Edmonton Elks’ general manager Ed Hervey doesn’t appear to have any regrets about his handling of the team’s receiving corps in free agency.
The 51-year-old elected to clear house after the franchise’s previous regime had invested heavily in the position, parting ways with seven different pass catchers from the 2024 squad. Despite having played the position himself, Hervey saw little benefit to the team’s existing resource allocation.
“Having a stacked receiving corps, I can only look at the results that I’ve inherited and I didn’t see much of anything that suggests that I needed to go back in that direction,” he told 880 CHED this week.
“In roster construction, you have to take from one area and give to another because we are under a cap. My philosophy is to make certain that the offensive line and the defensive lines are secure. I challenged our personnel staff and said we should be able to find wide receivers. Starting Canadians, going into free agency again and allocating the resources there, those guys are not available elsewhere — you’re not getting that guy out of the draft right away.”
Hervey’s receiving cull started with the release of Dillon Mitchell in January. Tevin Jones, Hergy Mayala, and Gavin Cobb found homes elsewhere in free agency, while Kyran Moore and Vincent Forbes-Mombleau remain on the open market. But by far the highest-profile departure was that of All-CFL selection Eugene Lewis, who signed with the Ottawa Redblacks after being at the centre of some controversial comments.
In a press conference at the CFL Winter Meetings, Hervey went on an impassioned rant stating that he wouldn’t pay to retain Lewis at anywhere close to the $320,000 mark he’d been previously compensated at. In large part, that public promise to re-set the receiver market worked and Lewis took a $97,000 pay cut to join the Redblacks. However, the 31-year-old later claimed that Hervey never contacted him to negotiate a new deal or inform him the team was going in a different direction, choosing instead to “degrade” him to the media without paying him the respect he was due.
Hervey has not publicly addressed Lewis’ comments but re-iterated this week that he takes pride in his brutally honest and straightforward approach to player relationships.
“I put my reputation out there as far as when it comes to that stuff with the players. That’s one of my greatest prizes, that I can tell them what we’re going to do and it gets done,” he said. “I can be honest with them and sometimes we don’t agree, but in the end, when it all comes full circle, they could at least look me in the eyes and say, ‘Yeah, you didn’t mislead me or lie to me. Just told me the truth.'”
One could argue that Hervey did exactly that with Lewis, albeit publicly rather than privately. He vowed not to pay him and let the market speak for itself, which it did. He also promised to invest heavily in elite Canadians and priority positions along the line of scrimmage, once again backing up his talk with action during a free agency spending spree for the ages.
The Elks shelled out big for defensive linemen like Jake Ceresna, Jared Brinkman, and Robbie Smith, ratio-breaking Canadian corner Tyrell Ford, and All-CFL centre David Beard, among others. Despite stacking up top-of-the-market contracts like Jenga blocks, the architect of Edmonton’s last Grey Cup title may not be done spending either. When an unexpected salary cap increase sent most franchises into a holding pattern, Hervey says he shook off his surprise and reached out to each of his prospective signees, promising to compensate them further once the details of the new financial structure are hammered out.
“We were proactive with our approach. Again, we contacted all of the guys and let them know, ‘Hey, once we have something official, we’re going to do what’s right,”‘ he said. “We are not an organization that’s going to mislead or pretend to do things. We’re going to make sure that we do what we say we’re going to do and if there’s anything that needs to be adjusted or anything that would come up, we would make certain that that would get done because of the fact that we want to establish Edmonton as the place where players come here, they want to stay, and any player that plays against us wants to be here. In order to do those things, we have to be honest with the players.”
The only position that seemingly won’t get a bigger slice of the pie going forward is receiver, which remains the team’s biggest question mark despite a handful of moves. Kaion Julien-Grant is the highest-priced addition, an exception made to the rule in order to form a potent Canadian one-two punch with the team’s lone incumbent starter, Kurleigh Gittens Jr. Veteran Tre Odoms-Dukes will compete for one job after being plucked off the scrap heap and two-time East all-star Steven Dunbar Jr. was brought in at a discount after the free agency dust had settled.
For those still worried that Tre Ford lacks weapons to throw to, Hervey encourages patience and perspective.
“I can assure our fans to take a step back, take a deep breath. We can’t eat an elephant in one bite,” he said. “We’re now in the process of putting our stamp on this roster and if you’re telling me that we don’t have a big-name receiver but I have a defensive line that I believe can get after it and an offensive line that can protect Tre, I’ll go with that.”
Hervey’s hard-line strategy with receivers may have rubbed some the wrong way, while his lavish spending elsewhere has whipped opposing fans into a frenzy. On both fronts, the recently restored Green and Gold lifer believes he is simply performing his fiduciary responsibility for a team that lost its way.
“This isn’t me being a GM, the job,” he insisted. “This is me caretaking this organization and trying to get it on the rails so that people respect it again.”
