Kent spent way too much on Collaros (525k highest played player in the league ) after less than a year of good play and others like Ted Laurent at 275 k (Ted is a good player and more valued since he a ration buster (a national) but he doesn't do enough to justify that salary and he is in a position in a non running league and he has not been applying much pressure on the qb this year ) and Speedy Banks who took a 50 k paycut this year was overpayed and seems to has lost a step combined with a very weakened specialty team unit and coach . Spending large amounts of money of money on a few players leaves less money to go around for the rest of the team thus decreasing the overall quality . The Cap is only 5 million for 45 plays and Zac makes over 500 k . No QB can succeed with this offensive line and offensive co-ordinator ( Ausin hired a canadian university coach to be our offensice co-ordinator and he is overmatched as he has no cfl experience and most teams go with an experience american coach that may have played in the CFL as well ) . We have poor offensive schemes and play calling and our receivers can't seem to gain seperation and we have no running game . Milt Stegal of tsn continues to say we just don't have enough talent and lay that blame on Austin . We do not have a big tall athletic receiver much like Green in Toronto to make big plays . Kent allowed our defensive co-ordinator Condell to leave whom Collaros was very comfortable with not to mention tasker etc ..condell ends up coaching with Toronto this year so i find this very fishy . i think Condell left because Kent named Orlando the assistant coach and not condell especially since condell and Austin have worked together for so long .. Condell claimed his wife wanted to leave Canada last year but he;s back in Toronto this year . We lost Steinhaur to a US college where is not even head coach..i wonder why he left .. Our defence has been horrible since he left lacking smart blitzes etc..i know Austin did not replace him properly with specialty team coach reinbold who was doing a great job there but has shown in the past he is not a good defensive co-ordinator in montreal and he has shown this year that this is true as our defence has been atrocious.. Kent did not fill holes in our defensive backfield that was very evident last year . In fact our db's are worse this year than last year . Kent made a mistake too of trading John Chick for nothing as good Defensive Ends are so hard to find . Ray is going to have a field day with our chickless and laurentless dline with no decent replacements and our poor db's that cannot guard man to man and give the receivers 10 yards space in front of them to allow for easy first downs. He also should have given Will Hill more rope as he was a beast out there and we need a guy like him that has speed can tackle and hits hard and has great football . Kent let go all our import offensive tackles go i wonder why including Lewis, Figueroa, Simmons, Olsson(retired) and national Dyakowski. They are all starting for other better cfl teams with the except of olsson. Last year the offensive line was an issue and it only got worse this year . Kent did not address the oiline with improved national talent and depth or any decent import tackles.I also think there is an issue that our offensive line coach has zero CFL experince.If Bomben or Revenberg get injured we are in even worse shape as we have no cfl calibre depth behind them. Austin also knew Fantuz and butler were going to be injured for most of this year but did nothing to address this thus leaving us with sub par nationals starting ( receiver jones as an example and atkinson at DT ) causing us to sit decent imports like Tracey. Austin also lost experienced dbs in Murray and Sears and lost key specialty team players in plesius , archembeault and beau landry and not replacing them with similar talent . These 3 guys were special team stars under reinbold and i am wondering if Banks lack of production on kick retiurns has alot to do with lesser talent and athleticism on special teams and no more reinbold. The big problem is Austin is stubborn and has favorites and he overpayed for them so he can't fill the rest of the roster with quality. CJ Gable to me should be referred to a blocking back not running back and when he does run he gets nowhere and has very little speed or ability to break a tackle and he has shown an inability to catch the ball out of the backfield. Austin doesn't even call draw plays or screen passes etc to slow down the pass rush. Our current oline cannot even stop 4 pass rushers this year . Heaven forbid when we play montreal and they blitz hebert or cox . No team in this league fears our run game or even acknowledges it . This causes the oline to get overworked and the dlineman can just pin their ears back and rush the qb with no thought of defending the run . In this scenario , Collaros has very little time to make a decision before he is surround by dlineman . He ends up running left or right bumping into our olineman or their dlineman either way the play is broken. To me their offence just looks like a pickup game offence where the qb just says ok just go out for a pass and try to get open The best we can do is to attempt short yard passes and even those are well guarded by the defence as the receivers are not gaining seperation. Collaros has seemed to have lost a step and lost confidence and is obviously frustrated with the play calling and execution and lack of support from the oline and receivers .
