It has been a rocky start for Chris Jones and the Saskatchewan Roughriders, who have won just one of their first seven games. This past weekend they lost 19–10 to the Calgary Stampeders, and Jones made headlines for allegedly telling Stamps coach Dave Dickenson to “Win with some class” after the game. The week before they were fined $15,000 for violating ratio rules against the BC Lions.
And on top of all that, the CFL announced on Friday that the Riders have been fined $65,000 for using ineligible players at practice. The team will also have its salary cap reduced by $26,000.
The team has come under harsh criticism since the fine came down—the CFL itself said the team has “compromised the reputation” of the league. What’s more, the league has been called out for not meting out a tougher punishment. In my mind, though, the reaction has been overly harsh to both sides.
Let’s start with the Riders. Yes, they broke rules. But their main crime isn’t in what they did, but how blatant they were about it.
The truth is there is a grey area that every team lives in when it comes to roster construction. Players are stashed on the injured list instead of the practice roster all the time so other teams can’t grab them. This happens particularly often with quarterbacks and kickers. It is also a measure used to keep a player around on his full salary if he wouldn’t be willing to settle for practice roster–type money.
Free agents are also brought in and worked out “after” practice. What’s more, when practice technically ends and the workout begins is defined differently by all.
Games like this are played by all teams. The difference, of course, is Saskatchewan has the money to afford to keep free agents in town longer than most other teams. The Riders aren’t necessarily doing anything worse then their counterparts—they can just afford to do it in a much more egregious way.
What Jones didn’t consider was how unrealistic it was to keep his so-called “pre-practice squad” quiet. The league is a tight-knit community. Agents rep players among all of the teams. The guys train with each other in the off-season and have former teammates from college or other pro stops on every team. It was only a matter of time until an opposing player said something. When that player is of the stature of Bo Levi Mitchell it gains traction.
Of course, Jones doesn’t seem willing to take this lying down. And two of his comments about the fines are telling. First he said, “I was comfortable enough with our process, the way we do things, that was developed through 14 years and four teams in the league.”
Jones has worked with and for a bunch of coaches in both divisions. This is not something he just came up with on his own in the last two years.
“I hope the situation results in all nine teams being held to the same regard and to the same standard,” he added, more or less saying he doesn’t intend the Riders to be the only team that has to clean up their act.
The other criticism has been of the league saying the fine is too light for the wealthy Riders. Sure, $60,000 is a drop in the bucket for Saskatchewan. They’ll make that back in merchandise alone at their next game.
However, that would be a significant fine for any other team, and you can’t rule arbitrarily based on the wealth of the offender. I’d rather have seen the penalty be draft picks as that would truly affect team building. But short of that, the price they were forced to pay was fine by me.