Gridiron Meaning

Tough day for CFL supporters, this is.

How do they explain away the full house, or close to full house, at the Rogers Centre for the Bills and Redskins on Sunday, an enthusiastic full house, at that? Even if you accept the general wisdom that the house is papered, you still have to get the people to go, and there is no way on earth the Argonauts could ever dream of attracting an audience like that for a regular season match.

If you believe the customer is always right, and if you believe that the actual bodies in seats at Argo games have been dipping below five figures, then there's some rather direct messages being sent here.

One, the public doesn't like what the Argos are selling (who would?). Two, they will buy (at astronomical prices) tickets for a non-Toronto NFL team. Three, there's a larger football appetite in the city ready to be serviced if somebody - the CFL, the NFL, the Argos, the Bills - can figure a way to service it.

The Argos, ever since David Braley bought the team, have faded into near irrelevance. It's almost as if once it appeared the Bills in Toronto Series was unlikely to be a direct and damaging threat to the CFL in southern Ontario, the Argos stopped trying, or at least trying as hard as they had during the David Cynamon/Howard Sokolowski/Keith Pelley years.

That doesn't mean there isn't an appetite for the Argos out there., however. It was interesting that my 13-year-old son went with his friend to the game and had a blast. They found the whole NFL atmosphere in a packed stadium thrilling. But what souvenir did they buy and bring home? Argo caps. I'm not precisely sure what that means, other than predicting the consumer habits of 13-year-old boys is pointless, but it suggests they haven't ruled out in their minds the possibility that the Argos and CFL might be a product that interests them.

So again, there's an appetite for football out there in the GTA. On Sunday, it was fed by the NFL and the Bills. Theoretically, the Argos could do the same, or something similar, but they would have to work a lot harder to make it happen, certainly a lot harder than they're working now.

A great deal of faith seems to have been placed in the notion that the 100th Grey Cup game in Toronto next season will heal all wounds, or at least make Toronto CFL-centric long enough for Braley to cash in on the big game for a second straight year. And maybe the 2012 Grey Cup will be a huge success. 

Next year, however, it will be juxtaposed more directly with the final game of the Bills in Toronto Series. That's a comparison the CFL will want to ensure shines a favourable light on its product or the football market in these parts could change for good.

 

 

 

Quick End to A Coach

Join Damien Cox for a live hockey Q&A at noon Tuesday.

Looking back, it's peculiar just how outraged the Argonaut owners were last January when their recruitment of Bart Andrus as head coach was met with some criticism.

They thought they'd hit a home run, made a brilliant hire.

The idea, from Toronto's point of view, was that in Andrus they had a football mind the equal of Marc Trestman in Montreal, or at least a reasonable facsimile.

Well, as it turns out, not even close. Twinning an American with little or no knowledge of the three-down game with a talent depleted Argo roster turned out to be a lethal combination. Having no quarterback in a quarterback-driven league wasn't compensated by the fact Andrus had once coached the position in the NFL, and the suggestion that Andrus would bring order and discipline to a chaotic Toronto dressing room turned out to be a laughable suggestion.

All it did, really, was cost the team the services of playmaker Arland Bruce III when he ran afoul of Andrus.

The Argos as a group have had a lot of big decisions go bad in recent seasons, including the addition of Ricky Williams, the disastrous trade for Kerry Joseph, the return of Don Matthews and the hiring of Andrus. Andrus was just the latest U.S. coach to come north preaching “football is football,” which is exactly the opposite of what Trestman did when he was hired by Montreal and immediately sought to adapt his ideas to the Canadian game.

At the same time Andrus was failing, just down the highway Canadian-born Marcel Bellefeuille was doing a nice job under Bob O'Billovich in Hamilton, suggesting the Argos, when it came to hiring a head coach, zigged when they should have zagged.

Really, from Rich Stubler to Matthews to Andrus, the Argos have made three consecutive boffo errors when it came to filling the head coaching position.

