Kyle Walters Checks In From GM Meetings

He’s been through the demolition and the rebuilding. And now Kyle Walters’ biggest challenge as GM of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers is to tinker with the blueprint to turn a contender into a champion.

Walters is in Banff this week, along with Bombers boss Wade Miller, at the Canadian Football League’s annual GM and presidents meetings. CFL GMs met with commissioner Randy Ambrosie Tuesday night to discuss items like moving the season up and player safety, but with just over a month before the free agent market opens and with the annual combines and draft fast approaching, Walters & Co. are spending most of their waking hours on filling in the blank spaces on their depth charts.

Walters has knocked off 10 names from the Bombers’ prospective free agent list by re-signing offensive linemen Stanley Bryant, Jermarcus Hardrick, Pat Neufeld and Manase Foketi, kicker Justin Medlock, running back/receiver Timothy Flanders, receiver Weston Dressler, defensive tackle Drake Nevis, linebacker Ian Wild and defensive back Derek Jones. But some juicy names remain unsigned, including CFL all-star defensive backs Chris Randle and T.J. Heath, playmaking linebacker Maurice Leggett, guard Travis Bond, receiver Clarence Denmark, defensive end Jamaal Westerman, defensive tackle Jake Thomas as well as linebackers Sam Hurl and Kyle Knox, fullback Christophe Normand, receiver Julian Feoli-Gudino, defensive back/punt returner Kevin Fogg and quarterback Dan LeFevour.

And the cold, hard reality is this: as much as everyone involved wants to keep a tight team which has gone 23-13 in the regular season over the last two years intact, it’s absolutely impossible.

“We’ve had talks with our guys,” began Walters from Banff. “It’s negotiations, and rightfully so, most players believe they deserve raises. Unfortunately, the salary cap has only gone up $50,000 for next year and that goes quickly when you add the pre-existing contracts into it. And unfortunately, in professional sports players and management don’t agree on everything. There’s just not enough money to go around to get everybody what they want. That’s the reality.

“We’re trying to have these discussions with the agents and let them know the reality of the salary cap situation we’re in and go from there. We’ll see where it goes. I’m not sure what to say about it other than to say there are communications.”

Walters said he will meet with head coach Mike O’Shea next week to provide an update on where things stand with each prospective free agent as to which players have offers and which, based on the state of negotiations, seem likely to move on elsewhere when the market opens. The Plan B to that, of course, is to be active in CFL free agency – while continuing to prepare for the draft and mine talent down south – to fill any of the roster holes.

“It’s about finding guys who might fit in and understanding that some of the guys who might be free agents, it just might not work out for both sides,” Walters said. “That’s the reality of the situation and those players are going to test free agency to see if the number they want is available on the open market. We’d better have a contingency plan if those guys don’t re-sign. That’s going through all the scenarios and looking at guys who might fit in with us.

“It makes it a difficult time of year right now.”

All of this means the approach is different for Walters compared to when he first stepped into the GM’s chair. As the old saying goes, anybody can tear down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one.

“It’s 100 percent a different challenge,” said Walters. “Each year it’s become more like this where three-four years ago it was, ‘Let’s turn over the roster and we need to spend in free agency and add guys.’ We’ve got a good strong core now as shown by the success of the last two years.”

“It’s now about figuring out which pieces need to stay, which pieces you can afford to keep, and what you need to add to get us to the next level organizationally, which is winning playoff games and Grey Cups.”

That’s the black and white of the decision making. The rest of it – the personal relationships that are built during a player’s time here – can sometimes blur the decision-making process. It’s Walters’ job to separate the two and potentially push on from players who have been integral in helping rebuild the club.

“I pride myself on more or less keeping it separate… I try to take the personal end out of negotiations and just focus on what’s best for our team and how we can make our team better,” Walters said. “On offence, for example, we’ve got most of those guys signed and our core is back.”

“Now we’re shifting the focus to the defensive side. We need to be better on defence, there’s no secret about that. The number of explosion plays we gave up last year hurt us and we’re taking a really good look at that side of the ball and how we allocate our funds. It’s about making us a better football team. Those are very, very difficult decisions, but you have to take emotion out of it and make good, sound decisions business-wise and talent-wise so that we can still be that ball-hawking defence but not have explosive plays and busts in the secondary.

“We’ve got some decisions to make.”

The GMs meetings in Banff are to conclude Wednesday night. Walters and his contemporaries got to meet with Ambrosie for the first time on Tuesday and the new commish left a positive impression on the Bombers GM.

“We had a great meeting last night,” he said. “He got the job and was thrown in full trial-by-fire, for lack of a better term, and had everything on his plate. This was the first time he could actually sit in a room with us for an extended period and just hear our views on some of the issues.

“It was a good meeting (Tuesday) night. There were discussions on how to better our game and on player safety, which is always at the forefront of most of our discussions now, and about moving the season forward a little bit as he wanted to look at any issues that may have been overlooked with starting the season earlier.”