O’Day says Riders assistant coaches signed to one-year contracts, not two

During the press conference announcing his hiring, general manager Jeremy O’Day said that the assistants signed by Jones were inked to one-year deals, not two.

"All of our current staff are just on ONE YEAR deals." – O'Day refutes an erroneous report earlier of coordinators being on 2 year deals. #CFL #Riders

— CFL News (@CFL_News) January 18, 2019

That contradicts a report from Sportsnet’s Arash Madani which said Chris Jones signed his coordinators to two-year contracts before departing for his defensive coaching job with the Cleveland Browns.

A nugget that now matters because of this foolish, shortsighted #CFL staff cap: I'm told Chris Jones signed his coordinators to 2-year deals before leaving town.

So if the next Riders coach, say, wants his own offensive coordinator, the incumbent is still a cap hit until 2021.

— Arash Madani (@ArashMadani) January 18, 2019

The CFL has implemented a salary cap on non-player football operations costs for the 2019 season. It’s set at just under $2.59 million for 2019 and 2020, and will be reviewed after that.

Coaches and other football operations staff, including general managers, scouts and equipment and video personnel, fall under the cap. Teams are capped at 11 coaches and 14 other football operations staff.

There are some strong head coaching candidates, but not being able to pick your own staff could hinder the quality of coach the Riders ultimately land for the bench boss role.