Give Someone Else the February Grey Cup

While free agency doesn't start until February, the CFL's releasing of their players up for free agency has already prompted discussion about who could be available and who the Tiger-Cats should chase. There are a number of potentially high-profile players free to peddle their wares to the highest bidder come the 15th of February that could help improve a Tiger-Cat team that finished a league worst 6-12 in 2012.

But while dreams of JC Sherritt, Solomon Elimimian and Adrian McPherson dance in many fans' heads, I'm of the opinion that the team needs to do very little come free agent time. That's not to say that they should do nothing – upgrades at spots are obviously needed – but I don't want to see another batch of mid-February posts and articles about how the Ti-Cats "won" free agency. Hamilton has been the winner of the most unofficial Grey Cups in the month February more times than I can remember and that has brought exactly zero actual Grey Cups to Hamilton.

Last year, the team went out and spent big money on Andy Fantuz. The year before, they signed Avon Cobourne. In 2010, the big move was acquiring Sandro DeAngelis. Some worked out better than others, but none of them proved to be the missing piece to the championship puzzle.

The less said about DeAngelis the better. He was an abject failure for the Ti-Cats; he knows it, we know it, so it's best to just move on.

Cobourne, as far as I am concerned, was as close to a perfect pickup as the team has made the last three off-seasons. Sure, he never eclipsed 1,000 rushing yards and he was let go after just one season, only to be brought back, benched and then finally inserted into the lineup when injuries forced Chevon Walker out. But Cobourne has been a locker room leader and while I am fully for this signing (and how that might look contradictory considering I don't want the team to make a Cobourne-esque move this off-season), there isn't a Cobourne-like player available this off-season.

Fantuz was deemed a bit of a disappointment after a 72-catch, 971-yard, eight-touchdown season. Yet those numbers are probably the second best of his career and are better than his career averages – 58 catches, 851 yards, five touchdowns – and way better than his career averages if you take out his one monster season (2010). The problem is, that monster 2010 season was the reason Fantuz was so sought after last winter and why he is being paid reportedly close to $200,000/year. His 2012 numbers weren't as good as his 2010 ones (though he did miss games and scored more touchdowns in 2012 than in any season prior) and that shows the perils of luring high-priced veterans to town. You pay more than you should and rarely get a return on the investment.

That's not to say the team shouldn't bring guys in, but if you think about all the players the team has acquired, either in the winter or after via free agency or by trade, the ones who have been the some of the team's best players over the last three or four years are the guys who came to the team with very little fan fare. There was no big press conference when the team traded for Markeith Knowlton or when they signed Jamall Johnson and Otis Floyd or when the dealt for a player off Saskatchewan's negotiation list named Chris Williams.

Sometimes big free agent signings can work out, but the Ti-Cats have too often tried to build their team through free agency and it clearly doesn't work. If it did, the team would have taken all those February championships and turned them into one or two November ones.

All-Time Defensive Tackles and Another Ex-Cat Signs Elswhere

It's Tuesday, which means it is News Day here in Tiger-Cat land. Unlike the last three weeks, there are no Players of the Weeks to announce, but there are a couple pieces of news that are likely of interest to Tiger-Cat fans.

We start with the announcement of the defensive tackle nominees for the all-time team. Seven players are up for two spots and one is pretty much already taken by Angelo Mosca – if he doesn't make the team, I will be stunned – which leaves one spot for six players. John Barrow, Vince Scott and Mike Walker have to be considered the three leading contenders to join Mosca. I would think that Barrow, who is in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, has a banner on the Tiger-Cats Wall of Honour and a plaque on the Walk of Fame, is going to be the second defensive tackle chosen. But it wouldn't surprise me if Scott or Walker, both very accomplished players in their own right, were named to the team. The only thing for certain is that Mosca should have October 27th marked on the calendar because he's on the team.

The second bit of news is about another former Tiger-Cat finding employment elsewhere. Following the news that Stevie Baggs joined the Baltimore Ravens (at least for training camp), comes word that former Ti-Cat kicker Sandro DeAngelis has been given a chance to resurrect his career with the Saskatchewan Roughriders. DeAngelis was terrible while he was here, but one bad season should not have forced him from the game for as long as it did. He deserves a chance to prove he is still the same kicker that was the league's all-time most accurate during his days with the Calgary Stampeders. It's nice to see him get another shot to play.

DeAngelis Signs With Montreal

In a pretty big surprise, word out of Montreal is that recently released Ti-Cat Kicker Sandro DeAngelis has signed with the Alouettes.

The reason this move is so surprising is because Montreal just drafted a Kicker in the CFL Draft (Brody McKnight) and traded a 2012 first-round pick for Lions Kicker Sean Whyte. While McKnight won't be coming to Montreal until 2012 at the earliest, it was assumed that Whyte would be the Kicker for the two-time defending Grey Cup champions in 2011.

This whole thing begs the question of why they signed DeAngelis? You don't deal away a first-round pick unless you are extremely sure of what you are getting in return. Signing DeAngelis tells me that Montreal will be having a fierce competition in camp. DeAngelis didn't sign with the Als to be camp fodder. I would think he fully expects to be Montreal's Kicker in 2011 and beyond.

This is also another salvo in the back and forth that has been going on between Montreal and Hamilton for most of the off-season, which began with Avon Cobourne leaving Montreal to sign with Hamilton. Since then, the two teams have taken turns going at one another in various ways. Perhaps the CFL was right in scheduling the Als for Labour Day. Montreal-Hamilton could become the marquee rivalry in the CFL in 2011.

Sandro Given the Boot

In a not-so-surprising move, the Tiger-Cats announced today that they have released veteran Kicker Sandro DeAngelis.

