A Hecht of a good deal

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This article was published 16/06/2019 (1774 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The challenge of staring down a fourth, consecutive, winning season — for any football team — will always be figuring out how to do more with less.

And with the performances by the offensive line, and Jeff Hecht at safety in week one of the regular season, it sure looks like Winnipeg made the right decisions in the off-season.

When you win 33 games over three years, costs are going to go up. It’s as certain as death, taxes, and Milt Stegall being thin in the waist and pretty in the face. Players who are contributing parts of a successful, playoff football team want to be paid in kind, and when their services are sought-after, pay hikes are inevitable.

So what happens when the salary cap goes up by approximately $50,000 every year, and you’ve already spent more than that amount, signing all-stars like Willie Jefferson, Chris Matthews, and Adam Bighill? You have to decide where that money is going to come from, and who has priced themselves out of the market.

In a perfect world, I’m sure the Bombers would have liked to retain their all-star safety — Taylor Loffler — who has been credited with levels of exemplary play in each of his first three seasons. And I’m sure they would have liked to have given Sukh Chungh a 300 per cent raise, or whatever it was that he got to go back home to B.C. OK, maybe not spend a quarter-million dollars for a right guard, but they would have liked to keep him. But when you have an eye for shiny new things like Jefferson and Matthews, you can’t have it all.

Now, one game into the regular season is by no means a conclusive verdict, but so far, the reviews look promising for what the Bombers decided to do by letting these players walk.

At safety, as I was told repeatedly on Twitter, Jeff had a Hecht of a game in his debut, as he doubled his lifetime interception total from two to four in a single outing. And if you were concerned he wouldn’t have the same physical presence or impact as Loffler at the safety position, just ask B.C. wide receiver Duron Carter, who absolutely quit on his route, and short-armed the football, to avoid being crushed by Hecht over the middle.

In addition, while the offensive line has a ways to go to make people forget about the aggressive and agitating characteristics of Sukh Chungh at right guard, allowing only a couple of sacks, and helping tailback Andrew Harris rush for 150 yards, is a heck of a start for three new guys that manned the centre and two guard positions.

The difference between the contending teams in the CFL and those that won’t be contenders this season often comes down to how they do their math in the cost/benefit analysis. Montreal obviously felt that making Loffler the highest-paid safety in the CFL would also benefit their team to the highest degree. Winnipeg did not.

And B.C. obviously felt that by making Chungh the highest paid guard in Canada, they would also benefit with the highest level of pass and run blocking that can be administered by any single offensive lineman. You would have to assume that Winnipeg thinks they can fill this void quite capably, with one of their cheaper, up-and-coming draft selections.

In the final analysis, Winnipeg may have gone with players that currently have fewer accolades, and that most people wouldn’t necessarily choose first in a head to head selection process. But when you have a finite salary cap, choosing where and how to spend your money, is as important as who you spend it on.

 

Doug Brown, once a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears weekly in the Free Press.

Twitter: @DougBrown97