ELITE QB IN EYE OF BEHOLDER
OPINIONS DIFFER ON WHICH PIVOTS RANK AS CFL’S BEST
The argument is revived every time Winnipeg’s Matt Nichols and Ottawa’s Trevor Harris step up or fall short.
Which is to say pretty much every time they start another game in the Canadian Football League.
Are they really elite quarterbacks? Do they actually belong in the same sentence as Edmonton’s Mike Reilly and Calgary’s Bo Levi Mitchell, starters who have won Grey Cups and most outstanding player awards?
Reilly currently leads the CFL in almost every important statistical category for quarterbacks: passing yards and TDs, attempts, completions and percentage. Mitchell and Harris are right in the mix, so too is Hamilton’s Jeremiah Masoli, while Nichols’ numbers are off because he missed time because of a knee injury.
Nobody’s win-loss record compares with Mitchell’s, as the Stamps are 5-0. And those divergent statistics lead down two different paths to the heart of the question, which is the definition of elite. Oxford defines it as a “select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society.”
But ask three CFL quarterbacks for their take on what constitutes an elite member of their group and you might get three different answers.
“To me, if you’re a starting quarterback at this level, you’re elite,” Nichols said in a pre-season interview with Postmedia. “There’s only what, 32 starters in the NFL, nine in the CFL? Out of a world of over seven billion people. If you’re at this level, you’re elite.”
Mitchell concurred. “I completely agree. I don’t believe you have to win a championship to be elite. I don’t believe in that. I don’t believe you have to win an MOP to be there.
“I think Matt has shown it day in and day out, from the day he got in this league. He beat Mike Reilly out for the quarterback job and he lost it to an injury in a freak accident. He came back the next year and the same thing, another freak accident.
“To have a guy like that make his way back, go to another team, become the starter, get that team to where they are right now, I think he’s right up there with us. Him and Trevor. I think Trevor is an absolutely amazing quarterback. He’s top-of-the-class elite. So is Zach Collaros.”
B.C.’s Jonathon Jennings is of the opinion that consistency is key to joining the elite.
“There are up and down years,” he said last month. “To be an elite quarterback, you have to do something consistent, at a great level, for such a long time.”
Jennings pointed to Toronto’s Ricky Ray, whose numbers were consistently good for a decade and a half. That Ray also tossed in four Grey Cup titles is an important consideration.
“That’s the other thing. Grey Cups,” said Jennings. “You win a Grey Cup and your name catapults instantly. Mike has done that. He has two. He had an MOP season, as well. Same with Bo, an MOP and a Grey Cup. So you can measure your success against that.”
Winning ought to be the grander definition of success in a team game like football. And no starting quarterback in the history of the league has won a higher percentage of his starts than Mitchell, who is 61-10-2 for a mind-boggling percentage of .849. If there is a reason to separate him from the rest of the group, that’s probably it. But he sees beyond those numbers to situational reasons for including Nichols and Harris.
“I think we all have our own things that do separate us,” said Mitchell. “Nichols, Trev, guys like that have had to go to teams that weren’t doing well. To me, that’s Nichols’ tag in being elite. He took a team that had a lot of quarterback trouble. They couldn’t find a guy. He came in and he’s a franchise quarterback now.
“To not call that guy elite, I think, is crazy.”
At the end of the day, the discussion of what constitutes an elite quarterback is just that. And it generally stays outside the CFL locker-rooms.
“The most important thing to me, when I’m done or when the season is over, if you go up to one of my teammates and ask them about me, the things I hope they say about me are ‘hard worker, fierce competitor, lay it on the line for my teammates, ” said Nichols.
“That means way more to me than any numbers or whether media want to label quarterbacks as elite.”