Courtesy Hamilton Spectator:

It might seem, at first blush, like a bit of an overreaction, but the hiring of Bob O’Billovich gets full marks in this corner.

In most ways, Obie is the direct polar opposite of the man he replaces. Marcel Desjardins is young, had worked for one other organization, is a quiet man, and came into town full of potential.

O’Billovich is 67, has worked for just about every team in the league, is calm but forceful, and comes into town full of achievement.

He also played in the Canadian Football League, which makes him what insiders call “a football man” and that carries a lot of cachet in the way team president Scott Mitchell wants to move forward with this franchise.

In his first Major football-side hiring, Mitchell sought a number of assets, including deep experience, widespread connections and a toughness at the bargaining table. A close observer suspects Mitchell found fault with Desjardins in those areas.

O’Billovich is probably the most widely-experienced man working in this league. You name it, he’s done it and done it well. In the past, and in the present. With an energy belying his age.

If there’s someone in football Obie doesn’t know, that person isn’t worth knowing.

And don’t ask Mitchell about O’Billovich’s negotiating skills. There’s a reason it took a few extra days to sign a guy who lives right down the road and could take the GO to work. And now Mitchell wants to see that tenacious will turned outwards, imposed upon other teams in trade talks.

There will be some hardcore tentacles of Cat Nation, which won’t like Obie’s former, and still ringing, connections to the Argos. Move on, folks.

What O’Billovich brings most to the Ticats’ barren table is a pervading air of competence and legitimacy.

Structure, though, has to follow quickly. The first, and most pressing, matter is deciding who will coach this team. Although Mitchell has come out solidly for Charlie Taaffe, he insisted as late as last night that it is the new GM’s call all the way.

But Taaffe will be at the news conference later today, and he didn’t drive 1,000 kilometres to get a pink slip.

Yes, he’s still under contract and therefore obliged to be in town to meet his new boss. But if this thing were absolutely wide-open, surely the Cats wouldn’t ask him to attend if O’Billovich were leaning strongly toward someone else.

Surely they have learned from the Desjardins’ situation. One of the things which was overlooked in the aftermath of the former GM’s firing was the sloppiness of the execution: a few minutes before the final game, with his family on the way to the stadium.

Yet the new GM’s arrival does make for some interesting speculation. Veteran Dave Ritchie, who was on the B.C. Lions’ staff O’Billovich just left, wants to continue coaching only if it’s as head of staff.

And Jacques Chapdelaine, fired as offensive co-ordinator in Edmonton, but under consideration as head coach in Montreal, worked with Casey Printers in B.C. There can be no doubt that the re-elevation of Casey Printers to his former CFL status, and to the salary he’s being paid, is Job One in the football office.

It’s probable that whatever is going to be done about coaching, is already done, at least in the GM’s mind.

Other teams are ahead in the interviewing process and last year the Tiger-Cats couldn’t find any co-ordinators with experience because they hired their head coach so late. What good are the horrible mistakes of this year, if you don’t learn from them?

It’s unlikely Mitchell would have taken this long to get his General manager, without nudging that GM ahead on a few of the parallel hirings. Things are going to have to tumble into place in a real hurry.

While Mitchell has said that finding the right man was far more important to him than stability and continuity, he also believes in those two traits of organizational strength.

So, in the next few months, look for the Cats to return to the best models of the CFL salad days, when there were a couple of assistant GMs, not only to help the guy in the Big Chair, but to apprentice for a seamless move into it when the GM’s time is done.

But that’s the future. Obie is the present. A very good hire, it says here.