After coming in with much fanfare in 2010, DeAngelis failed to live up to the hype. He was brought in to replace Nick Setta and performed no better in 2010 than Setta did in 2009. In fact, you might say DeAngelis was worse, because Setta could punt, thus saving a roster spot, whereas DeAngelis could not, which necessitated adding a Punter. First, it was Justin Palardy, who was completely miscast as a Punter and whose gaffes cost the Cats some wins (most notably an early-season encounter with the Roughriders in Saskatchewan). Next came Eric Wilbur, who was fantastic, but was American, which took away an American at a more needed position. DeAngelis's struggles contributed greatly to the Ti-Cats' failure to improve on their 2009 season. The apex of his struggles was the missed 17-yard field goal in the East Division Semi-Final against the Argonauts at Ivor Wynne Stadium. The Cats would lose that game by three, 16-13. Had DeAngelis made that field goal, who knows how that game turns out.

The move itself is not surprising; DeAngelis was expected to be a difference maker and was not. The timing of the move is curious, however. With a little over a week to go before Training Camp, it is surprising that the Tabbies wouldn't allow DeAngelis to come to camp to compete for the job. I know the reasons are that DeAngelis doesn't punt and the finite number of roster spots for Training Camp. But he claims to have worked with Ti-Cat legend Paul Osbaldiston over the winter to get better at punting, and a guy like Wilbur could have been released to give DeAngelis a chance to win his job back.

I would think that DeAngelis's release paves the way for Justin Medlock, who was acquired back in March, to be the Ti-Cats' Kicker in 2011. With Wilbur still in the fold, it's not a lock that Medlock will be the Kicker for the Cats, but it is doubtful that the team would trade for him if they didn't plan on using him. I would be surprised if Medlock isn't the Kicker when the Cats take the field at Ivor Wynne for their season opener against Winnipeg on Canada Day.

I'm also sure that DeAngelis will catch on somewhere. Where that is remains a mystery, but I wish him the best of luck wherever he lands.

DeAngelis on the Dotted Line

Well I was going to write a gigantic entry entitled "In Defense of DeAngelis," but that is moot now. Today the Hamilton Tiger-Cats announced the signing of former CFL All-Star Sandro DeAngelis.

As people who frequent Blogskee Wee Wee know, I am a HUGE fan of DeAngelis's. I have more than once expressed my opinion that signing DeAngelis was needed. After Drew Edwards's column Sunday I thought that the chance of DeAngelis donning the Black & Gold in 2010 was slim to none, with slim having exited the stadium.

In Edwards's article he quotes a trepidatious Bob O'Billovich. "The problem with a guy like [DeAngelis] is that you need somebody to punt if he's going to kick. If you don't have that scenario on your roster, it makes it tougher." While O'Billovich never came out and said the Cats wouldn't sign DeAngelis, he intimated that the way that the Tiger-Cats roster was currently constituted made it difficult to sign DeAngelis because he didn't punt.

PUNT!?!? Are you serious? Not to demean any punters out there, but they are a dime a dozen. While I admit that punting is not the easiest task to do well, finding one should not have been a problem. Make Ito do it. If having an import do it causes a problem, then find a non-import. Needing him to be Canadian should not have been an issue. The CIS churns outs punters, most, if not all, of which are Canadian.

A lack of a Canadian punter was an insane reason to not sign DeAngelis. With his signing today, it looks like the team saw the error in that mode of thinking and put the name of the most accurate Placekicker in Canadian Football League history on the dotted line.

DeAngelis has a career FG percentage of 83.8 and has never missed an Extra Point in his 5-year CFL career.

This marks the second year that the Ti-Cats have gone out to get a "hometown boy." Last season, the team signed SB Dave Stala. Stala quickly became a fan favourite, and his play was key in the Tiger-Cats ending their 5-year playoff drought. DeAngelis is a native of Niagara Falls, Ontario, and his signing gives the team another player that they can market as a "hometown hero." Stala and DeAngelis are to current Ti-Cats fans what Mike Morreale and Rob Hitchcock were to fans in the 1990s. We in Hamilton love our local boys (except I hated Jesse Lumsden, but he's from Burlington, so it doesn't count), and DeAngelis will fit right in.

When free agency started I outlined three positions that the Tiger-Cats needed to focus on:

• Defensive Back
• Placekicker
• Kick/Punt Returner
  

The team signed Will Poole and Jason Shivers last week to address DB. Today they signed DeAngelis to address PK. Now if they can get a KR/PR the Cats will have addressed their major needs. The team now also needs to sign a Punter. My guess is both positions will be addressed during the annual CFL Draft.

New Kicker To Hamilton?

The Calgary Stampeders have announced that they could not come to terms on a new contract with Placekicker Sandro DeAngelis, and he will become a free agent at 11:59PM EST on Monday, February 15, 2010.

As many people may or may not know, DeAngelis worked out for the Tiger-Cats in 2005 before he signed with Calgary. DeAngelis is a native of Niagara Falls, Ontario, and it would seem likely that the Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger-Cats would be in the running to acquire DeAngelis's services. Both teams recently lost their kickers (the Ti-Cats released Nick Setta; the Argos saw Justin Medlock sign with the Washington Redskins), and both are still in the market for one. With DeAngelis being a local product it would seem only natural for him to sign with one of the two Southern Ontario teams.

DeAngelis is a great kicker and, our kicking game needs an upgrade with Setta gone. DeAngelis is a much better, although a much more expensive, option than Jeremy Ito. The Tiger-Cats do not need to make too many moves to upgrade the team from 2009, but signing DeAngelis would be a smart move to make. Hopefully Ti-Cats GM Bob O'Billovich feels the same and DeAngelis is kicking for the Black & Gold this summer.