The Redblacks need some key players to take pay cuts
With each Canadian Football League team looking to chop $600,000 in salaries for the 2021 season, Marcel Desjardins has a tough job ahead of him.
The Ottawa Redblacks' general manager needs to convince some of his star players — who are already under contract — and their agents that the CFL's financial crunch is real. He needs them to restructure their contracts and take less money.
It's Economics 101, with the CFL coming off a 2020 season that was scrapped because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Having lost oodles of money, as in millions of dollars, the league's nine teams are cutting costs wherever they can. For 2021, there will be a cap on football operations departments (about a $500,000 whack from a year ago), so that will save some money. Teams need to find savings on the player side, too, though. While the current collective bargaining agreement has a salary-cap ceiling of $5.35 million, it sure seems like that number will come in much closer to the $4.75-million salary floor for the coming season.
Remember, the CFL minimum salary is $65,000 and there are already several players making something in that range, so there are no cuts to be found there, meaning it's the mid- and upper-level guys who will pay the hefty price. The Redblacks announced Friday that defensive back Antoine Pruneau had agreed to take a reduced amount and restructure his deal for 2021. If other veterans such as quarterback Nick Arbuckle, receiver Brad Sinopoli, defensive lineman Cleyon Laing and centre Alex Mateas are going to be back, it'll likely have to be with reduced salaries.
“A lot of guys don't want (to take cuts),” Desjardins said. “Of course (there's resistance). Some of them understand (the situation), but some of them don't. Some of them think they deserve raises. That's the kind of feedback you get. It shows how poorly some people understand the landscape. (Cutting the salary of ) your core (special) teamer guys, it makes a dent in it, but it's not enough to offset $600,000. It's the high-end guys who have to take more of a hit for it to impact the $600,000. Or you just move on from a high-end guy. `You know what, with your $200,000 off the books, maybe we replace that with a $65,000 or $70,000 guy.' That'll eat into a big chunk of that $600,000.”
There's also this from the Redblacks GM: “If I've made an offer and they drag their feet and we have to commit maybe a bit more money than anticipated to get another guy done, all of a sudden the money left in the bank is reduced. Whatever was offered initially can no longer be there. It's a trickle-down effect.”
The Redblacks dealt the first-overall selection in the 2020 CFL Draft to Calgary (in a swap of first-rounders) to get Arbuckle, so they obviously like him and want to have him as their starting QB. Arbuckle signed a two-year contract that was to pay him $490,000 (if he hit incentives) in 2021. The Redblacks won't pay that. They can't. Doing some quick math, it seems likely they will try to reduce his yearly salary by about $100,000. So, for the next month or so, with CFL free agency beginning on Feb. 9, there could be a tug of war between the team and Arbuckle's agent, trying to find a number that helps everyone.
Getting some players to restructure 2021 contracts isn't the only thing on Desjardins' plate. There are also several potential free agents who could hit the open market Feb. 9 if they're not re-signed before then. On that list are offensive linemen Mark Korte, Evan Johnson and Jason Lauzon-Séguin, linebackers Kevin Brown, Jerod Fernandez, Don Unamba and Avery Williams, defensive backs Sherrod Baltimore, Randall Evans, Corey Tindal and Abdul Kanneh, defensive linemen Avery Ellis, Ettore Lattanzio, Danny Mason and Mike Wakefield, kicker Lewis Ward, running back John Crockett, running back/slotback Anthony Coombs and receiver R.J. Harris.