Ticats revamp football ops titles, name Eric Tillman as general manager

After four years, Eric Tillman again has a CFL general manager's title. The Hamilton Tiger-Cats made some changes in their football operations department's titles Friday, naming Tillman as general manager and Shawn Burke and Drew Allemang as assistant general managers. Head coach and vice-president of football operations Kent Austin is still the top man on the personnel side in Hamilton, but he said this change more accurately reflects the work Tillman will do this coming season:

Tillman has many previous stints as a CFL GM, with B.C. (1993-95), Toronto (1997, 1999), Ottawa (2002-03), Saskatchewan (2006-09, where he worked with then-HC Austin in the 2007 Grey Cup-winning season) and Edmonton (2010-12). He joined the Ticats as a consultant in 2013 and was promoted to director of U.S. scouting and U.S. pro personnel in 2014. He has a very strong record of finding and identifying top talent, and with Austin, Burke, Allemang and the rest of the team's personnel staff (all highly respected around the league), he should be able to help keep Hamilton's roster full of talent.

Tillman's tenures haven't always won universal praise, of course, and his time with the Eskimos was particularly criticized for the Ricky Ray trade (which he's continued to defend since then). However, the rest of his Edmonton tenure was quite impressive, and it was surprising when they fired him before the playoffs in 2012. He's also found a substantial amount of overall success in the CFL, with his teams posting a combined record of 128-103-2 with him as GM. He's also taken flak over a 2009 sexual assault case in Saskatchewan where he pulled a babysitter towards him; he pled guilty and received an absolute discharge, but later stepped down from his role with the Roughriders, and his hire by the Eskimos saw some questions raised about his continued role in the league.

Overall, though, promoting Tillman to general manager seems like a solid move for the Tiger-Cats, and it's appropriate if they're going to have him do the majority of the GM's work (with oversight from Austin, but Austin's presumably focused on coaching as well, especially during the season). It's smart of Austin to promote his trusted personnel guys and give them titles commensurate with what they're doing. This probably isn't going to actually change much in terms of who's doing what in Hamilton's front office, as Austin's still in charge; this isn't a situation like Saskatchewan in 2011, where they had a separate person in each role of HC, GM and VP (football ops), and the three weren't on the same page. It's more about extra responsibility for Tillman on a day-to-day basis, while Austin will still be overseeing him and the rest of the personnel department. We'll see how it plays out, but the Ticats have done very well on the personnel front in the last few years with this group, and that doesn't seem likely to change just because some titles are changing.