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South Pender wrote:I'm a bit confused by this discussion. Surely, Wally, like all GMs, will spend up to the cap for players. Who would agree to field a team with salaries totaling up to significantly less than the cap? So, I think concerns about skimping on free agents to save money are likely unfounded, unless Wally wants to save money there to free up more for incumbents or new players--which would constitute a case of salary allotments, rather than saving overall on salaries. Where some savings might occur with an austere budget would be around coaching staff, other personnel, and infrastructure expenses (unless I'm not understanding the SMS correctly).
I agree 100%
If an owner wants to go cheap, it is not done with player salaries, it is done by reducing other staff numbers and/or salaries
I think Braley has been paying top dollar on the management side to Wally, Tedford and Skulsky, and invested heavily this year in new technology and upgrades to the team's practice facility. Training camp facilities in Kamloops are first class. The only area in which the Lions have skimped compared to some of their rivals is by holding their spring minicamp in Surrey and restricting it to select offensive players. Several teams took everyone to Florida for minicamp.
While it was one thing to have Buono in the bucket, overseeing practices in the Benevedes era, it was another to have Buono 'coaching' assistant coaches and players, with a HC of Tedford's previous stature. Tedford must have bristled. His comments, towards the end of the season, that he had 'deferred' to Buono, I believe were made feciously.
The only HC who could ever have the total freedom to actually be the Head Coach and run the show on the field, is Buono himself. So he might as well have remained as Head Coach after 2011. That he is back as Head Coach is the only solution because it would be a waste of time to hire anyone else as HC if Buono is GM.
Some posters on Lionbackers this season believed that Buono was not interfering with Tedford's ability to run the show on the field. More and more, its comng to light that was not the case, as Mike Beamish has written.
Many Lionbackers believed Buono would return to the sidelines earlier this season. When Buono signed Valli and Norman to contracts that paid them as starters, before training camp, and stated we would go with four Nationals on the offensive line and Tedford decided we had to go with more Internationals, I knew there would be trouble ahead. There was.
Lowell Ullrich
The announcement by the club was that Jeff Tedford had resigned but the unmistakable vibe generated by Buono was that he was pushed to rediscover his love for NCAA coaching, nudged by the only person who is capable of working with the Lions legend. That would be Buono himself. Now the responsibility of resurrecting the CFL team rests on him. All of it. And despite pending contractual evidence to the contrary, he has run out of second chances.
Tedford gave the Lions an enhanced infrastructure when he insisted the Lions make significant upgrades and boosted the team’s use of technology. What he couldn’t give them was a coach who could work within the ways things have always been done with the Lions for well over a decade.
Mike Beamish
The first hint Tedford might be moving on came Nov. 23 when it was reported a search firm contacted him to gauge his interest in returning to the NCAA coaching ranks. He was wise to look at other options.
In a post-season news conference, three days after the Lions’ playoff elimination, Buono’s endorsement of Tedford was far from ringing. Asked if Tedford would be returning in 2016, Buono responded, “it’s a tough question to answer. It’s premature
.”
The long shadow cast by Buono crept up on Tedford continually throughout the 2015 season, to the point where the GM was literally looking over the latter’s shoulder on the practice field. With most football operations there is a distinct separation of church and state. But Buono was not content to spend practice hours sitting alone in his office, working the phones. He was on the practice field continually, observing and offering input to coaches and players.
During his three years as head coach, Benevides was subjected to the same scrutiny from a rooftop perch — with Buono peering down on the proceedings, Bear Bryant-like.
"When I went to Catholic high school in Philadelphia, we just had one coach for football and basketball. He took all of us who turned out and had us run through a forest. The ones who ran into the trees were on the football team". (George Raveling)
A coach which does not have full autonomy to run his team without outside interference is doomed to failure. Wally should know this from his days in Calgary.
I think Wally's intent after 2011 was to get out of coaching. I think he did as good of a job as you can do in preparing Mike Benevides to succeed. He had a decade long apprenticeship in the CFL, which is almost unheard of. Certainly Wally had and has control issues of which he is unable to let go of, and perhaps if he had been better able to let go of those, MB might have done a bit better. But MB ultimately failed on his own merits and, if you're Wally, what do you do next?
Well, you can't just walk back into the job after your protege fails, now, can you? Fortunately, he lucked into Tedford, a well pedigreed coach who should have been able to come in and show some immediate success. And while he did what he could, improve the infrastructure, and, once he got his arms around a game he'd been away from for two decades, work with individual coordinators to try and make lemonade out of the p**swater he'd been given. That said, Tedford was dealt a bad hand on defense and special teams by being saddled with Wally's guys, and the guy he brought in (Cortez) was a square peg in a round hole too.
So it's no surprise, ultimately, that Tedford failed. My hope is that time looks back on him a bit more favorably than some are right now, I think in light of what this club was, 7-11 and a first round playoff loss was about the best you can hope for.
Which brings us to right now. Is Wally returning to the sidelines a positive development to the organization? No. Is it the best thing for it at this point in time? After a lot of thought, I'm going to say yes, for a number of reasons.
First, the lockerroom needs to be stabilized. This is two seasons now of a lockerroom that doesn't appear to respect the coaching staff in the room. Having a third new person in three years walk in and command respect is probably not feasible, and I have a hard time seeing this team improving regardless of what new person walks in that door.
Second, Wally Buono, not having gotten the message after 2011, needs to get the idea that he should be coaching out of his system once and for all. Most coaching legends who ascend to a front office position have this problem, and they usually have to leave the franchise to figure it out. On the other hand, some guys do go to other places and build winners, I'd argue that Vince Lombardi was on his way to a successful stint in Washington before he died. George Allen was building a successful college program before he died, etc. etc. It's unfortunate that the fanbase needs to learn this lesson with him, but it is what it is, and here we are. There's always the possibility that an old dog can learn new tricks, and Wally assembles a coaching staff that convinces him that a change in philosophies, particularly defensively, are necessary and the team excels. Or he fails miserably and gets the message. It's up to you as a fan if you want to invest your time and money on going on this journey with him or not, and I certainly wouldn't blame you if you don't.
But third, and this is the organizational problem, is that Wally once again needs to find someone to replace him as a head coach, and in the near future. And this isn't just a BC Lions problem, it's a CFL problem. As a league, we do a very poor job of preparing guys to be head coaches (outside of Scott Milanovich), which is why there's a carousel that recycles the same guys every offseason. It's what makes MB's failure even more devastating not just to the team but to the league. Here was a Canadian guy given the opportunity to learn franchise operations inside and out, and he flamed out inside of three years. Returning to the field at least gives him another shot to find another person either on staff or who can be brought into the staff to be positioned to do this. *ahem* Baron Miles *ahem*. It buys time for another shot at a sustainable succession, something that those of us who lived through the 70s and 90s have bad memories of being devoid of all too well.
Wally has confirmed via Twitter that Chuck McMann has retired.
Wally BuonoVerified account
@GM_Brillo
Thanks Coach McMann for all your years of dedicated work to the @BCLions and the @CFL. Enjoy retirement, you've earned it. Thanks my friend!
B.C.FAN wrote:Wally has confirmed via Twitter that Chuck McMann has retired.
Wally BuonoVerified account
@GM_Brillo
Thanks Coach McMann for all your years of dedicated work to the @BCLions and the @CFL. Enjoy retirement, you've earned it. Thanks my friend!
I'd suggest that McMann earned retirement several years ago, actually. But best of luck to him regardless.
B.C.FAN wrote:Wally has confirmed via Twitter that Chuck McMann has retired.
Wally BuonoVerified account
@GM_Brillo
Thanks Coach McMann for all your years of dedicated work to the @BCLions and the @CFL. Enjoy retirement, you've earned it. Thanks my friend!