Is that Adam Rita? Or owners David Cynamon and Howard Sokolowski?

Dumping Andrus was, however, the right thing to do, and you have to give the Argo braintrust some credit for not stubbornly sticking by Andrus in the absence of convincing evidence he was going to be able to turn the football team around.

So now what? With a possible move to BMO Field in the offing, the Argos need to return in June with a decidedly more competitive operation. Perhaps Pinball Clemons might be interested in coming back, but that's doubtful. There will be the usual speculation on CFL assistants – Mike Benevides of B.C, who almost took the job last time, George Cortez in Calgary, maybe even offensive co-ordinator Paul LaPolice in Saskatchewan – and names with CFL connections like Matt Dunigan and Mike Riley and Tom Clements.

But they can't get it wrong for a fourth time in a row. This time, whether it's Rita or the owners, there is a desperate need to hit a home run. A real one this time.

End of the Line?

Bart Andrus, you have to believe, has to beat the Blue Bombers in Winnipeg on Saturday.

Failing that, firing a coach mid-season for the second straight year may be the only option for Argonaut co-owners David Cynamon and Howard Sokolowski.

Remember, last year Rich Stubler "saved" his job on Labour Day by beating Hamilton, but was gone a week later.

Andrus might have similarly postponed his dismissal by beating the Cats on Toronto's end of the early September home-and-home set. But the Argos looked mediocre at best last weekend in Vancouver and now they are presented with a Winnipeg team that appears to be in complete disarray under another first year CFL coach, Mike Kelly.

Toronto's not very good but Winnipeg's awful. So if the Argos can't win this one, that makes them awful and the CFL's worst team.

Would canning Andrus change that? Probably not, although part of the Argos problems this year have to be traced to the absence of CFL experience on their coaching staff. Running off Arland Bruce III has not turned out to be a productive move and insisting that Cody Pickett is the starting quarterback without much in the way of supporting evidence seems more of an act of stubbornness than confidence.

Certainly replacing Stubler last year with Don Matthews didn't accomplish anything. On the other hand, Hamilton's decision to replace Charlie Taaffe with Marcel Bellefeuille at same time Stubler was fired allowed the Tiger-Cats to install a new coach and new systems and establish some momentum that carried right through into this season.

Bellefeuille was clearly the right man just as clearly as Matthews was the wrong man.

Finding the right man to coach the Argonauts, of course, has been a major problem since the departure of Pinball Clemons.

Argo landscape changing

DAVID COOPER/TORONTO STAR

Brad Watters says it's time to move on.

The bodies are flying down in Argo-land.

Last week, Don Matthews was the first to depart in the wake of a disastrous 4-14 season, quitting as head coach to return to Oregon and a quiet retirement.

On Tuesday, chief operating officer Brad Watters announced his resignation.

Argo staff members were told Monday that Watters would be leaving, and some were left with the impression he had been fired by owners David Cynamon and Howard Sokolowski.

Watters told The Star Tuesday morning, however, that he was quitting.

"There are just other things I want to do now," he said. "I've decided to move on. It was a mutual thing. No firing."

Watters, who helped organize Toronto's very successful Grey Cup last November, joined the Argos last winter after the resignation of team president Keith Pelley. With Michael (Pinball) Clemons acting as chief executive officer, Watters was less visible than Pelley, and wasn't involved as a liaison between ownership and the football operations office as was Pelley.

"I spent three years here with the Grey Cup, and then the Argos, and it was time to move on," said Watters, son of former Maple Leafs executive Bill Watters.

"I've left the business in a better place than it was."

Watters said he's not sure how the Argos front office needs to reorganize after such a terrible season, one in which the team lost its final eight games under Matthews and included rumours of dysfunction between top executives and the football office.

"That's for David and Howard to figure out," he said. "I thought it was a good move to get out of their way."

