Ticat's Free Fall

Anybody else absolutely amazed at how fast the Cats have plummeted into the Abyss?

It was just a couple of years ago in 2015 that Collaros was heading for an MOP season. We were crushing other teams by halftime with 20+ point leads. Our defense was rock solid and completely stifled opposing offences. We were pace for one of the best years ever and most likely a Grey Cup.

Fast forward only 2 years later and we have a team that is winless in 8 games and completely dysfunctional in all 3 phases of the game. A tremendous amount of talent lost to free agency, a QB with shattered confidence, a coach that has removed himself from his position, no qualified OC or DCs, Reinbold getting fired, and now finally a PR nightmare with the scandalous attempted hiring of Art Briles.

This is a complete mess from top to bottom. It's astonishing how fast there was a total loss of control and direction with this team. This is clearly the fault of upper management and heads need to roll but who will play the executioner? It appears that Young trusts Mitchell who trusts Austin who trusts Tillman.

Somebody has got to take the fall already!!!

I agree entirely ..When things were good they went and signed about 5 players to enormous salaries and then lost alot of good players to free agency and lost both offensive and defensive co-ordinators.
They never addressed extreme weak areas like the offensive line and defensive backfield but instead let quality players go unsigned , trade, or cut.....I think the blame has to go on Austin has he was behind signing his favorites to such a big chunk of the salary cap that we didn't have enough money left over to have quality players in other key positions. H

2 years huh? Just the time that Eric Tillman has been our GM. Coincidence?

Yeah, Tillman appears incompetent but somehow I don’t think he makes any move without Austin’s approval.

I wanted to add that Austin made a huge mistake letting our offensive and defensive co-ordinators go . I mean tommy condell is with the argos now which makes me scratch my head and think there is something fishy....Steinhauer was a good defensive co-ordinator and his replacement Reinbold was not. Our new offensive co-ordinator was a university coach with no CFL experience ......these were both horrible moves and combined with overspending on Austin favorites set us up for failure . Our offensive line was bad in the past but letting Figueroa, Simmons, olson and Lewis go left us with nothing rookie tackles . Good luck with that and we saw what happened . We let two quality dbs in Rico Murray and Johnny Sears Jr sign with the argos . With Austin's pass only offence Collaros was running for his life with the weakend inexperienced oline.

I saw this coming since last year and why didn't management ?

Now two more major blunders have taken place ..We give away our best all star dlinemen in John Chick with a 5th round pick for a 2knd round pick ...oh my goodness highway robbery ...Good defensive ends are so hard to find especially for the cats. The last good one we had was Joe Montford.

and now today's debacle ....where we sign Art Briles with his Joe Paterno like past ..and then have the cfl cancel the deal after there was an outburst against it amongst cfl fans .

This team has become a joke on and off the field . I am afraid to see how many people will show up to games after labour days . If people did not have season tickets , I think we'd see record low attendance to see this joke of a team . The only way this team doesn't go 0-18 is if one of the teams later in the schedule has a playoff spot secured and has nothing to play for so they play their backups to prevent any injuries . Hmm but even so I wonder if this cats team could beat them anyway .

I can see Collaros and Banks and Gable being released and Laurent and unfortunately simoni likely traded ...

Ray is going to have a field day on labor day against our chickless dline with no pass rush and weak secondary ..

I don’t want to appear as an apologist but here i go. OK, a few points. Condell quit. What would you have liked Austin to do?
Steinhauer got a promotion with what i would assume was a raise and a great opp. Steinhauer signed a contract with the team to coincide with his daughter finishing at WLU. With Austin firmly in charge and no room locally for advancement i get it that he wanted to leave. Again, what would you want Austin to do here?
Letting the O-Lineman go did not only leave us with only rookie tackles. We have Fulton.
The team did not give away Chick. Along with the draft pick the team has cap space if they want to add new talent. Loved 33 year old Chick last year. 18 games, 14 sacks, 4 FF. Haven’t loved 34 year old Chick quite as much. 8 games, 2 sacks.
I would be shocked if the team didn’t win a game. Absolutely shocked. Not that this is a important accomplishment.
Agree that the team may cut ties with some vets. If they do it will because it is for the better of the team moving forward.
Ray passed for 506 yards week 1 with Chick. YUP, he will probably have another field day Monday.

Since it ultimately led to him firing himself - he should have firmly set a path to promote one or two of those two guys for the HC job and put them in a position to succeed not relinquish everyone’s input and offer his way or the highway attitude. He could have moved upstairs under much different circumstances. Stubborn, stubborn, stubborn.

Presumably the same thing he’d want Austin to do when a free agent chooses to sign elsewhere for more money than we have available under the cap. Make it clear that no one makes a move unless Austin says so.

Did he have that approval when starting the talks that brought JJ here?

Austin is the type to micro-manage everything. It’s a pretty sure bet that he and Tillman discussed the Jones hiring at length and Austin subsequently stepping away from the sidelines.

Eric Tailspin has gotta go . The guy is a poser , and is the most overrated GM in this league .
The guy wouldn’t know talent if it bit him in the butt . Just remember this is the same guy who once traded a future HOF qb for a 3rd string QB , a punter and a draft pick :o . I’d be saying to this guy, bye bye ,thanks for coming out…don’t let the door hit ya in the ass as you’re walking through it .

I think Tillman was brought in as another of Austin’s “Yes” men. Kent was wearing too many hats and entrusted Tillman to take over the GM duties. We are now seeing the results of that move. ::slight_smile: