Flash flood: CFL market will explode with torrents of free-agent talent next week

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/02/2016 (3585 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Toronto Argonauts have 22. The defending East Division champion Ottawa Redblacks have 15.

And the Hamilton Tiger-Cats lead the way, with an eye-popping 34 players set to become CFL free agents Tuesday at 11 a.m. CT.

A mind-boggling 140 veteran CFLers are expected to hit the open market — an average of 16 players per team — as the league fires up the biggest free-agent blender in recent memory.

If even half of Hamilton’s 34 pending free agents sign with other teams next week, a team that lost the East Final last year and the Grey Cup game the year before will be almost unrecognizable in 2016.

And even the rare team with a modest number of free agents this year — the Winnipeg Blue Bombers were tied with the Calgary Stampeders with a league low nine pending free agents as of Friday afternoon — is still going to see an unusual amount of change.

Consider the Bombers: GM Kyle Walters revealed Friday Winnipeg is expecting at least five starters to hit the open market next week after the club decided to not offer them contracts. Included in that group were defensive back Demond Washington, offensive lineman Selvish Capers, kicker/punter Lirim Hajrullahu, slotback Nick Moore and running back Cameron Marshall.

So what’s with everyone suddenly heading for the exits in the CFL? Well, get used to it because it is going to be the new normal now the CFL is allowing players to sign one-year contracts.

Two-year deals were the league minimum until last season and the sudden bubble in free agents this winter is a result of all those new one-year deals signed last year lapsing at the same time as the usual churn of two- and three-year deals are expiring.

The good news for the Bombers is a flooded free-agent market provides an unprecedented opportunity to get better in a hurry and abruptly turn around a franchise that hasn’t made the playoffs since 2011.

And the Bombers intend to grab the opportunity by the throat, with plans to target pending free agents next week that would dramatically upgrade their defensive line (non-imports Ted Laurent, Cleyon Laing, Keith Shologan); their receiving corps (Ryan Smith, non-import Chris Getzlaf); their running game (non-imports Jerome Messam, Andrew Harris); and their kicking game (Justin Medlock).

“For a team that hasn’t won a lot of football games the last couple years,” Walters told reporters on Friday, “it’s not just a matter of plugging holes — it’s ‘Is this player better than the one we have? And can we just bring him in and move a guy out?’ ”

While top free agents are going to still fetch big dollars — everyone, and their dog, is going to be chasing Laurent — the fundamentals of capitalism should also drive down the asking price for the rank and file free.

With a massive supply of free agents and a salary cap that this year is only rising $50,000, next week promises to be a bit of a buyer’s market.

But there’s also a hard question to be asked about whether allowing one-year deals is really in the long-term interest of a league already struggling to produce identifiable stars fans tune in every week to see.

With CFL TV ratings already plunging and attendance down last season in the majority of the league’s markets, it seems counterproductive to introduce a change that will inevitably result in more players switching teams more often — and doing so year after year.

“It’s tough with the one-year deals and people wanting free agency if you’re an organization that wants to build up the players and have some consistency,” said Walters.

Unless, of course, you’re an organization like Winnipeg, whose only consistency in recent years is being bad.

When you’ve been this low for this long, any change the Bombers make will almost certainly be for the better.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter:@PaulWiecek