Cynamon said on Monday he expects Clemons to remain with the organization, but said he won't ask him to coach again. The future of GM Adam Rita is less solid, but Cynamon said he hopes a way can be found for Rita to return, as well.

No Puff Of Smoke This Time

It was nice of Don Matthews to say goodbye this time.

In fact, everything was nice about Matthews in his third stint as Argonaut head coach and what was almost his last appearance on a CFL sideline.

He was friendlier, more accommodating, less disdainful - very different from what we'd come to know from The Don. He'd smile, tell jokes, sit and talk after games as long as anyone would care to sit and ask questions.

It was all very pleasant, a very different Matthews.

So was the record. Leaving the CFL with an 0-8 record in his final job, and with Wally Buono now certain to surpass Matthews as the league's winningest coach in the near future, made one long for the old version of Matthews, the hardnosed cuss who won football games.

During his final years with the Alouette organization, he frequently promised that when he was done he'd be gone in a "puff of smoke," and followed through on that, simply bolting town when, because of depression, he could no longer handle the responsibilities of coaching a pro football team.

We all assumed it would be the same this time, but it wasn't. He said goodbye - "colour me toasted" was the lively farewell line - and even gave an explanation, which basically was that he just didn't have what it takes anymore.

That was honest. And while it clearly shocked Adam Rita, Pinball Clemons and the Argo owners, it's the right thing for the team.

They thought Matthews would be able to turn a 4-6 team under Rich Stubler into a post-season threat, but it went the other way instead. Matthews tried to pull different levers - benching Kerry Joseph in favour of Cody Pickett, essentially dumping Michael Fletcher, pushing Kenny Wheaton out of the lineup - but none of it had much effect because the talent of the team couldn't sustain winning football any more.

All the important decisions that should have been made during training camp weren't made, and instead they occurred one-by-one as the season progressed, a lousy way to develop a football team.

In the end, Matthews certainly wasn't the problem. He just couldn't fix the problem, or problems. Today's zany exit - Rita said Matthews was coming back, then Matthews announced he was leaving - was symptomatic of an organization that's gone off the rails.
It wasn't a bad idea to bring Matthews back. It was a worthwhile gamble to turn a season around that just didn't work.

So he walks away, and good for him. He's had his time, and now, with a new partner and four-year-old child, he has time to enjoy his life in Oregon in the way he said he was doing before Rita lured him back.

After losing to the Alouettes several weeks ago, Matthews praised Montreal owner Robert Wetenhall for "thinking outside the box" and hiring NFL assistant Marc Trestman to run his football team.

It seemed he was subtly making a suggestion to Argo owners David Cynamon and Howard Sokolowski.

A fresh, energetic face is what's needed. Surely the name Tom Clements will come up, a former CFL star who has been the quarterbacks coach of the  Green Bay Packers for the past three seasons. Somebody will mention Mike Riley, head coach at Oregon State, but that seems like a reach.

Most certainly, there will be calls for Pinball to go back behind the bench, but he doesn't seem to want that.

This team, with its market under direct NFL attack, needs to come up with an aggressive, new direction, and a new head coach will be only one part of it.

Back in 1977, a 38-year-old coach with an extensive high school and university coaching record in the U.S. joined the Edmonton Eskimos as linebackers coach, and quickly became defensive co-ordinator.

That was Matthews, identified as a brilliant young coach by the Eskies at the peak of that dynasty's power, a coach who went on to all kinds of CFL glory.

That's what the Argos must now do. Find that next bright young man.

 

Farewell to a CFL Legend

Can't say I knew Ron Lancaster as a close friend.

Then again, he was a big part of my life.

Weird, huh? That's how you remember the sporting heroes of your youth, and Lancaster was a figure out of western Canada who appeared on snowy days to perform magic with George Reed for every Canadian's second favourite team, the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

He wasn't athletic, didn't look like he could run very fast and threw tons of interceptions. But that never stopped him from throwing the football and becoming one of the biggest stars of the CFL throughout the 1960s and 1970s, arguably the heyday of the league. Can't even tell you who was the backup quarterback to Lancaster all those years — he was always the guy under centre.

