I think Coach Cortez will turn out OK.
I like some of his offensive stuff and on occasion the play calling is very good.
For various reasons, as in BillyDee's post, this season has been way too inconsistent. I would like to think Cortez sees it as a building year. Next year should be more consistent and much more "Cortez's team" after trades and signings in the upcoming off-season.
However.....if we have the same miserable record in October 2013, the Cortez experiment should be ended.
Heck, Marcel was fired for .500 or below seasons. I hope Cortez is judged by the same standard.
Ok enough analyzing and debating we are overdue for a CARETAKER UPDATE :rockin: but we all know when that will come out 1 minute after we find out about all the top secret details about our new fancy stadium and how great the team will do after the nomad year so a New TWO YEAR PLAN. Will be wheeled out next week hip hip hurray :cowboy: and we will all get in the mail a free poster for us die hardened season seat suckers a poster of the new stadium ya baby life is good in the hammer then for the expansion draft for Ottawa we will lose some good players then what ......, the saga continues !!!!
No, BillyDee is right. You are not able to assess the coach’s skills without the kind of inside information he referred to. You can assess the short term results, which is not the same as assessing the skill of the coach. If it were that simple, a team would fire the coach as soon as he lost a single game. The results we’ve observed this year are the product of many factors, some of which are outside Cortez’s control. It will be more fair to judge Cortez on the results next year, and even moreso the following year. Despite the power he’s been given, Cortez has had limited opportunity so far to bring in players of his choosing and put his own stamp on the team.
Put it this way: if there’s a 5 alarm fire, do we terminate all the firefighters on the scene and try to hire new ones if the fire isn’t extinguished in the first 10 minutes? How does the fact that the fire isn’t out yet qualify a bystander to judge how capable the first fire crew is of doing their jobs?
So what if we can’t see Cortez tucking the players into bed at night and so what if we can’t see him drawing X’s and O’s or watching game film with the team.
BUT we’ve seen other things. We’ve seen and heard him in interviews, at training camp, practices, games, and all his mannerisms and quirks have been discussed endlessly. But most of all we can judge him by the questionable roster and game decisions he has made.
He was brought in to take a .500 team to the next level. He inherited a team with a core group of players who were on those 9-9 teams for the last 3 seasons. We were led to believe that George the Almighty would tweak a little here or there and take the Cats to the next level. At least 10-8 for crying out loud. Instead George’s apparent skills have led us to an astonishing 5-9 record so far. If you look at the Ti-cat transactions since Cortez came in there has been a hell of a revolving door at many key positions. So saying that Cortez has had limited opportunity so far to bring in players of his choosing is a bit of a stretch. If anything he’s replaced DL and DB players with inferior ones.
The man seems to have a grasp of offences. But I don’t think that anybody could argue that we need MAJOR help on defence. Cortez is not the complete package and we will be spinning our wheels until we at least bring in a competent DC who can also help to assess the talent.
Jones was not a lateral move. He has the same coaching titles with the Argos as he did in Calgary but he was named assistant GM of the Argos which was a promotion over his position of assistant director of player personnel with the Stamps.
If you want an example of a lateral move then try Tim Burke coming to Winnipeg from Montreal.
That’s just a little window dressing to sweeten the deal for Jones and not pi$$ off the Stamps organization. Adding the title assistant GM makes the move seem a little less dirty and suspicious. Don’t kid yourself. He was brought in primarily as the DC.
Of course he was but the point is it was considered a promotion and not a lateral move because of the assistant GM title.
Burke was able to make the lateral move because he was basically a free agent as his contract had expired and he hadn’t signed a new one with Montreal.
Argos were fined by the league for hiring a coach under contract. nuff said.