CFL won't compensate Redblacks over Eskimos hiring Maas, which is the right call

After months of deliberation, CFL commissioner Jeffrey Orridge decided Friday that the Edmonton Eskimos will not have to accede to the Ottawa Redblacks' demands for compensation over the hiring of Jason Maas. The Eskimos made that move in December after losing head coach Chris Jones to Saskatchewan (where he became the Roughriders' head coach and general manager), and they brought in Maas (who was at that time Ottawa's offensive coordinator) as their new head coach, the kind of outside hiring for a promotion often seen in the CFL. The Redblacks took issue with that, though, demanding compensation, and after a December moratorium on coaching moves, Orridge crafted a policy in January that will see future such moves only made if compensation is agreed on ahead of time. However, he didn't make any decision on the Maas case at that time. That decision has now come down, and it's the right one.

While Ottawa understandably won't be happy with this ruling, this was the logical move to make. The previous apparent unspoken agreement amongst clubs that hiring other teams' under-contract coaches was fine as long as it was for a promotion generally worked well (there were some cases where it was debatable if it was actually a promotion, such as Jones' December 2011 Calgary to Toronto move, but the Argonauts did wind up paying a $5,000 fine there), and while the league has now seen fit to change that rule in response to the Redblacks complaints, applying that change retroactively would have unfairly punished the Eskimos (who, after all, let their own head coach leave without demanding compensation).

The stance from this corner is that the league still made the wrong move by requiring compensation going forward, as this will encourage teams to hire from within instead of hiring the most qualified candidate, but at least they got this one right. Finally, our long national Jason Maas compensation nightmare is over, unless this turns out to be an April Fool's joke...