He died Wednesday night of lung cancer, making me awfully sad that when I saw him in the press box at Ivor Wynne Stadium on Labour Day, I didn't immediately go over and offer my best wishes. Then he was gone and the game was on and that was the last time I saw one of the legends of Canadian three-down football.

I knew him personally only as a coach, and always thought it admirable that after failing terribly as a head coach the first time around, he succeeded wonderfully in Edmonton and Hamilton. He could be a bit growly at times, but usually had time for pretty much everybody and certainly didn't carry himself with the slightest pretence, the slightest sense that he had been a king on the football field once upon a time.

As a native Hamiltonian, I will always appreciate that Lancaster found a way to lose to Chuck Ealey and the Tiger-Cats in the 1972 Grey Cup Game at Ivor Wynne, and similarly appreciate that he brought the Grey Cup back to Hamilton in 1999, not just with one of those lucky winners but a truly outstanding football team. Sadly, ownership wasn't strong, and that era in Steeltown football faded.

At 69, Don Matthews is back coaching in the CFL, and at the same age the Little General has left us. Not fair, but never to be forgotten.

When Panicking is Good

The Argonauts, it's fair to say, are in a full-out state of panic.

The good news is that sometimes, panic is the correct response.

In Argo-land, players are flying in, bodies are being dumped overboard, coaches are being fired, legends are being hired and everyone is pointing the finger at somebody else.

Add in a 4-7 record with Winnipeg breathing down their necks, and the Argos are sensible to be panicking as the 2008 season threatens to turn into a total nightmare.

Enter Cody Pickett.

This, now, is not intended to in any disparage Mr. Pickett and his football-throwin', signal-callin' abilities.

But when you take the reigning league MVP - Kerry Joseph - and send him to the bench in favour of a raw CFL rookie - Pickett - it's not because you believe it gives your team the best chance to win.

You're either panicking and desperately grasping at straws, or you're using Joseph as a lightning rod to get the attention of the entire team and put the fear of God into those that have thus far treated the CFL season like a casual workout down at the local gym.

Or maybe it's a little panic and a little strategy mixed in together.

The best guess here is that by the time the Argos return to town in nine days to play the back end of their home-and-home with the Calgary Stampeders, Joseph will either be back starting or at the very least finishing that game.

The Stamps, you can bet, have a rude welcoming planned for Pickett on Saturday, and it seems unlikely he has the experience to handle what he's in for. This looks like Mike McMahon all over again. If Pickett were told, don't worry, we'll give you a few games, you're our man, that would be one thing. But if he can't make it happen immediately Joseph will be right back in, and that's a tough position for Pickett to be in. It's easier to throw Pickett to the wolves on Saturday and then come back with Joseph than to start Joseph this week, have him struggle again and then be faced with the option of returning home and starting Pickett.

When it came to shock therapy for this ailing football team, Don Matthews didn't have many options.

Benching Joseph was one, although that had already been done. Cutting veteran linebacker Mike O'Shea, who despite his years of stalwart play and leadership simply can't play at the same level anymore, would be another dramatic move. Axing receiver Arland Bruce III, who likes run the pattern that fits his mood at that moment, would have been another. Bruce made half the team laugh and half the team bitter with his Spiderman caper on Labour Day in Hamilton, and it's hard not to see his act wearing thin in T.O. despite his obvious playmaking abilities.

But moving on O'Shea or Bruce would have cost the Argos a player, while shunting Joseph to the bench for a game doesn't delete him from the lineup.

So Joseph got to be the scapegoat. The question now is not whether Pickett will play so brilliantly that it will be impossible to take him out of the lineup, but the frame of mind Joseph will be in by the time he moves back under centre.

