Riders only team over Cap.. gee I wonder why??

do you have any idea what you’re talking about?

did you not see how many players were injured on that team? you MUST Realize that with all those injuries, you have to bring in players to take their roles! then you have to find new backups for the former backups.

you can bet, if they had NOT so many damn injuries they would NOT HAVE BEEN over the Cap!

it’s a no brainer!

Of course its a non-issue. And the CFL doesn’t have to deal with it, they already have. The Riders were issued a fine. DONE.

I just don’t understand how anyone can think that the Riders’ “Cheated” when it is obvious to everyone else what happened. Those injuries don’t happen, The Riders are not over. Its as simple as that.

The SMS worked great for another year.

The problem is the T V contracts are two low!! Each CFL team should be getting 5 million a season more from tv rights than they get now, this could go directly towards the cap!making it 10 million a team, opening the door to Toronto and B.C, Montreal going after some nfl F.A,s.

Wow. To be that close after such a bizarre year...a very good job.

Too bad - without all of those injuries, we might have been significantly UNDER the cap, and therefore had some 2008 money to use as signing bonuses for some of our free agents.

The SMS was put in place to protect teams, players, fans, and the league from having their costs spiral out of control, like most other sports leagues. Salaries have stablized, costs are under control, ticket prices are reasonable, all the teams in the league are profitable ( not saying they’re all in the black, but they easily could be ). It has also been successful at leveling out the playing field and evening the talent disparity that used to exist across the league.

It allows teams in the smaller markets to compete in a gate-driven league, where tickets at $100/game would make for cobwebs in the stands.

And we can nearly destroy the league like we did in the late 1980s! Woo Hoo!

How is it cheating?
What should the riders have done? Not fielded a team? Forfit the season?

by HfxTC on 31 Mar, 2009 - 08:16

AriusReturns wrote:

HfxTC wrote: Legal bagel shows bias for the second consecutive season. At least your not throwing beer cans at me

You are welcome to come to sunny Taylor Field anytime and maybe we can fix the “not throwing beer cans” part for you…
With the massive number of injuries the Riders sustained in 2008, being only 87,000 over the cap is very impressive. I believe at one point we had 21 players on the injured list. I know in one game at least, we only had 3 starters on offence, and were playing 9 Canadians.
And for the record, " the SMS is not a hard cap, and as we have paid our fine, it is silly to even refer to it as “cheating”.


Arius the injuries are a seperate issue. The Riders used the nine game injury list with guys that weren’t even injured for nine games. Those numbers don’t count. If they did I think you would see an even bigger disaprity between the Riders and the other teams.

Cheating the SMS…not the same as saying the Riders are cheaters. Two consecutive years coming in around 10k below losing a pick is “budgeted” IMO.


I think we did likely have a couple of guys(Tate) on the 9-game that were not actually hurt. As does every team in the league. And I think there are remedies the league could implement to curtail that issue. But as you say, those amounts do not count. But when a starter goes down, what team is foolish enough to place that player on the injury list if he isn’t actually hurt? We had 9, count 'em, 9 starters on just offence on the injured list at one point. And some of those “starters” were actually second, even 3rd stringers who were only starting because we had already lost the “starters”. I believe we had 8 broken legs. Yes, we could have placed a few more of them on the 9 game injured list a second time and possibly squeaked under the cap. But when “budgeting” as you say, how do you decide mid season,“oh, we better put that guy on the 9 game list even though he will only need to miss 4 because another guy may break his leg next week”. In the end, I don’t doubt that rather than place Dominguez or Flick back on the 9 game, which, along with a couple of others may have kept us below the SMS threshold, we deliberately decided that in order to field a competitive team for the play-offs we would go over the cap a few dollars. It isn’t like we were over paying guys, or outbid another team for free agents and that caused us to go over. It was injuries. And just injuries. So yes, we “budgeted” to come in just under the 100,000 mark—and justifiably so.

Again, all of this proves the SMS is working.

There is also a clause that allows a team to remover a player from the 9 game list early. They can do it but the salary will then count. Seems to me that the Riders chose to remove one player and he broke his hand in the first game back.

How is that for bad luck....The salary counted, and they lost that player again!
remove that one case and a good portion of the 87K is gone as well

Maybe these farmboys just can't count. But in all honesty, the SMS is stupid. If your smallest market is the only team exceeding the cap, then it should be put higher.

If I'm a big marekt owner, I don't want to here the riders complain that they can't compete with no salary cap since they clearly don't respect it.

Farm boys?

