CFL’s ops cap delivers four Canadian head coaches, four GMs

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Happy Birthday to the CFL’s non-player operations cap! It deserves to be celebrated.

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Implemented six years ago, the cap was initially intended solely to limit the cost and size of each team’s coaching/management staffs. It was supposed to make sure free-spending franchises like the Saskatchewan Roughriders wouldn’t steamroll thrifty opponents like the Toronto Argonauts. Indeed, it got to the point where former Roughriders boss Chris Jones nearly hired everyone he knew to help supervise Saskatchewan’s oversized player roster. And they toasted their gatherings with Grey Goose vodka.

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The cap has evidently stopped such frivolities. It has also become much more significant, as proven by this week’s hirings of Edmonton Elks head coach Mark Kilam and Hamilton Tiger-Cats general manager Ted Goveia. Both are Canadians.

There are now four Canadian head coaches in the nine-team CFL: Kilam, Saskatchewan’s Corey Mace, Bob Dyce of the Ottawa Redblacks and Mike O’Shea of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

There are also four Canadian general managers: Goveia, Ottawa’s Shawn Burke, Winnipeg’s Kyle Walters and Danny Maciocia of the Montreal Alouettes.

Eight of the CFL’s top 18 football jobs are now filled by Canadians. Maybe the staff/spending restrictions have limited the number of Americans seeking jobs in the CFL, but that’s not a bad thing in a league that has been too Americanized for too long.

Not that it was planned. There’s absolutely no way outgoing commissioner Randy Ambrosie and the nine governors comprising the Executive Council, when debating cap regulations, were astute enough to believe it would provide more opportunities for homegrown coaches and general managers.

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That was never mentioned in the announcement. For the same reason the CFL implemented a cap on players’ salaries — it was $5.525 million in 2024 — the teams wanted cost certainty on their administrative expenses, too. Without tight spending controls there might not even be a CFL.

Critics of the cap claimed the limits — 11 coaches and 14 other football operations staff, plus medical personnel who didn’t count against the cap — reduced the job market for up-and-coming coaches. It certainly doesn’t look that way now.

Although the administrative cap has increased from its $2.588-million debut, it initially gave every football-related employee an average annual salary of $100,000. That seems reasonable, except CFL head coaches and general managers typically get paid 4-6 times that, so some support staff are admittedly working for considerably less, sometimes just to get a toehold in the profession. Similar to other occupations.

When Mace joined the Roughriders one year ago, upon quickly assembling a 10-person staff of coaching veterans and CFL newcomers he admitted he would of course like to offer them higher salaries. But everyone understood the rules, Mace said, and they would work towards being competitive. With a new coaching staff, the Roughriders this season ended a two-year playoff drought.

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Edmonton and the B.C. Lions just replaced their head coaches and general managers without whining about limitations. B.C. promoted player personnel director Ryan Rigmaiden to general manager; he hired long-time Winnipeg offensive co-ordinator Buck Pierce as the Lions head coach. Ed Hervey, who served as Edmonton’s general manager before becoming Hamilton’s GM, rejoined the Elks and hired Kilam. Goveia, who was Winnipeg’s assistant GM and director of player personnel, replaced Hervey in Hamilton.

Hervey, Pierce and Rigmaiden are Americans. And it’s really OK that 10 CFL head coach/GM jobs are still filled by Americans. There have been times when only one or two of those jobs were held by Canadians, so the trend is refreshing.

Even though it’s the Canadian Football League, there are more American players than Canadians on team rosters. Despite the implementation of some convoluted roster rules two years ago, only seven of each team’s 24 starters must be Canadians. That’s still ridiculously low.

The league has spotters assigned to each game to make sure the teams don’t overuse their American players. When the season ends, the CFL announces which teams have exceeded the players’ rules and the punishment for those transgressions, ranging from dollar-for-dollar fines to the loss of draft picks.

The CFL was supposed to do that with its non-football operations cap, too. It was supposed to announce any transgressions against the operations cap.

Good luck finding those announcements for the past six years. Certainly teams have overspent their operations cap, so perhaps nobody wants to say anything because it’s working way better than anyone envisioned.

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