Courtesy Calgary Herald:

When Ted Hellard became the president as well as the co-owner of the Stampeders in 2005, he spoke of his desire to be out of the executive role within 18 months to two years. To leave it in the capable hands of others.

Well, we are three years into Hellard’s tenure on the job and the time is apparently coming for the software magnate to take his own advice.

“Without question, part of the evaluation will be me evaluating myself and what role I will play,” Hellard said Monday as he met the media at Stampeders headquarters. “I’m getting more and more comfortable with moving back in all areas.”

Hellard did not rule out stepping back voluntarily from the active role of president — perhaps delegating duties to Scott Ackles or someone else.

In the ownership evaluation that will go on this week, it may also be that Hellard will be asked to step back even if he doesn’t volunteer.

He made the point Monday that, as someone who does not need to make his livelihood from football, he will do what he judges to be best for the Stampeders.

And what’s best for the Stamps might be change at the top.

As Sedrick Williams blissfully chugged offside on the final kickoff to snuff out the team’s forlorn hope in Regina on Sunday, it was the last bad joke in a routine that hasn’t been funny for a while. The only difference in 2007 seems to be that no owner’s son was champing at the bit to play quarterback.

The best of intentions three years ago have become the same old, same old for the latest ownership incarnation of the Stampeders. Bitter playoff disappointment, front-office intrigue, coaching churn, media scorn and crushed expectations are again the rule of the day (almost makes you long for the good old days of Matt Dunigan).

Too bad, really. How it got this way is, on the surface, a mystery. A well-heeled ownership group, a sincere veteran coach, a GM who finds terrific players, game breakers on offence, an automatic kicker and, at the beginning, some established defensive stars. Sounds like a recipe for winning.

Instead it produced a scenario that has gotten worse each year of the Ted Hellard-Jim Barker-Tom Higgins era. The third consecutive first-round playoff loss on Sunday, a 7-10-1 record and the black comedy of Tom Higgins coaching, after his job had been offered to John Hufnagel, summed it up.

Despite brave talk Monday from the organization, the team has clearly stalled and, given another year of stasis, was going to fall off the map.

That wouldn’t sell to the Calgary football community.

At the heart of the failure off the field is the same problem that derailed the Mike Feterik regime from 2001 to 2004. A hands-on management style — personified by president/ co-owner Hellard — unsettled the football culture of the team. And the football culture never adapted fully to the realities of Hellard’s management style and structure.

Hellard has pointed out that under the CFL’s new salary management system, which he helped develop, every football decision was now a business decision. Thus, he needed to be intimately involved with player moves. There was merit in the argument that a new day had dawned and football traditionalists had better get with the program. Unlike other teams, the Stamps were staying beneath the SMS figure, and that was going to crimp on football decisions.

And there is also no doubt that hard-bitten football types did not take kindly to an outsider standing close to the bench, inserting himself in strategy and acting like he’d been around the CFL for decades. Players and coaches are creatures of habit, and this was not something to which they could easily relate. Hardly a recipe for harmony when the season went sour so early.

The SMS was a similar dilemma in the other seven CFL cities, but in Calgary the situation turned particularly dysfunctional. The failed football initiatives — a receiver rotation, Denny Creehan’s 3-4 defence, carrying two punters — were all seemingly made worse by the tension between football and management cultures on the Stamps.

Something has got to give for Calgary to get out of this rut. Certainly the current philosophy has run its course. Last time we looked across the border to Saskatchewan, a change seemed to be working out just fine, thank you.