Darrell Davis: CFL football ops guys like secrets

Whenever the CFL publishes a few names from each team’s negotiation list, we can almost hear the coaches and general managers screaming in the background.

Coaches and GMs, the football operations people, like secrets. They never want to reveal anything. Contracts. Prospects. Plans. Injuries. Football ops are the guys who devised the malaise known as video review. They’re the guys who want their players to never say anything, to never meet fans, to never speak with the media. They want their players watching film, practising, studying their playbooks and having no free time to develop interests outside of football.

Football ops are the reason why the CFL is losing its personality. While marketing people across the league want to promote the players and make them more accessible to fans and media, the football ops guys are setting rigid schedules that prevent anyone from interrupting the team’s pre-game routines. Publishing 10 names from each team’s 45-man list of prospects is a very small step towards making football ops give up their paranoid authority.

It won’t hurt anybody. It might actually help.