O’Leary: Why the Manziel signing will create ripple effect across CFL

It’s over.

Johnny Manziel’s will he/won’t he journey to the CFL has concluded just in time for him to join his new team, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, as they open their training camp on Sunday.

While it’s the highest profile signing the league has seen since Ricky Williams landed with the Toronto Argonauts in 2006, Manziel’s move to Canada will create a ripple effect across the league.

It starts in Hamilton, where the Ticats will have to figure out where Manziel fits in a roster that was built without him a part of the team through the last six months.

Ticats coach June Jones hitched his wagon to Jeremiah Masoli almost immediately after taking on the job at the midpoint of last season. He’d stayed committed to Masoli through the off-season, when the club re-signed him to a two-year deal on Jan. 4, naming him the team’s starting quarterback. While confident over the last couple of weeks that they would work out a deal with Manziel, the Ticats’ football ops team has been just as confident that Manziel would be willing to back up Masoli and learn the nuances of the Canadian game.

MORE ON MANZIEL

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» Jones: Masoli remains starter; Manziel faces tough competition

Sticking with Masoli as the starter could take some of the frenzy out of Manziel’s arrival, which could garner a level of media attention that CFL teams only come close to seeing during Grey Cup week. Either way, Manziel’s arrival will cast an infinitely different shadow on the team and especially the QB spot. There will be a constant outside chatter around Masoli now (much of it from casual fans or those that just want to see Manziel on the field, regardless of Masoli’s play). Whether he’s holding a clipboard or actually on the field, to many, Manziel will be the topic of conversation with the Ticats from hereon.

The same could be said for the rest of the players in the league. You can’t call it resentment, but there was a notable tension in veteran players, especially quarterbacks, when Vince Young’s name came up in the lead up to last season. Young’s shot at the CFL was the last gasp of a veteran player; it was widely known that it was a long shot and the frequent discussion of him still wore on the star players of the league. For the 25-year-old Manziel, a big and frequently recited name on American media, he could still have a long football career in front of him He’ll likely be a stronger and more persistent presence in the news cycle on both sides of the border and it’ll have an effect on players across the league.

At the same time, the curious eyes from the U.S. come at the perfect time for the league. The NFL is still months away from its training camps opening and now American viewers — as well as Canadian fans that have watched the NFL more than the CFL in the past — have a relevant reason to tune into something they may not have been following closely before. This is how new fans are drawn into the league, growing attached to teams or players while they’re tuning in for the name that they’re familiar with.

Whatever happens from here, whether Manziel starts or learns from the sideline, this season is about to take a turn in a new direction. His dance with the CFL has been a clumsy one to this point, leaving a trail of left-footed prints and an exhausted section of fans that wanted nothing more than resolution to this situation. On Saturday, we got the resolution. It’s over, and something else is just beginning.