Toronto's Moves and their Tiger-Cat Implications

The CFL off-season is not even a week old and the Toronto Argonauts have made three key moves to position themselves for 2012. Those moves also have some rather large implications for the Tiger-Cats as well.

The Argos hired former Montreal Alouettes Offensive Coordinator Scott Milanovich to be the team's new Head Coach. Milanovich takes over from Jim Barker, who was the Head Coach the last two seasons, so Barker can concentrate solely on being the team's General Manager.

Along with Milanovich comes Calgary Defensive Coordinator Chris Jones. Jones had been with the Stamps since 2008. His hiring in Toronto isn't official, and there seems to be a lot of back and forth between the Argos and Stamps. The Argos are saying they haven't hired Jones, while the Stamps filed a tampering complaint with the league over the issue and the league fined the Argos $5,000 for it.

The last bit of Argos news is that they have signed Quarterback Steven Jyles a two-year contract extension worth a reported $250,000 per season. The Argos traded for Jyles back in March and he took over as starter after the team cut Cleo Lemon in September.

These three moves have some implications for the Ti-Cats.

For starters, it means that both Milanovich and Jones are not going to be coaching the Tiger-Cats. This is not surprising since these moves were known before Ti-Cats fired Marcel Bellefeuille, so it is unlikely that either coach was on any list the Tiger-Cats came up with.

But the Jones hiring could have a ripple effect. With Jones now (or soon to be) the Argos Defensive Coordinator, that means that Orlondo Steinauer, who was Toronto's Defensive Coordinator for the last half of the 2011 season after the Argos fired Chip Garber, will not be. Steinauer could go back to being the team's Defensive Backs Coach (the position he held prior to his promotion) or he could look to move to another team and be their Defensive Coordinator. That team could be Hamilton if Corey Chamblin gets the Head Coaching job in Saskatchewan or Hamilton. That is a lot of moving parts, but it can't be dismissed that Steinauer could be the next Defensive Coordinator in Hamilton. And if Mike O'Shea becomes Head Coach, all bets are off.

The Jyles extension is juicier because it all but guarantees that Henry Burris will not be going to Toronto. The Argos are not going to pay two Quarterbacks a combined $500,000-600,000 – it is doubtful that Burris would go to the Argos for less than what Jyles is being paid – so Burris landing in Hogtown is highly unlikely. The speculation now is that Hamilton is the front runner to land Burris's services. Whether that's a good idea or not is for another time, but expect to see the Burris-to-Hamilton rumours get more intense.

Just a few days in and this CFL off-season looks like it might be one of the most interesting ones in recent memory.

Is Cutting Lemon the Cure For What Ails the Argos?

The Cleo Lemon experiment is over in Toronto, as the Argos have released their former starting Quarterback.

I rarely travel outside the confines of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats to talk specifically about another team, but the Argos QB situation the past season and a half has been oddly fascinating.

Lemon was, by far, the worst starting Quarterback in the CFL. He never seemed to grasp the Canadian game. Yet he was given 25 games to show his stuff. And when he did falter, Dalton Bell hardly lit things up. In fact, it could be argued that Bell is even worse than Lemon.

The odd part about releasing Lemon now is that he actually showed some improvement this season. His two-game stretch against the Alouettes and the Tiger-Cats in early August were two of Lemon's best starts of his CFL career. He threw for over 300 yards in each contest, with five touchdown passes and only one interception.

But that was part of the problem with Lemon. Those types of games were few and far between in his tenure with the Argonauts. The great performances were the exception, not the norm.

His case was also not helped any by his attitude after being pulled in favour of Dalton Bell in Toronto's loss on Friday to BC. Lemon was caught on camera laughing after Bell threw the third of his four interceptions. That's not the type of attitude a Quarterback, who is supposed to be the leader of the team, should be displaying.

With Lemon out of the picture, this is now Steven Jyles's team. Jyles is coming off the nine-game injury list and is likely to assume the starting role (provided he is fully healthy) when Toronto travels to Vancouver to take on the BC Lions.

But the question remains: does this change matter?

While Lemon was clearly not going to get the Argos to where they needed or wanted to be, the problem might not have been entirely Lemon's fault.

The Argos have one of the worst offensive systems in the CFL, and that falls squarely on the shoulders of Offensive Coordinator Jaime Elizondo. Elizondo's game plan never allowed for Lemon to succeed. Lemon was constantly forced to make five-yard dump-off passes, which is not the route to success in the Canadian Football League. Was the offensive ineptitude a reflection of Lemon's inability to do more or of Elizondo's play calling? Now that Lemon is gone, we will find out.

And what of Jim Barker? Barker is the team's General Manager and is responsible for bringing these players to Toronto. (I know that Adam Rita was the GM of record last year when Lemon was acquired, but Barker became GM after Rita was not retained following the 2010 season and no doubt had a say in player personnel in 2010.) Will his head be on the chopping block should the Argos continue their downward spiral?

It was Barker who stood by Lemon last season when everyone believed he wasn't the right guy. He smugly looked on as Lemon guided the Argos to a 9-9 record and an East Division Semi-Final win. Lemon was Barker's project, and that project failed. With Lemon gone, is Barker now on the same hot seat as Elizondo?

If Jyles is as good as I think he is – I have made it known numerous times that I am a big Steven Jyles fan – and the problems were with Lemon, then the Boatmen will be fine. They likely still won't make the playoffs in 2011, but 2012 would shape up nicely.

But if the problem is with Elizondo and/or Barker, then the Argos will continue to lose regardless of who the signal caller is.

Despite being 2-7, and all but out of the playoff picture, the Argos have now given people a reason to watch.

This Just Sucks

Everyone who has been reading me for awhile knows that I am a HUGE fan of Steven Jyles. I think he has all the tools to be a star in the CFL.

And today, the worst possible thing happened:

Jyles was traded to the Toronto Argonauts. In exchange for Jyles, the Blue Bombers acquired a first-round pick (4th overall) in the 2011 CFL Draft and a conditional fourth-round pick in the 2012 CFL Draft. That pick could become as high as a second-round pick depending on how many games Jyles plays.

I knew Jyles was never coming to Hamilton, since the Cats are set with Kevin Glenn, but the last team I wanted to see Jyles on was Toronto. He is going to be great for them, especially since Quarterback was one of the biggest weaknesses, if not the biggest weakness, that Toronto had last season. Cleo Lemon, playoff win or not, was terrible. Jyles is a significant upgrade.

This trade only makes Toronto better and more of a threat in the East Division. With Lemon taking snaps I figured the Boatmen were going to win no more than five or six games. With Jyles, who knows how high the Argos can climb. I still think Hamilton has the overall talent edge, but the Argos just closed the gap significantly by acquiring Steven Jyles.