Notebook: Chris Jones accepts the CFL’s new cap on expenses

SASKATOON — Chris Jones understands the bottom line.

That’s why the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ vice-president of football operations, general manager and head coach readily accepted Wednesday the CFL’s decision to cap its teams’ football operations expenses.

“In this day and age, expenditures are a little bit higher than probably what they should be with money coming in,” Jones said. “You’ve got to make it add up. I feel like our commissioner (Randy Ambrosie) is doing what he can do to try to make those things happen.

“I haven’t been able to say whether it’s right, wrong, indifferent or whatever, but I know I work for the CFL first and then Saskatchewan second. This is how I’ve earned my living for 16, 17 years and hope that we can continue to do that five years from now (or) 10 years from now.”

According to a TSN report, the league’s board of governors recently approved measures that will limit teams to 11 coaches and 17 other football operations employees. The salaries of those 28 people will be capped at $2.738 million per season.

The new regulations will take effect for the 2019 campaign.

The football operations staff covered under the rules includes player personnel types, strength and conditioning coaches, equipment staff, video analysts, trainers and so forth.

Saskatchewan currently has 15 coaches, including Jones. If some of those coaches get opportunities elsewhere after the 2018 season, the Roughriders won’t replace them in an effort to trim expenses.

Jones, who has hired quality control coaches in recent seasons to bolster his staff, suggested that some people might look at the Roughriders “and think that we’re breaking the bank.” But he noted that many of his assistants are earning “a fraction” of what coaches on other staffs are making.

The Roughriders, Jones stressed, already operate under a strict budget.

“Everybody has got this vision that I’m making more than the commissioner and that we’ve got 4 million coaches and that they’re all making (a lot); that’s not accurate,” said Jones, whom Saskatchewan hired in December of 2015 — shortly after he and his staff guided the Edmonton Eskimos to the Grey Cup title.

“Are our coaches very well-compensated? Absolutely, and we should have been because, quite honestly, we left a job that we were very secure in eight days after winning the Grey Cup. Why would we come somewhere if we weren’t highly compensated? Now (league officials) have changed the landscape of what’s going on and we will comply like everybody else will comply.”

That could mean pay cuts for the remaining coaches, with the size of those reductions dependent on which coaches currently on the staff depart. Asked if he too would take a pay cut, Jones replied: “Absolutely.”

“What do you think, I’m going to hang everybody else out to dry and I’m not going to take one?” he then asked his inquisitor with a grin. “You should know me better than that.”

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Jerome Messam

Jerome Messam will see some old friends Friday when the Roughriders face the Calgary Stampeders in a pre-season game at Mosaic Stadium.

Messam spent the past two-plus seasons with the Stamps, but they informed him before the free-agent deadline in February that he was free to look elsewhere for offers. He then signed with the Roughriders, with whom he played in 2014 and ’15.

Messam said he didn’t hold a grudge against the team that decided not to bring him back.

“It just sucks that we didn’t seal the deal those two years,” he said, referring to Calgary’s losses in each of the past two Grey Cup games. “But no hard feelings. It’s a business. They wanted to go younger and that’s just how it goes.”

And now he gets to face his former mates for the first time since signing in Saskatchewan — provided he plays, of course; Messam wasn’t used in the Roughriders’ first pre-season game May 27 in Edmonton.

“I definitely want to play, especially against them,” he said of the Stampeders. “It’ll just be fun to see the coaching staff and familiar faces that I played with. But we’re out there to compete and I’m a Rider now, so it’s all about green and white.”

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Cornerback Nick Marshall, who left Tuesday’s practice after dislocating a finger, was back on the Griffiths Stadium turf Wednesday.

However, receiver Shaq Evans and linebacker Kevin Francis joined the list of injured absentees.

That group once again included offensive linemen Dariusz Bladek, Dalton Houghton and Josiah St. John, receivers Rob Bagg and Chad Owens, linebacker Brandyn Bartlett and defensive lineman Makana Henry. Defensive back Tristan Doughlin was on the field for the walkthrough portion of practice, but he didn’t participate in the workout.

Meanwhile, the Roughriders added another running back to the fold.

Storm Johnson

Storm Johnson, a 25-year-old product of Loganville, Ga., joins Marcus Thigpen, Zac Stacy, Tre Mason and David Cobb as Saskatchewan’s international tailbacks.

The 6-foot-0, 228-pound Johnson played collegiately at Central Florida. He subsequently had NFL stints with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Miami Dolphins and a stop in the CFL with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

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Before practice was over, movers were loading a semi-trailer with some of the Roughriders’ equipment and preparing to haul it back to Regina.

After two and a half weeks in Saskatoon, the team said goodbye to the University of Saskatchewan on Wednesday.

“I’ll miss my dorm, my little small bed,” Jones said. “(Offensive co-ordinator Stephen) McAdoo, he doesn’t like his bed very much. He’s a little bigger than me.”

Jones admitted staying in Regina for camp would be more convenient for the Roughriders, but he likes hitting the road instead.

“When I was in Calgary, we didn’t go anywhere and it seemed like the year got very long,” Jones said. “When I was in Montreal, we went out to (St. Jean-sur-Richelieu). You spend a month out there and then you get to move back into your facility. The year goes a little bit faster.”