He's not a guy likely to whine and pout. It took him forever to get his chance to play quarterback at the pro level, and he had to deal with the difficulties of being part of the Glieberguys Ottawa Renegades operation before landing out west.

TSN's outstanding football analyst Duane Ford probably has the best take on the Joseph situation, suggesting the Argos need to find ways to tailor their offence to Joseph's strengths, not try to get him to change his game to fit Steve Burrato's offence.

Benched twice this season in favour of his backups, it's not wonder Joseph might not be the most confident guy in town right now.

But if the Argos are to survive this current state of panic and make post-season play, it'll almost certainly be Joseph at the helm. It's one thing to panic and give Cody Pickett a shot, quite another to believe he's the answer to a season gone south.

So Much For Stability

It would seem the Argonauts ownership and top brass weren't at all impressed with the team's performance in Montreal on the weekend.

A week after supposedly saving his job by beating Hamilton, head coach Rich Stubler is out this morning as head coach two days after losing 45-19 to the Alouettes, with the CFL's all-time winningest coach, Don Matthews, coming back as `head coach for the third time.

Yep, that Don Matthews.

The Argos have an 11 a.m. press conference scheduled for this morning, with the participants being GM Adam Rita and CEO Pinball Clemons. It's not clear whether Stubler will be retained in any capacity, only that Matthews, who coached the team in 1990 and from 1996-98, winning two Grey Cups, is back.

He's 69 years old now, and has been rarely heard from since he quit as coach of the Alouettes in October, 2006, citing health reasons. He has 231 career wins - 49 with the Argos - as well as nine Grey Cup appearances and five titles.

The shakeup comes on the heels of Hamilton firing Charlie Taaffe as its head coach yesterday. Winnipeg traded running back Charles Roberts to B.C. last week and tried to trade Tom Canada to the Tiger-Cats for linebacker Zeke Moreno yesterday, meaning the three bottom-feeders in the East Division - Toronto, Hamilton and the Blue Bombers - are all desperately trying to save their seasons.

Stubler's run as Argo head coach ends after 10 games and only four wins, with the team's once proud defence, of which he was the chief architect, crumbling. Former league MVP Kerry Joseph, after playing strongly against Hamilton on Labour Day, struggled in Montreal and Stubler wasn't afraid to say so afterwards.

Having a losing record and publicly criticizing the star player is a formula that rarely keeps a head coach in place very long.

Stubler, who took over from the highly popular Clemons, was criticized internally for being too insular in his approach and for being too critical and hard on his assistant coaches. He came out his shell and was much more open with the media on the weekend in Montreal, but it was too late to save his job, with Clemons and co-owner David Cynamon at Molson Stadium to watch the debacle first-hand.

Going to Matthews is a big gamble, for his last days in Montreal weren't pretty. That said, he and Rita are very tight friends, and generally speaking, his players have always loved playing for him. While he has a gruff exterior and has traditionally held the media with disdain, he prefers to run a loosey-goosey operation, demanding only that the players be prepared and ready to perform on game day.

The Argos brought in a bunch of new players on Monday, and more changes may be coming. With Winnipeg coming to town on Friday, more victories are necessary to make sure the Boatmen at least make the post-season. Moreover, with the threat of the NFL and the presence of the Buffalo Bills in the marketplace, the Argos need to try and put a more consistent, entertaining offensive product on the field, particularly with scoring in the CFL way up this season.

The club failed to qualify for the Grey Cup last November when the big game was held at the Rogers Centre, a major disappointment for ownership. Clemons decided he'd had enough of coaching, and giving Stubler the job after years of being defensive co-ordinator was a decision met with some disagreement within the organization because of Stubler's prickly ways. He rarely spoke publicly while running the Argos' highly respected defence, and seemed generally uncomfortable with the spotlight when thrust into the head coaching position.

