Tuesday 5 February 2013

Cats Hire Reinebold

The Ti-Cats announced today that they have hired Jeff Reinebold as the team's new special teams coordinator.

This is the first piece of news since the Cortez firing/Austin hiring that I completely disagree with. Reinebold has nothing on his résumé that leads me to believe he'll be anything other than mediocre at this position. Last year, Reinebold was the defensive coordinator in Montreal and that unit was not great by any stretch of the imagination.

But perhaps the worst part of this is that last year's special teams coordinator Jim Daley was not retained. Daley, whose hiring was criticized and even laughed at (especially by the fans in Saskatchewan), coached what was easily the best special teams unit in the entire CFL. Luca Congi, Josh Bartel and Chris Williams all earned division all-star nods under Daley's guidance, and Williams was named the league's 2012 Most Outstanding Special Teams player. Daley did a remarkable job last season.

Keeping Daley would have been a smart move, but I understand that a new head coach will want to pick his own coaches. That said, replacing him with Reinebold just makes no sense to me. The last time he coached special teams was in 1995 with the Edmonton Eskimos, and he just hasn't been anything other than a mediocre coach at any of his previous stops. I am not impressed with the hire at all.

I hope Reinebold proves me wrong, but I won't be holding my breath. Sooner or later Austin was going to make a move that I didn't like and today ended up being that day.

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