Not 1, but 2 Ticat starting QBs
Masoli signs another one-year deal to join Evans on Hamilton’s CFL squad
So, if training camp opened today, who’d be taking the very first snaps at quarterback?
“You’re asking the wrong person,” Jeremiah Masoli laughs, as we knew he would.
Masoli is a competition-motivated, bring-it-on kind of guy but he always lets his arm and feet answer that kind of question.
That won’t stop starter speculation reverberating across Ticat territory after Masoli’s one-year deal to return to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats was announced Wednesday morning.
Masoli has recovered from the ACL injury that ended his 2019 season in July and led to Dane Evans going 11-2 at the helm before the Grey Cup loss.
So the Ticats are now clearly the Canadian Football League’s deepest team at quarterback, in an era where pivot depth has clearly become a prerequisite for success.
“All I want to do is win, and be the best player I can be,” says the 32-year-old who returns for a ninth season with the Ticats, including the cancelled 2020 one for which he also had signed a one-year contract. “The name of the game is competition. Dane knows that and I know that. We both embrace it and I think it’ll be great. Iron sharpens iron and hopefully we can bring out the best in each other. But it’s not just about us, it’s going to take a full team to win the Grey Cup, not just two quarterbacks.”
Masoli’s return highlights the recent flurry of significant re-signings of potential free agents. The Ticats now have under contract starters at 10 offensive positions and seven defensive ones.
“That speaks to the culture of the team and the front office and the culture established by Coach O,” Masoli said from his home in the San Francisco area. “For me, it was kind of a no-brainer to be back around all those people I’ve been around for so long and built relationships with. Not only good people but also really good football people, too. It’s also about the landscape out there in the CFL.”
Free agency opens in less than two weeks but some impact players have already returned to their CFL teams at a reduced salary, which Masoli says “for sure” is his case, too.
One early report said he agreed to $350,000, with a $125,000 signing bonus. Of course, he wouldn’t discuss that at all.
There were free agency opportunities in Ottawa and Toronto, who were still negotiating with their starters, but Masoli said, he “didn’t think much about that, and let my agent (Fred Weinrauch) handle things. I didn’t feel like we were under any (time) pressure.”
Masoli has become a fan favourite for his appreciation of the city and for his plucky running and gunning after he took over as full-time starter for Zach Collaros on Labour Day 2017. And even before that, when he’d been relegated to No. 4 on the depth chart but remained in town, worked countless off-time hours on his game and helped numerous Ticat receivers after practice.
Masoli was an East all-star and the division’s Most Outstanding Player in 2018, passing for 5,209 yards while completing a CFL record-tying run of 10 consecutive games of 300 or more passing yards.
He was off to another great start before his ’19 season suddenly ended.
He says his ACL is fully healed “and I’m looking forward to that first contact.” He’s been throwing regularly to “a plethora of young receivers” who have had their high school and junior college seasons cancelled.
Evans has been openly supportive of Masoli’s return. But that won’t muzzle widespread discussions about who’ll open as starter.