Whether the Argos can turn the season around under Matthews is unclear. The defence just isn't what it was, and Joseph has been inconsistent, even after his backup, Michael Bishop, was traded away to Saskatchewan, ending an ongoing quarterback controversy.

The team has been toying with the idea of trying to sign former Saskatchewan running back Kenton Keith to bolster its iffy running game, but haven't been able to come to terms with the back.

In Toronto football circles, Matthews is as big a name as Clemons, and bringing him back, at the very least, guarantees the club will grab some headlines.

Rhythm of the Sporting Seasons

Spectacular day for Labour Day football. A good day to get back at it.

August is gone, and we move into a new time on the sporting calendar. The CFL is getting serious, the NFL is getting ready to start, the U.S. Open tennis is into its second week, hockey training camps are in preparation and the baseball season is into the final lap of the regular season. Didn't make it to a game in the final year of Yankee Stadium, but did get to Cleveland (Indians) and Erie (Seawolves) on a late-summer baseball trip, so can't complain.
But let's talk Argos and Cats today at Ivor Wynne. Despite all the hype, it's not a do-or-die contest. Not even close.

Only Montreal has more than three wins in the east, which means that with 10 games left, there's more than enough time for either Toronto or Hamilton to re-group, make up ground and grab a playoff berth down the line, cross-over game or no cross-over game.

Today doesn't decide the season for either club, despite what you may have heard.

Everybody in Argo-land wants to blame Rich Stubler, and the head coach always gets the brunt of the grief. But this is an organizational thing, with the stability of the past few seasons now a distant memory. Turnover is in the air, veteran stalwarts like John Avery, Eric England and Noel Prefontaine have been lost in recent seasons and the steadying hand of former president Keith Pelley is no longer on the scene. This is less about a team without talent and a coach who can't coach than a team that is in a state of flux from top to bottom.

A win or loss today won't change that, although a win would make everybody feel better.
In Hamilton, finally, there's at least optimism and a sense of team personality. This is a team that runs the ball and then runs it again, whether oft-injured Jesse Lumsden is in uniform or not.

Not sure how that plays out down the line, but for a team that desperately is trying to remember how to win, leaning on a powerful ground attack and making the team persona revolve around that is a solid approach.

Casey Printers should get the start, but how long before Richie Williams gets the call if Printers struggles again?

It should be a dandy on a blessed September day. But do-or-die? Not even close in a league in which teams in bigger holes than the Argos and Cats have climbed out just in time before.

Not even close at this time of year.

Blinded by Faith

The truest, deepest CFL believers drink the kool-aid and never, ever brook dissent.

The league is great, has just the right number of teams, the style of football is perfect, the players are fantabulous athletes, a conceded safety is strategic and fascinating and only the blind North American media stops this from being considered the greatest pro sports league currently in existence.

Which brings us to Sunday's Grey Cup.

Folks, the game stunk. And it was boring. And there were too many delays. And it was too much like last year's Grey Cup and an awful lot of games we've seen over the past two seasons.

But don't tell that to the true believers.

Consider the email of one reader who suggested the fact the Green Riders beat Winnipeg by four has to have meant it was a thrilling championship game.

So 4-0 would be a great tilt as well? 11-7? Before you know it, these people will be doing NHL talk, telling you it's not the number of touchdowns that matter, it's the number of touchdown chances.

Another reader suggested that Monday's night's 3-0 victory by the Pittsburgh Steelers over the Miami Dolphins was proof positive of the superiority of the CFL game over the NFL.

Uh, well, except that the Steelers and Dolphins waged their match on what was essentially a field of molasses in a game that was delayed by lightning and rain and should never have been played.

How they get a field like that in football-made Pennsylvania strains the imagination.

But that game surely had nothing to do with the CFL.

They've got a problem with the CFL, and they can deny it if they want or blame it all on sub-par quarterbacking. But this used to be a league that thrilled with zany passing and high scoring, and now its dominated by defence.

I still love the league. But this isn't the football I loved.