Just so we all understand: Hamilton Tiger-Cats management is not embarking on an analysis of the 2018 season and how to move into 2019.

That's been going on for weeks. It only intensifies now, getting much more real.

Like all other teams since the onset of one-year CFL contracts, the Tiger-Cats face a slew (34) of impending (mid-February) free agents and must decide which ones they'll press most fiercely to retain: some likely soon, others not until mid-winter.

The contracts of football ops management trio Eric Tillman, Shawn Burke and Drew Allemang are also expiring, and CEO Scott Mitchell will likely address that quickly so the rest of the 2019-and-beyond process can follow.

Then there's Orlondo Steinauer, the assistant head coach whom the Toronto Argonauts or B.C. Lions may target for their vacant head coaching jobs.

One would assume that the talented Steinauer didn't leave a great U.S. college gig to return here without some sort of quasi-guarantee that he'd be June Jones' eventual replacement. But the ouster of Argo coach Marc Trestman came much sooner than anyone could have predicted, so can the Ticats still hang on to him? Nobody in the organization, including Steinauer, is talking in public about that yet. But they might have to soon.

Sunday's sad demise in Ottawa completed the 19thconsecutive season in which the Ticats did not win the league's greatest prize.

The Redblacks showed all year that they were better than the Tiger-Cats — marginally, we thought, until their final two meetings. They also demonstrated on Sunday, after an injury-recovery bye week, why it's so important to finish first during the regular-season.

But for the Ticats, that is already past tense, and this is the future. Where to?

While there is some understandable fan criticism that Jones shouldn't be back at the helm, there is no sense coming from ownership and upper management that, despite a losing record this year, he won't return for the middle term of his three-year contract renewal.

Jones has won exactly half of his 30 games since taking over for Labour Day 2017, which is not bad, but not good. It is, record-wise, essentially mediocre; Ticats fans, whose loyalty has not been mediocre, want and deserve at least good.

Jones and his staff have to go to school on the experience he and defensive co-ordinator Jerry Glanville have gained in the complicated CFL game, or it's not worth having endured the negative aspects of that experience.

And his bosses must ensure that he'll take a harsh deep dive into all aspects of that. The Ticats couldn't win the close ones and were outscored in the second half, which is often a function of coaching adjustments.

There has to be concern with the inability to keep on any kind of long roll, even with the loss to injury of so many elite receivers, and a late-season sputter which saw just one win — albeit a decisive playoff win — in the final five games.

CFL teams define themselves in the late autumn, so here's the definition of the 2018 Ticats: 1-and-4 to end it off. Supplement that definition with the year-long 3-10 record (including post-season) against the other five playoff teams.

But if you're around the team, there can be no denying that Jones has fostered a positive, creative atmosphere and significantly elevated the skills and confidence of numerous individual players, among them Brandon Banks, Jeremiah Masoli and the offensive linemen. That is huge, and hard to find.

But there's another 'but': The team's sum total did not match its individual promise, and Jones must take a hard look at why not, even on his own offence. Despite all kinds of record or near-record performances, in almost every loss they came up short at critical moments.

And why did Glanville's defence backslide so noticeably in the latter weeks? All six games in which the opposing offence scored 30 or more points occurred from mid-September onward. So did four of the five games in which Hamilton surrendered 400-plus yards of offence. A secondary which was the positive surprise of the first three months visibly regressed thereafter.

There's a lot there to deal with, as there always should be when a season's epithet is "Disappointing."

smilton@thespec.com

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905-526-3268 | @miltonatthespec

Potential Ticat

Free Agents:

Offence (18): Kelvin Palmer, Mike Filer, Landon Rice, Ryker Mathews, Mike Jones, Marquay McDaniel, Terrell Sinkfield, Sean Thomas Erlington, Felix Faubert-Lussier, Chris Williams, Shamawd Chambers, Jalen Saunders, Terrence Toliver, Brandon Banks, Alex Green, John White, Mercer Timmis, Bryant Moniz.

Defence (14): Justin Vaughn, Adrian Tracy, Jason Neill, Nikita Whitlock, Don Unamba, Larry Dean, Terrell Davis, Simoni Lawrence, Josh Johnson, Richard Leonard, Mike Daly, Courtney Stephen, Cariel Brooks, Delvin Breaux.

Special Teams (2): Lirim Hajrullahu, Aaron Crawford.



- Four up. Four down, and out. The team Ticats couldn't beat