1990: "Sleeper Ploy Run Perfectly"

It's a little tough to come up with great moments in a team's free agency history but the Ottawa Rough Riders had themselves a memorable couple of days in March of 1990.

At the time, free agency was so in name only. There was a general understand among team front office folks that you wouldn't go after another team's players.

The Rough Riders had won three, three, two and four games over the four previous seasons. The league had set up an equalization system through which playoff teams would make players available to the non-playoff teams but RR management found the plan hopelessly inadequate and requests to better it largely fell on deaf ears.

So to free agency they went.

Two things made this whole event fun as hell; the secrecy and the outrage. Bearing in mind that not only was signing another team's free agents frowned upon, it was doubly shocking that sad sack Ottawa would make such a move.

The anger and hand-wringing it generated across a league of hypocrites was hilarious. If the articles of the time are accurate, Ottawa had been more than $140,000 under the then-3M salary cap. Edmonton, meanwhile, was over it by $150,000 and paid a $15,000 fine as a result. Big damn deal. 

Toronto GM Mike McCarthy, in particular, lost his mind.

 

A year later, McCarthy was the GM when Toronto signed Raghib Ismail to a four-year, 18M contract. But I'm sure that's totally different and/or the result of Ottawa giving a defensive tackle a $20,000 raise. That sure escalated quickly!

So how'd all these new guys do with Ottawa? well, it varies.

Anthony Cherry only played four games before getting cut. David Williams had a very solid year with 61 receptions for 895 yards and 12 TDs, but was later traded to Edmonton for the 1991 season.

Among the offensive linemen, Bryan Illerbrun played for two season while Rob Smith was around for three, earning a league all-star selection in 1992.

Stephen Jones stuck around from 1990 to 1994. He was a two-time league all star, in 1990 and 1992, a season in which he gathered 75 receptions for 1400 yards and 10 touchdowns. Glenn Kulka had seven sacks in his first year with Ottawa but would average only 2.5 a year for the next four seasons.

John Mandarich only played one season. He was cut in July of the following year.

So a mixed bag but the team did improve to seven wins, their best since 1985. Not a powerhouse by any stretch but the move injected some excitement into a fan base that was starving for it.