{"id":406947,"date":"2026-01-13T18:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T18:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/406947\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T18:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T18:49:09","slug":"buck-stops-with-orlondo-steinauer-in-hamilton-as-he-leads-tiger-cats-football-operations-department","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/406947\/","title":{"rendered":"Buck stops with Orlondo Steinauer in Hamilton as he leads Tiger-Cats football operations department"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo courtesy: Bob Butrym\/RFB Sport Photography<\/p>\n

The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are led by Orlondo Steinauer in 2026.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s recently-announced football operations department included Brock Sunderland as senior director of player personnel<\/a>. There was no general manager listed, but the team\u2019s football president can be viewed as the de-facto GM.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a collective decision that the buck always will stop with me. What people aren\u2019t privy to is\u00a0the internal,\u00a0titles are one thing, what you do is something completely different. We were thrust into a situation last year, unfortunately, that made us operate in this fashion,\u201d Steinauer said from the CFL\u2019s offseason winter meetings in Calgary.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why we have confidence moving forward, where myself and (head coach) Scott Milanovich\u00a0had to make the final decisions. Rather than change everything collectively, we opted to add value with Brock and his experience,\u00a0then keep things internally oiled the way that we had it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 52-year-old Steinauer reportedly declined to interview for the Toronto Argonauts head coach position in November. When asked about it, he declined to go into specifics about what may have happened in the offseason with Hamilton\u2019s top rival, instead opting to focus on his current team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited at the role that I\u2019m in.\u00a0I\u2019m excited to be in a position to support Scott and\u00a0I was excited to support Ted (Goveia), that\u2019s\u00a0how\u00a0we had it arranged. I\u2019ll say the same answer that I\u2019ve said:\u00a0I would never close the door on coaching, but that\u2019s not something as of today that\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0entertaining.\u00a0I\u2019ll never say I will never coach again;\u00a0I\u2019m excited in the position that I\u2019m in right now,\u201d Steinauer said.<\/p>\n

The Tiger-Cats re-signed franchise quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell in December<\/a>. With the veteran quarterback sticking to a year-to-year thought process in regards to his playing career<\/a>, Hamilton wants to secure a succession plan behind him, which could be pending free-agent Taylor Powell.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaylor\u2019s an important piece.\u00a0Taylor\u00a0got the short end of the stick, if you will, in that we stayed healthy at the quarterback position. Most other teams, the backup saw some time (in 2025).\u00a0It\u2019s always important to have your next person ready to go at all positions, but at the most pivotal one also. Definitely, Taylor is an integral part of us moving forward,\u201d Steinauer said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTaylor has proven that he can start games in this league and be extremely effective. The fact that we want Taylor back speaks volumes. We would expect, if anything happened to Bo, that he\u2019d step in. This guy prepares like no other \u2014 he\u2019s there in the morning, he prepares like he\u2019s starting anyway. You don\u2019t want to put those tags (like franchise QB in waiting)\u00a0on anybody or expectations, but we would expect him to step in and not be a lot of drop off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pending free-agent receiver Tim White has put together four-straight 1,000-yard seasons for Hamilton. The five-foot-nine, 175-pound target has recorded 383 receptions for 5,488 yards with 33 touchdowns during five years in the Hammer. He was among the top-five highest-paid pass catchers in the CFL last season<\/a> at $224,800 in hard money.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working through everything.\u00a0Tim has been a valuable contributor to us for a long time. We will see how things shake out as we go on, but I would never say that we wouldn\u2019t want\u00a0Tim White back. We\u00a0have to make sure that everything fits,\u201d Steinauer said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a move that caught Casey Sayles and others by surprise, the Tiger-Cats released him after he produced an East Division all-star season in 2025. The six-foot-three, 289-pound defensive lineman registered 35 tackles and four sacks in 17 regular-season games.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sucks.\u00a0It was tough. He\u2019s got a lot of good ball ahead of him. We have to make everything fit, that\u2019s the bottom line.\u00a0I would say that this erred\u00a0more\u00a0on financial than anything else, that\u2019s the most direct way I can answer it,\u201d Steinauer said.<\/p>\n

Sayles was scheduled to earn $139,500 in hard money plus a $20,000 training camp report and pass bonus, which would have brought him up to $159,500, plus $8,000 in possible playtime, all-star, and awards incentives. That money could be put towards trying to re-sign CFL all-star defensive lineman Julian Howsare<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can tell you this, we\u2019ve got offers out there to a lot of different people right now. Sometimes they happen quick, sometimes they don\u2019t. Julian is definitely\u00a0somebody we\u00a0would like to have back,\u201d Steinauer said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have\u00a0a lot of pending free agents, as does everybody else. While you might think that you\u2019re freeing up things, sometimes it\u2019s to retain your own versus being able to go out and acquire things in free agency.\u00a0Julian is definitely somebody we\u2019re looking to have back in the fold.\u201d<\/p>\n

Destin Talbert\u2019s another key defensive piece Hamilton would like to keep in Black and Gold. The 26-year-old elevated his play yet again during his second CFL season last year, starting at boundary halfback he posted 55 tackles with three interceptions. Steinauer believes Talbert can continue to trend upward.<\/p>\n

\u201cDestin got good in a hurry, he\u2019s in that bucket of people that got good in a hurry,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m saying people that played early,\u00a0played a lot of games as a rookie.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo courtesy: Bob Butrym\/RFB Sport Photography The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are led by Orlondo Steinauer in 2026. The team\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[166835,166836,42019,49,48,7028,521,522,116860,520,171510,3801,15655,171511,110754,171512,82,171513,171514,43334,167300,171515],"class_list":["post-406947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-3down","tag-3downnation","tag-bo-levi-mitchell","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-casey-sayles","tag-cfl","tag-destin-talbert","tag-hamilton","tag-hamilton-tiger-cats","tag-hammer","tag-julian-howsare","tag-orlondo-steinauer","tag-sports","tag-taylor-powell","tag-ted-goveia","tag-ticats","tag-tiger-cats","tag-tim-white"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}