Worst G.M. ever.....

I kind of liked Marcel and would have kept him around year based on the little information I had. My guess is he will end up replacing Popp in Montreal within 12 months.

The only people who don't make mistakes are ones who do nothing. He made some, but Printers, Moreno, Setta, Cauley, Bauman were impressive acquistions to me.

Has anybody noticed that very little was heard from Marcel after his comment on bringing in US officials,
that and his remark about recievers being a dime a dozen. With that attitude it is no wonder he was let go. To my mind no clearer evidence of the disdain for Marcel and his Tiger-Cats by the officials then the lack of call on the roughing the kicker. If you look at where Jake was on that play, it pretty much says it all.

Unfortunately, in Marcel we hired a guy

who talked the talk but, couldn't walk the walk.

He was hands down the worst G.M.

Marcel had the resources to produce results.

P.S.

He stubbornly got rid of veteran starters
and lit the match to start this team burning

He brought in vanilla replacements and,
as if in deep thought, he stared at them
weekly at practices and saw them fail in games

If he a had a fiddle, he should have played it
while he watched because he didn't have a clue
and it would have given him something to do.

if you talking worst ever in the league, then you talking Joe Galat by miles.

A few of the previous points on Marcel’s behalf make sense, but on balance I think that Ron is right.
I would have fired Marcel three or four weeks ago when he came on at half time and said we needed bigger receivers. After all the changes he’d made to our receiving corps, that was the end for me.

I lean toward the CaptainKirk, Meanstreak, Sagwa version of events.

I believe that Mitchell knew exactly what Marcel’s plan (mandate?) was, watched him execute that plan over the course of a year and, when the plan didn’t work, chopped Marcel’s head off and claimed it was never a plan he was a party to.

Where was Scott Mitchell, boss of Marcel DesJardins, while Marcel was dismatling Mr. Mitchell’s team? Even assuming that individual decisions were Marcel’s to make, what President sits back and allow his subordinate to dismantle the company over the course of a year without taking action. Unless he was either a) setting the subordinate up, or b) complicit with the plan.

Mitchell’s didn’t hire the guy, which was the first mistake. But when you’re in charge, saying you didn’t know what the plan was, or that you never agreed to the plan, is just not a good enough excuse. Accountability should flow up as well as down.

I think that Marcel made plenty of mistakes, but I think his boss is being dishonest in throwing him to the wolves.

The fact Marcel signed a three year contract indicates to me it wasn't a one year project.

Sure he said some things that weren't politically correct. So does Brian Burke.
Has anyone ever experienced turning around a franchise in a year. Things always get a little worse before they get better.

Mitchell says he wants a GM that will turn it around in a year. Football doesnot work that way. Even CFL football
if it does its not sustainable. There is a reason that Montreal Als are a perrenial contender. Its recruiting and player channels.

This was the worst move and scapegoating.
Marcel should have been allowed to succeed or fail based on a reasonable
time frame.

You have a 37 year old President making a decision with little CFL experience blaming the 40 something president who actually has been around the league for
over a decade.

There are no perfect personel decisions but I think the Tiger-Cats are in far better shape heading into 2008. The new regime had year under their belt they made a few errors but Bob should know as
software guy that there are alot of bugs
on the way to the perfect program.

Marcel is a systems guy he understands the components required to makes a team work for the back office out. Scott is a sales guy. 3 and 15 is not good enough who can argue with that. But the Tiger-Cats have the nucleus to build from. Great young QB great young Canadians thta is and always be what you build around.

Hopefully the new GM will build on the work thats been done. Hopefully there will be another team that recognizes the talent Marcel can bring!!!

Before Scott got hired, owner bob announced
to the public that Marcel had the hammer
regarding all football opeation decisions

so right from the beginning his hands were tied.

Scott knew that no CFL team has ever even tried
to blow up a football team and start over

but Marcel naively believed that he could
and still get the team into the playoffs.

No team can afford to alienate it's fans
by sacrificing even one season to rebuild.

Before the season was 1/3rd over,
it was clear Marcel hadn't found
ready-for-prime-time replacements.

The team's continued inability
to score T.D.s or to win games

gave Scott ample ammunition
to blow up it's mastermind,
your M.D. Marcel Desjardins

on that fateful Nov. 4th Sunday.

The operation was a success,
but the patient died.

R.I.P.

Marcel Desjardins M.D.

It's funny, most people on here agree that the Cats are in a position to improve dramatically on their 3-15 season next year. Those same people are also quick to point out that Desjardins had to go as he was the one keeping them from reaching "the next level" as a franchise. Why is it that the Cats can improve next season? Is it because their former GM, Desjardins, came in and did all of the dirty work by dealing with the contract issues the team was facing from years past. His hands were tied from the day he walked in and everyone knows that. Tough decisions had to be made in order to change the losing mentality the team had acquired over the past few years and to free up the cap space necessary to sign players when needed down the road. Don't start with the crap about "how many players were traded away to Grey Cup contending teams?" Last time I checked, there are 8 teams in the CFL, how hard can it be to end up on one of the contending teams? That argument is a weak one.

