OUT OF THE TUNNEL: EXAMINING THE NEG LISTS

BY: RODPEDERSEN.COM STAFF

The late Robert Stack could do an episode of Unsolved Mysteries for so many things that ripple in and out of the Canadian Football League.

The biggest one is player salaries and how a team either does – or doesn’t – make it under the salary cap. The other big one is the 45-man negotiation list that allows teams to claim exclusive rights to signing first year American CFL players. It doesn’t matter if that player is an NFL veteran or a NCAA Division 2 quarterback.

Earlier this week we got another taste (we think the fourth edition) of who each team has on their list. By a taste we mean just 10 of 45 players from each squad.

This release was good for just two reasons: fun and to generate just a whiff of press. Without a season and in the time of COVID, any lpress the league can get is priceless. 

The fun comes from seeing names, especially at quarterback which accounted for almost half of the 90 names released. 

Three of our favourites are all sophomore quarterbacks who will probably never see the light of day in the CFL but you can watch them shine on Saturdays. North Carolina’s sophomore standout Sam Howell is probably the third-best NCAA quarterback in the nation behind Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence or Ohio State’s Justin Field. Arizona State’s Jayden Daniels had a fantastic freshman season and is ready to return to the field with the rest of the Pac-10 in a month. The final one is redshirt sophomore Sam Hartman at Wake Forrest. He was able to redshirt his 2019 sophomore season because he played just four games.

One quarterback on this list that we could possibly see play in the CFL is former Clemson and Missouri Tiger (nice that they are both Tiger teams) Kelly Bryant.

He would be a fun quarterback to watch in the CFL. First off at 6’4”, 220 pounds, he would be one of the biggest pivots in the league. Combine that with his dual-threat ability and he is perfectly suited for the CFL game. Bryant was one of nine names the Ottawa Redblacks released to the public and is currently without a team. Seems to check all of the boxes. 

According to the 3DownNation article, just 12 released names over the past few seasons have made CFL rosters and considering how many Americans make it up here every season, that’s not a giant percentage. 

This list is not released to be transparent, and it’s a crying shame.

There are so many problems with this list and either eliminating it or making the list completely transparent would be yet another great step forward in the return to the field for the CFL in 2021. 

One of the best articles on this whole process was by TSN CFL insider Dave Naylor in January of 2018. It so nicely lays out the problems with the process and the one incredibly large reason why the CFL has this in place.

Let’s stick with the one and only reason why the negotiation list is in place and that is to keep free agent salaries low, even though there is a hard salary cap in the CFL.

Once a player is placed on a team’s list he is only able to negotiation with just that team and no one else. So if a player is on Hamilton’s list but he is from California and wants to play close to home, he’s screwed. There is not a single thing he or his agent can do. There is so much other crap that goes on with that list and it just needs to go.

It makes for lazy general managers because they can low-ball every player on that list and not have to worry about the salary cap. Having a bidding war for a solid NFL veteran player who has a lot of gas still in the tank would be fantastic and would help bring better players into the league and god forbid some much needed media attention.

The current players would never fight to eliminate this list because they are already in the league and fighting for players who will or will not be in the CFL would be stupid. So the odds of seeing the list eliminated anytime soon are incredibly low.

But if the League was to open up the list and make it open for all to see it would almost have the same effect. In the Naylor article he talks about the contract negotiation activation clause. If a player knows he’s on the list he can contact that team and they will be required to offer a contract within 10 days and if not, the player is dropped from the list.

This would be a perfect meeting point for the mysterious negotiation list. Open and fun for fans to see and a little window for prospective free agents to have some sort of wiggle room in the negotiation process.

This is just one of many things the CFL needs to do to step forward and have a triumphant return to the field in 2021. Over the next few weeks we will tackle another piece of the puzzle that will be a zero-cost improvement to the league. 

Canadian to watch in the NCAA
John Metchie III (Soph.)
Wide receiver – Alabama
6’0” 195
Brampton, Ontario
High school – St. James High School (Maryland)

Metchie is a part of one of the best receiving corps in college football. Last season he played behind high NFL draft picks Jerry Jeudy and Henry Ruggs III and this year DeVonta Smith and Jaylen Waddle are potential first round picks in the 2021 NFL draft.

In his freshman year, Metchie was so good that he saw regular reps at receiver playing in all 13 games and he finished with four catches for 23 yards. In Alabama’s first game of the season, he had two catches for 42 yards and looks like the number three option for quarterback Mac Jones. 

Like Tennessee standout receiver Josh Palmer, Metchie hails from Brampton, Ontario but like Palmer, he played his final high school season at an American prep school. Metchie went to St. James School in Haggerstown, Maryland. 

(RODPEDERSEN.COM STAFF)