The CFL should put a team in Edmonton

By Lethbridge Herald on August 3, 2023.

Graham Kelly

Inside the CFL

I can give you all the dreary details if you want but one word sums up the Edmonton Elks’ 27-0 shutout loss to the B.C. Lions last week: disgraceful. They now hold the North American pro sports record for consecutive home defeats, 21, a mark set by baseball’s St. Louis Browns 70 years ago.

The Elks went down without a fight. To say the fans are restless is putting it mildly. After another successful Touchdown Atlantic, CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie said the move to establish a CFL franchise in the Maritimes had progressed to the red zone. Fans in Alberta are wondering when the league is going to put a CFL team in Edmonton.

With the team finally and mercifully on a bye week, the timing was perfect to fire GM and Head Coach Chris Jones. But no. They have chosen instead to dump offensive co-ordinator Stephen McAdoo in favour of Jarious Jackson who was the pass game co-ordinator and quarterback coach, and who had similar stints in Toronto and B.C. This is like applying a bandaid to a gaping wound. The move has been greeted with outrage and laughter in Alberta’s capital.

In recent weeks there has been speculation about Jones’ contract. Rather than four one-year contracts, Elk CEO Victor Ciu confirmed Jones has a four-year fully guaranteed deal, making it an extremely expensive step to terminate him, begging the question, why would you give one man control of the complete operation?

Ken Montgomery, grandson of one of the founders of the Eskimo franchise in 1949, CFL Hall of Famer Ken Montgomery, texted, “Jones has to go now. If we need to start a GoFundMe account to raise money to get rid of that guy, I think that it could be done fairly quickly.”

A particularly sore spot with some of the Green and Gold faithful has been the name change. Said Ken: “And this curse has to end. No matter what the flack. For at least next season they have to go back to the Edmonton Eskimos team name, as now, if you want to look up Elks in the dictionary it is easier to look up ‘international embarrassment’.”

Emailed Jerome Vinish on behalf of “Eskimo team lovers in Sask.” “The name change has cursed the Edmonton Eskimos forever – it has to be returned to its previous glory. People of Alberta – smarten up and make this right for your football team, or kiss it goodbye!”

I have no doubt Ken and Jerome speak for a majority of Edmonton fans.

I don’t like the name change, either. Commentary from Indigenous people I heard or read indicated they had no problem with the term “eskimo.”

I would point out however, that Edmonton football was in deep elk doo long before the name change, probably the reason the board of directors gave Jones complete control.

After the team won the 2005 Grey Cup, they finished last four of the next five years. They brought in wunderkind Eric Tillman as GM. He fired coach Richie Hall and traded quarterback Ricky Ray for essentially nothing. Ray went on to win two Grey Cups with Toronto and be inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.

They finished last twice more before Chris Jones and QB Mike Reilly won the Grey Cup in 2015. Jones then left for Saskatchewan and Reilly signed with B.C. The best Edmonton has done since was a third-place finish in 2017. A possible theme song for the glorious history of Edmonton football has changed from “We Are The Champions” to “Send In The Clowns.”

As I’ve pointed out before, you can’t make chicken salad from chicken feathers. Jones the coach has been let down by Jones the GM’s ability to find players. Tasked with that responsibility is former B.C. receiver Geroy Simon. He and Sammy Gahagan are in charge of scouting. The manager of Football Operations is Frantz Clarkson. All three have very thin resumes. Jones has too much on his plate, he is a one man band playing off key. Success in pro sports begins in the front office.

The Elks are on a 12-game losing streak, home or away.  Maybe they should play their next game at the  Universty of Lethbridge stadium.