Those decisions were made and we will have the opportunity to see some of the improvements next year. Remember, this was supposed to be a 3 year window to make it work. The tough decisions have been made and most people here agree that the team is heading in the right direction (on the field, not upstairs in the offices). They have a good core of players on both sides of the ball, cap space and lots to look forward to in 2008. This is a very young team that is missing a few pieces.

A year from now everyone may be singing the praises for a dramatic turnaround in the standings, just remember who layed the foundation for that success...

There are a few different ways of looking at that.

Unlike some, I agree that a team’s fortune can change quickly in the CFL - an injury to a QB, for example, can destroy an otherwise promising season. Look at how the Argos started the season and how they finished it.

One of the reasons it sometimes happens is because previous W-L records don’t always tell the whole story. But it’s doesn’t happen more often than it does.

Milton, or one of the other guys at The Speck, wrote a column the other day that described what Marcel took over. A disfunctional organization and bad team entering the first year of a SMS with a roster chock full of other team’s former problems. A predecessor with no football background or league contacts that handed out big contracts to any guy he’d heard of. And a scouting system that amounted to a box of three-year-old CFL trading cards.

A GM with all that going against him CAN turn it around in a year, but more often than not he won’t. Marcel didn’t. Too bad for all of us.

I sure hope Scott’s guy can do a better job than Bob’s guy did - (records not telling the whole story) he’s starting much further ahead.

I believe you are dead wrong here.

Marcel inherited a huge mess that he had to clean up.

It was created by Katz who is not a football guy and this was acknowledged in the Spec the other day by CFL insiders.

He did not have the resources to produce results in one year when you’re starting in such a huge hole, beginning with QB Jason Maas. Remeber how ineffective he was when put in many red zone oppurtunites? Imagine if that was Printers in the first six games or so. I firmly believe we would have had a significantl;y better record. You cannot blame Marcel for Maas and all the other obstacles that Marcel had to clear to get this ship “moving forward”. Given three years, I think he would have improved the team, but alas we’ll never know now.

Remember, Marcel has extensive knowledge when it comes to contracts and related issues. You could see what he was up to if you looked in the right places.

I also believe that any significant improvement that arises next year should be partly attributed to Marcel rolling up the sleeves and starting the dirty work .

8) I agree with your analysis completely Captain Kirk. While I didn't like every move that Marcel made, he had been given a mandate to turn this mess around, and he was given 3 years to do it !! Plain and simple, he became the fall guy in an obvious power struggle at the top of this dysfunctional organization !!!

Mr. Mitchell stated on the radio Monday that he fully expects this team to be vastly improved next year, and that we should certainly make the playoffs !!! If the Cats don’t at least squeeze into the final playoff spot next year, will Mitchell then put his own neck on the line and quit ???

All the veteran G.M.s USED NEGOTIATING SKILLS
to get players to take pays cuts last off season
because the SMS was to be enforced in 2007.

Tillman even got Joseph to take an huge pay cut.

If the Rob Katz's contracts with our veteran starters from 2006

were too pricey to fit under the salary cap in 2007
these contracts could have been negotiated down.

Instead of NEGOTIATING our veteran players salaries down,

M.D scoffed and said RECEIVERS ARE A DIME A DOZEN
and dumped ours and the veteran d-backs Kavis had trained.

If he wasn't so ham-handed and had some tact,
SOME OF OUR KEY VETERANS could have been kept,

ESPECIALLY RECEIVERS AND DEFENSIVE BACKS.

Oh, yeah, there was supposed to be lots of
bogeymen among them spreading a losing culture.

I guess he missed a few of them. We still lost.

P.S.

With the SMS in place, negotiating will play
a much bigger part of a G.Ms job today.

It's one thing to throw lots of money at
Nautyn Mc Kay-Loesser and Casey Printers,

it is another thing to negotiate contracts
with 2nd level starters and journeymen players
who constitute the backbone of the team.

Desjardins silence is deafening. There's got to be more to this... Captain Kirk is right on. You can't inherit the mess he inherited (overblown salaries) and expect to turn it around in just over a year. Don't kid yourself this is what Mitchell wanted from the beginning.

Football is a team game off the field almost as much as it is a team game on the field. The timeline over the past year indicates that the Ticat player transactions made by Marcel Desjardins in 2007 to dramatically reduce team payroll must have been mandated, or at least agreed upon, at the highest levels of the Ticat organization.

In December, 2006, Desjardins signed kicker Nick Setta, head coach Charlie Taaffe, and middle linebacker Zeke Moreno.

On January 12, 2007, Scott Mitchell was named Ticat president. Mitchell became Desjardins' boss on that day.

All player transactions made by Desjardins after that date, including the trading of Flick and Smith to Saskatchewan, and all coaching staff hirings made by Charlie Taaffe after that date, must have been approved by Scott Mitchell.

Therefore, responsibility for the Ticats' 3 win, 15 loss record in 2007 has to be shared by the entire Ticat organization. When the CFL Auditors release their Salary Management System report in January, 2008, we will see whether Ticat management has partially redeemed itself by managing the cap better than the other CFL teams in 2007 and placing their new GM in a superior cap position for 2008.