Austin did not bring in many quality new players this year to compete for jobs especially on the oline, sam linebacker , and db's . Ellis should not be a starting sam in this league but will hill sure should have been
We end up testing players for the first half of the season like an extended training camp and most of the players don't pan out or are just not good enough . It seems Leonard is the only db that survived the extended training camp. The last good db we have had was Delvin Breaux and we saw him come in and be a shut down cb right away and teams didn't throw his way often . I have not seen many knockdowns or interception by our db's this year and in fact most possessions turn into 3 or 7 points with very few punts. The team plays like a bunch of guys thrown together like an expansion team that is not very well coached with poor play calling and poor execution .
The linebackers have been invisible this season and there are times simoni is guarding a wide receiver which is a mismatch . The linebackers are not getting to the qb or helping the pass defence so they are in no mans land doing virtually nothing .
I am not a huge Collaros fan as i see that he cannot scramble very well and his passes have been sloppy , not accurate and often into double coverage. I think he can excel in the perfect situation where he has a running game and good offensive line and decent receivers with a good offensive co-ordinator. Right now , he has none of that . So we are in tough spot now in what to do with Collaros because paying a backup 500k is not right and it seems apparent he can't perform under the current situation. Alot of this issues too are lack of continuity on both sides of the ball and i blame Austin for that ..new coaches ..new olineman and db;s weekly .....it's hard to develop any confidence and excellence with players changing so much . I look at BC for example a few years back they had the exact same defensive backfield for about 5 years with march and others . That tends to lead to better overall performance
Collaros not tradeable at 500k as most teams have a good starter. The only teams that might have interest are the argos and the riders but not for 500k . They will just wait until we cut Collaros and sign him for a lesser amount. I blame Austin for the Collaros problem by not surrounding him with the quality he had in 2015. Now we have a huge problem with Collaros. I don't even think Johnny Football could succeed under the current system and set of coaches and players.
I think there have been alot of rumblings about how players don't like to play for Austin and how he has made mistakes. Plesius was quoted as saying that if he made a mistake in one game he'd be hearing all about the next week in practice from Austin. Plesius ended up getting traded to Montreal for lb Nic Shorthill . My guess is he asked for that trade to go home to Montreal and get away from Austin. I also heard that there was free agent that was asked why did you not sign with the ticats ..his answer was that he Ted took all the money . This is in reference to Ted Laurent. That shows that free agents don't want to come to Hamilton and that we don't have the money anyway
Am I the only one that gets annoyed with Kent Austin's post practice scrums ? He has no respect for Drew Edwards and is very rude and arrogant and really tells us nothing . I expect he treats the players in a similar fashion. I was hoping that since he is no longer the coach we would not have to watch his interviews anymore but he showed up in an interview yesterday about Manziel. I already heard in a masoli interview yesterday that the practices are much more loose a breathe of fresh air and relaxed and players are able to use their athleticism. So is he saying the practices with Austin were uncomfortable ..sounds like it to me
I also lose respect for Austin as he had to have played a large part in the Art Briles signing which was a disaster and could he not have raised a hand and said this isn't going to fly with the fans, the league etc . I almost certain that he will mess up the whole manziel thing well.
Austin also has a history of showing a lack of discipline himself as he bumped dave stala of montreal in a game and also bumped a referee in another game . Setting a great example to the players .
In my eyes , most of the current and ex players don't like him very much which is not a very healthy environment for winning.
It is unfortunate that Management contracts are guaranteed unlike players as I would think Austin would be long gone by now .
I am concerned that this train wreck on and off the field is going to lose fans and season ticket holders . I expect a blowout on labour day for the hated Argos with Ray passing for over 400 yards and winning the game by at least 3 touchdowns. As Ticats fans we really hate to lose to the Argos so this will leave a real bad taste in the fans mouth about the on field product and managements decisions and overall embarrassment on and off the field.
The question is what next ? The next home games will be very low attendance over the season ticket holders and what to do with Collaros.
