CFL will thrive or die on strength of its QBs
Days of gunslinger may be over, but the spotlight clearly shines on quarterbacks in this league
WINNIPEG— Every CFL quarterback is a miracle, in his own way. Anthony Calvillo used to practise in a Las Vegas parking lot. Ricky Ray’s first start was with the Fresno Frenzy, in the Arena Football League’s developmental league. Henry Burris’ first NFL start came against the then-dominant Tampa Bay Buccaneers defence. Every QB that finds his crooked way here, decodes the game and stays is a happy accident. Without them, the league is barely a curiosity. This wasn’t the year of the quarterback in the CFL; it was the year of the quarterbacks. A record 28 different QBs started a game; 11 of them had never started a CFL game before. Some weeks, defenders weren’t given tape on the opposing QB, because it didn’t really exist. One year after the lowest-scoring season since 1985, rule changes helped boost scoring. But nobody knows what the league really has at its most critical position.
“It’s a tough question,” says Bryan Chiu, Ottawa’s offensive line coach, who had a Hall of Fame-calibre career blocking for Calvillo in Montreal. “I’d like to know, if everyone had been healthy, how this season would have played out.”
He is not alone. Seven teams lost their starters at some point, and some teams tunnelled deeper into the depth chart. Hamilton and Saskatchewan reached their fourth string, and Hamilton nearly reached the Grey Cup with theirs, which would have been fair — the Tiger-Cats were the league’s best team until Zach Collaros’ ACL snapped. Injuries weren’t primarily a result of poor protection, on the surface, though that’s always a concern in a league where a guy from Queen’s has to block a guy from Florida State. But the injuries hurt the league.
“The truth is this affected team’s ability to perform at their best, so it did affect our product,” said commissioner Jeffrey Orridge. He noted teams with their No. 1 QB went 58-35, everyone else 23-46.
Still, scoring was up by a touchdown — from 37.7 points per game in 2014 to 44.5 in 2015 — and that was a big positive. You can be nostalgic for the good old days of gunslinger CFL quarterbacks, but it’s probably not coming back.
“We have a lot more guys who are accurate, timing passers, going through progressions,” says Chiu. “There’s not a lot of guys who sit back and just sling it anymore.”
There are, of course, reasons for that. Between Chris Jones-like defensive coaches, improved defensive talent, more receivers staying for fewer years, and the West Coast offence popularized by Marc Trestman, it’s structurally harder to be a spectacular star QB.
WINNIPEG— The Canadian Football League’s new slogan, accompanied by a logo so blocky that it could spring an accountant for a 75-yard rushing touchdown, is presumably not meant to reflect on its new commissioner.
Jeffrey Orridge is concluding his first season on the job and the first thing he did at his Grey Cup state of the league address was introduce the new branding, including the slogan: What We’re Made Of.
If the questions and answers that followed summed up what Orridge is made of, well . . . in the approximate parlance of the Prairies, there was neither hat nor cattle.
Confidence was not inspired. Q: At the start of the season, with no drug-testing plan in place, you said a new program was weeks away. What happened? A: Yeah, well you know, things don’t always go according to plan, and we live in an imperfect world. I realized that I have to have a partnership with the players association and because it is part of the CBA, it’s a lot more complicated than I originally assumed.
Ah. Orridge talked a lot about how this or that issue was complicated, and the world was complex, and by the end you realized he hadn’t answered the question at all, and not necessarily because he didn’t want to tell you the answer.
Now, in fairness, Orridge has been on the job for seven months, is still catching up to a surprisingly complex little league, and his previous life as a TV executive didn’t prepare him for most of what he is facing. But on concussions, on intra-team tampering, on officiating, on media access, on scheduling, on many questions, he sounds like a man who has memorized some answers and isn’t ready for all the questions. With each question, you got the feeling that the reporters knew the league better than the commissioner did.
An example: Orridge was asked whether, in a league that integrates Americans and Canadians everywhere, he’d be open to hiring American officials in a league that desperately needs better officiating. He said: A: So I think there are two points you made. Integration is a very good point and a very good example — I am the living, breathing example of integration, gentlemen. I am both an American by birth but I’m a Canadian by choice, right? So I’ve got the dual citizenship. In terms of officiating and expanding our depth, absolutely, we are having conversations constantly with CIS, and amateur football, about cultivating talent here and expanding that pool and getting more people interested in officiating.
The other thing is, candidly, we’ve had conversations with the NFL about officiating, and what kind of exchange of knowledge we can have with them about improving our product. But we’re always looking to improve, we’re always looking to get better, nothing is perfect, and officiating, it is the hardest job in all of sport, they’re expected to be perfect every single game, every single play. I don’t think anyone among us — I’m sure anyone among can attest to the fact that we’ve made a mistake in our careers, right?
As journalists, as administrators, as executives. So it’s a really difficult job, but always looking for ways to improve and always looking to tap into knowledge bases elsewhere, and always looking to mentor and culti- vate and grow every aspect of our game — not only players but officials as well. Q: So do you like the idea of hiring American officials? A: I like the idea of being able to get the best talent possible.
See, was that so hard? This league probably can’t be totally screwed up. But the man in charge needs to know what he’s dealing with, too. Look, it’s still early. Mark Cohon had to grow into the job and Jeffrey Orridge does, too.
But there is clearly a lot of catching up to do.