Wasn’t Tillman in charge?

Didn’t he also work in BC?

Was he a farm boy then?

Also, as has been stated about 5 times already, it is not a cap.

It is meant to manage the salaries. It has managed the salaries.

The Riders have gone over by about one player worth of salary. About 30 some injuries and only 87k.

I have an idea that would help . . . you should keep crying about it. That will make things better. :cowboy:

Do the Lions still have a team? Based on the forum participation of their fans, I wasn’t sure. Until, predictably, they can slam the Riders about something…
In the pre-SMS era, we had a cap. For nearly 20 years I think. Nobody enforced it and every team was over–and over in the hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions. yip. One team over by 87,000, after the injuries that they had sure proves the SMS is ineffective and that the Riders don’t respect it…

AriusReturns hold your tongue. How many fans turned out for Lions games last season? Answer that and then shoot your mouth off again. IRL fans > internet fans, its the IRL fans who buy tickets and show up at games.

Why the hell is this topic still alive? It does not deserve this much attention. /facepalm The Riders got nailed with injuries and went over. Sh!t happens, they got penalized and now its done. I really wish there was a way I could sage this post. But instead, please everybody give your head's a shake, this isn't that big of a deal! Its not like the Riders are moving to Utah and will have the players replaced with some guy's 50 wives.

The fact of the matter, is that after the salary cap came into full effect, the Riders have gone 27-13. They’ve been the most dominant team over the past two years. The other teams lost the ability to outspend the Riders, and they lost the ability to outbid them for talent.

The result: The strength of the organization really started to shine through.

And then fans of the big-market teams come on here and complain that the cap is “stupid” and that we should get “ride” of it. Sure, we need to go back to the '90s when spending was out of control and the league was on NFL-handout life support because the Riders aren’t bottom-dwellers anymore and the injury rules put them over the threshold and into the fines.

The cap is in place yet for two years straight, its not observed. Dont tell me theres not a problem. Its garbage and hypocritical. Either you have a hard cap and everyone has to abide (yes even, you, angels from the land of the open sky) or don`t have it at all.

Take a chill pill. Obviously I was joking about the Farm boys thing. Secondly, it is a cap. A really crappy one but one none the less. Is it a hard cap…no.

Well I have teken notes from rider fans in the past, crying is something you guys are very good at :cry:

Good one pal!

How can even the biggest of homers deny that the SMS was not respected…Granted the injuries the riders had were absurb amount, injuries are part of the game and its not like other teams didnt have injuries too. Your second part of your comment contradicts itself.

One team over by 87,000, after the injuries that they had sure proves the SMS is ineffective and that the Riders don't respect it....
Uh, well yeah that is what I just said! Long term injuries should not count against the cap number. And, as you said, the Riders didn`t respect the cap/SMS, that`s why they`re being fined!

The injury excuse dosen't hold one drop of water. Tillman put every single guy who had a major injury on the 9 game injury list, which is not accounted for in the audit numbers. The Riders were over the sms ceiling by anywhere from 250k to 600k.

I agree this 100k buffer in the SMS is a mistake. Penalty should be the same financialy (3 to 1) no matter where you are over the cap. Had it cost the Riders 270k in fines they would have kept their payroll in line with the other 7 teams.

Lets see your team replace 20 guys in a season and only be over by 87,000. Sure guys went on the 9 game, so half their salary doesn’t get counted, what about the other half of their salary? Give your head a shake, you’re crying about nothing, if this is really what you’re gonna do, because anyone with common sense knows your arguement is pathetic.

It’s not cheating. If the league is enforcing penalties for exceeding the SMS, it is not cheating.

Imagine if the Riders just did without during all the injuries. Just folded for the season and took the position that without a full team they would just fold for the year? This would be the ex CFL fan forums - FULL STOP.

The amount they where over is = to 1 starting salaries or 2 second string players. Given the games lost and the number of players it's a miracle that figure wasn't much higher. More then a few folks here need to remove their tin foil caps

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_foil_hat

There is no conspiracy and there is not planned attempt to budget going over SMS by just 100k. It is nothing more then a devastating amount of injuries and despite the efforts to form JFK like conspiracy theories - there is nothing more to it.

From TSN's story

"Injuries were the primary reason why the Riders went over the cap. At one point last season the team had upwards of 20 regulars on its injured list."

So what should they have done with 20 players injured - go with a 22 man lineup? I thought you were more or less reasonable, but your vitriol on this issue is ridiculous, and makes you look like a ranting lunatic.