Argos aside, Mark Cohon handing off a stable CFL

You wouldn’t have expected Mark Cohon’s final state of the Canadian Football League address to begin: “Well, the league was in pretty good shape when I got the job, but it’s been going to hell in a handcart ever since.”

No. When a man leaves office after eight years in the big chair, he’s apt to accentuate the positive, especially when he’s had as good a run as this commissioner has had.

By any fair standard, the 48-year-old Cohon had plenty to accentuate Friday morning when he met the football media for the last time as head of the CFL.

Just for starters (and stop me if you’ve heard this before): three new stadiums up and running, one being built in Regina, major renovations of two others, a sold-out season marking the return of football to the nation’s capital, a fairly massive TV deal with TSN, a freshly-inked Collective Bargaining Agreement that extends through 2018. But of all the items to emerge from the commissioner’s news conference, by far the most newsworthy came not from Cohon at all but rather from CFL chairman of the board Jim Lawson.

To wit: the unhappy marriage of the Toronto Argonauts and their thoroughly unsuitable home stadium may be, at long last, in the final stages of a semiamicable divorce.

Under questioning by TSN’s Brian Williams, who was trying to pin down the end game in the Argos’ plight to a time frame, rather than wishful spitballing, Lawson didn’t duck the punch.

“It’s a subject that should be settled by this time next year,” he said. “If I’m wrong, you’ll be here and I’ll be here and we’ll talk about it again, but that’s not where this is headed, I believe.”

At which point Cohon said, “Even though, as I leave, I would have liked to resolve this issue, I agree with Jim: we won’t be talking about this next year.”

It’s not written in stone until all parties agree, but both Cohon and Lawson said that Argos (and B.C. Lions) owner David Braley is in “ongoing” conversations with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment attempting to arrange a lease for the football team to play at BMO Field, home of Major League Soccer’s Toronto FC.

“I think there is support at the board level of MLSE,” said Cohon, and Lawson added: “I’m confident we’re going to get this resolved. As to the time frame, it’s somewhat beyond our control, but ... we’re on top of it.”

Of course, there are levels of government funding to be navigated. MLSE is contributing $95 million to the $125-million renovation of BMO Field for next year’s Pan Am Games, and the City of Toronto will kick in $10 million on the condition that the Argos are incorporated in the plan.

But there has been no commitment yet from the province or the feds, and that would leave a $20-million shortfall, in which case the Argos would seem to be the main casualties.

On the other hand, if this actually comes together, it would be like excising a massive boil from the CFL’s rear end, for Toronto has long been the missing link in a league that has considerable appeal in the rest of the country but no profile at all in Hogtown.

“I believe we have to offer Toronto a new experience,” Cohon said, “and a new home is a big part of the puzzle.”

The rest of Cohon’s farewell newser was, shall we say, conceptual in nature.

He acknowledged that offence had declined in 2014 — partly due to injuries to quarterbacks, which in turn produced more conservative attacks — and that a re-examination of rules (including, one hopes, roster rules) might have to take place to reduce the dominance of defences.

Attendance and TV ratings were both down, but not alarmingly, Cohon said, and he pointed out that CFL viewership still beats NFL, Raptors basketball, Blue Jays baseball, everything but hockey in this country.

Lawson said the search for Cohon’s replacement is well underway. The search committee hopes to have its man by April.

Whoever takes the job will have to tackle some intriguing challenges, Cohon said, including:

Perhaps moving the season ahead by as much as a month to avoid frigid November weather.

Possibly going to a nine-team, single-division format and eliminating the East-West model.

Worrying about the development of Canadian talent on rosters and, beyond that, fostering youth involvement in the sport as a bridge to future generations of players and fans.

In parting, before facing a roomful of CFL fans for a town-hall sequel to his media Q&A, Cohon said: “I’ve loved every minute of this job, and it has been an absolute honour.”

And the CFL was lucky to have him.

Maybe he wouldn’t have got it done without Braley writing cheques in two cities, but that’s nitpicking. A lot of good happened to this league on Mark Cohon’s watch.

The guy whose autograph is on the football gets to take the credit.