CFL may want to opt out of ‘option year’ during CBA talks

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/01/2010 (6056 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There is a poll question on the TSN website right now that asks interested CFL fans whether “the NFL signing window is good for the CFL?” Thus far, around half of the respondents have voted “Yes, the CFL gains credibility and exposure,” and the other half have decided: “No, it robs the league of good talent.”

To get those of you that are not familiar with this rule up to speed, for as long as I’ve been in the CFL — and probably even longer — Canadian and American players have been able to sign contracts with the NFL once their contracts end or they begin their “option year.”

In CFL contracts, the option year is always the last year of your deal and many American players, when they come to the CFL for the first time, sign a one year plus an option which gives them a quick out to try for the NFL after playing in Canada for only one season. The time frame that this window is open begins the day after your last game and closes on Feb. 15.

A good example of this scenario unfolding is Winnipeg’s own Jonathan Hefney. The 2009 season was his first with the Bombers and he acquitted himself very well representing the Eastern division as the rookie of the year and garnering all-star accolades. His play turned a few heads down south and now he is going to camp with the Detroit Lions in 2010.

If he gets cut he will remain Winnipeg property for one final year, but if he makes the team his CFL deal becomes null and void.

If it sounds like a pretty sweet deal for players venturing into the CFL for the first time, it is.

After only one season up here, players can jettison for the greener pastures of the NFL without so much as a thank you card for the good time, the conditioning and the exposure. So far this off-season, eight CFL players of varying calibre have signed deals that will put them in an NFL camp in 2010.

So what does the CFL get out of this convenient poaching agreement with their big brother down south? Not as much as you would think or hope.

The initial introduction of the option year escape clause came as a condition of the NFL lending the CFL a few million dollars back in the day. Now that the loan has been repaid, the continued existence of the “option year” has a number of CFL advocates scratching their heads in bewilderment.

Of course, there are a couple of considerations to be recognized before we completely condemn this arrangement.

One, if you were to look at the number of players who have signed an option year deal with the NFL and ended up back on a CFL roster that same year, you may not be as concerned.

Dare say

Signing with an NFL team and making the roster in some capacity are two very different things. I would dare say that around one in five CFL players that sign an NFL contract actually stick down there for a season, so while it may be inconvenient and look like an ominous migration, most of these birds fly back up here at some point in the summer.

The second contemplation is what people were voting for in the poll: that it is good for the CFL because the league gains credibility and exposure by a small percentage of its players running for the border every-off season.

I think the idea here is that it shows that many players north of the border are capable of playing on either side of the 49th parallel — even though, as we noted, most of them do not stick — and is an enticement for talented American players to sign with the CFL in the first place.

In my mind, I don’t agree with this theory and don’t feel this mechanism is the only attraction that the CFL offers to American-born players. The supposition that American players would only dare venture north if they can return to the NFL in one year is absurd. Professional athletes are going to play wherever they can find a job, and at whichever job pays them the most.

Players are going to come and go from the NFL to the CFL and vice versa whether or not the option-year window exists, they just may have to wait two years instead of one.

Eliminating the “option year” would make players only interested in the CFL as a vehicle to the NFL invest another year of their time and talent on our playground.

There would be fewer roster fluctuations and the onfield product would benefit.

Since there is no real incentive to the CFL for allowing this escape clause to continue to exist, other than keeping their American cousin happy, it makes me wonder whether the “option year” window will survive the next CBA negotiation which is ongoing in earnest.

Doug Brown, always a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.