense :lol:

Oh, OK. I’m not the only one who fails to see how it would help at all.

If the ratio was one mandatory Canadian per team, the top Canadians would still want to go to that other league that pays 10X as much, I would think. Unless I’m totally whiffing on something…

Your not alone. Last time a survey was made most wanted the ratio to stay the same, then some wanted it raised and a small minority wanted it reduced or removed.

Removing the ratio turns this league into a farm system for the NFL.

I don't understand why you'd want to reduce the ratio when Canadian players are obviously more talented than ever.

Teams have a choice. Take less talented players who will be available immediately, or take the most talented players who will be available shortly after NFL camps are done. Let's be honest, very, very, very few CFL draft picks actually stick in the NFL.