There will be a new CBA before next season, and I can't see the salary cap rising.
There are some tough personnel questions the need to be answered before re-building the team for next year.
IMHO, here are the priorities:
QB. This is self-explanatory.
O-Line. They got markedly better once CVZ started actually playing. Upgrades and draft picks are needed for backups/replacements
Kicking/Punting. Enough said. This is a third of the game, and usually responsible for the most points scored. Domagala picked it up a bit at the end of the season, but the gaffes earlier in the year cost us multiple chances for wins. It's completely baffling how the co-GMs screwed up this badly.
Players will be leaving, and it could be a HUGE departure this year. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if CVZ, Mike Daly, Ted Laurent, and Brandon Banks give the old "Peace, out." and call it a career. They all have endured injuries all year, and it takes longer to heal the older you get. Even though we're hosting the GC in two years, the only real "core" player I can see lasting that long is Simoni, and that's not a given.
Here are some players who I though stood out this year, and sometimes go unrecognized - Katsantonas, Kalinic, Papi, and Woodsmany. Other than Kalinic, they were all rookies thrown into the fire due to injuries to veteran players. Kalinic, IIRC, caught almost all passes where he was targeted, and was a pretty goood blocker.
Depending on how factual the report on Masoliās vaccine status is the QB question may not be the one we were having all year.
Adeleke is signed thru 2022 and Kats is a solid back-up.
O-line will need some work and we will need some new Canadian starters if both Laurent and CVZ leave or retire.
Receivers should be good Addison is under contract for next year and some of the new guys show promise. Speedy likely retires (shame he couldnāt do it on a high note)
First things first they need to get the coaching staff worked out. If Orlondo is leaving then they have to make his replacement job one.
One or both of our co-GMs could be off to āgreenerā pastures too. Ottawa, Edmonton, and possibly Toronto will be looking for GM and player-personnel guys. New GM usually means new HC; new HC usually means new Coordinators, new Coords mean new position coaches, etc.
I honestly hadnāt thought of Masoliās vaxx status, it may be difficult to find a job up here if heās banned from crossing the border any more, so the QB decision could be moot; assuming Dane decides to sign here.
I donāt think both of the GMs go so HC needs to be worked out first unless they intend to promote from within. That will still leave them looking for a Coordinator before they can start looking at players. Maybe Orlondo is not leaving, but I think he would have squashed the rumor if it wasnāt true.
I donāt know the answer to this but rookies coming out of the draftā¦ cfl draft that is what their contract auto 2 year dealā¦ if that is the caseā¦ with Burt being healthy next year do u move him to Rec and use him as a Canadian rec or move Kalinic sorry if I spelled that wrong and move him to WR and keep Burt as fb
With a new CBA being negotiated, there could be a lockout (like MLB right now) and no contracts can be negotiated. We wonāt know until the League and CFLPA get to the negotiationg table (and the CFLPA should stop trying to negotiate through the media).
With Daly being cleared to play for grey cup and playing well in his first game back and based on what he said in a newspaper interview I think he may try to play at least one more season .
We have the QB, RB, WRs. Subtract Banks, add someone in FA. Maybe we could draft a big Canadian receiver that could block.
Most of our secondary is a strength of this team and can be tweaked.
Our LBs can stay in tact. I think Simoni is fine for another year.
DLine has a couple of big contracts but manageable.
The biggest question marks are really off the field.
We know Sask will blow the cap out of the water to win the Cup at Home. We know Toronto doesn't have a cap.
There's no reason this team can't improve through free agency. The real question is, will they try to? Cause we've been the least aggressive team in free agency for a while now (in going after other teams FAs)
We will have 2 QBās entering free agency and D. Jackson and a majority of our DBās are on expiring contracts. No guarantee Dane or Jeremiah come back.