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Lions axe Hugh O’Neill—and his beard
The most famous beard in the CFL is no longer in the CFL. The B.C. Lions released kicker/punter Hugh O'Neill (no, not the Irish chieftain, although he does have a similar beard) Thursday night, electing to move forward with 43-year-old Paul McCallum handling all three kicking jobs for now and former junior player Steve Shott coming on board as a backup. However, it's particularly interesting that, as Lowell Ullrich of The Province writes, O'Neill was cut as much for turning down a contract extension as he was for his play on the field:
The CFL team cut the 23-year-old kicker when agent Tim Fleizer couldn't agree on a contract extension offer which had been tendered by the Lions two months ago.
General manager Wally Buono wanted a better sense of what the Lions had for kickers heading into the Ottawa expansion draft this winter. O'Neill was completing his option year.
Instead, the Lions have nothing to show for a player they developed slowly for more than two seasons, and will go back to having veteran Paul McCallum handle all three kicking duties.
Buono told Ullrich O'Neill's performance wasn't strong enough to justify keeping him if the team couldn't hang onto him after this season:
Buono said he would have been happy to be more patient with O'Neill had he signed a new contract, but cited his work on kickoffs for his release when he didn't agree to terms.
"I'm a little bit disappointed. We tried to bring this fellow along. We weren't going to make him do all three (kicking disciplines). We groomed him. But if you're not willing to extend, it's not like the performance has been so overwhelming," Buono said.
O'Neill had all three jobs to start the season when McCallum suffered a pre-season groin injury, but was sixth in kickoffs with a 59.5-yard average once the Lions opted for a kicking tandem three games ago.
This is an interesting move by B.C., and one that shows the difficulties of developing replacements for veterans. O'Neill was a highly-touted player coming out of the University of Alberta, and the Lions spent a second-round draft pick to take him 11th overall in 2011. They haven't really been able to use him that much, though, as McCallum has continued to be remarkably effective. He earned a nod as team MVP in 2010, posted one of the best seasons a kicker has ever had in 2011, and set a league record for consecutive field goals that year en route to B.C.'s Grey Cup championship. McCallum was also impressive last year and has played reasonably well to date in 2013. It's not easy to bump him in favour of a younger, unproven player when he's still doing well.
In fact, this is the second time in recent years that McCallum's outlasted highly-regarded younger competition. The first came with Sean Whyte, who B.C. signed as a territorial exemption in 2007 and developed for years as a potential McCallum replacement. McCallum's strong play in 2010 persuaded the team to ship Whyte off to Montreal in exchange for a 2012 first-round pick during the 2011 draft, where they later selected O'Neill. (Whyte's fitting in just fine there, impressing on and off the field.) Now, he's survived another young challenger. You have to wonder how long he can keep this up, but hey, the Lions did have one guy famously kick (and kick well) until he was 46. McCallum's fought off the man who looked like a lion, and he may well be able to keep his kicking job for a while yet.
