There is something about Labour Day in the CFL that just makes the unlikely, likely.
It can make Anthony Calvillo look like he used to when he wore a Hamilton Tiger-Cat jersey all those years ago. It can make the Saskatchewan Roughriders look like the most fired-up football team on the planet. It can make the Winnipeg Blue Bombers look like a team that's lacking for confidence.
It can allow an Edmonton team that hasn't been able to score a lick in three games to score 35 unanswered points on the road against a Calgary team that had been red-hot up to that point.
And it can allow the B.C. Lions to win a game for once that doesn't result in Wally Buono's hair turning any whiter than it already is.
And it can make the Toronto Argonauts look like a team that is deeply struggling for someone who can play quarterback with any degree of consistency.
Okay, that last part isn't so strange, although the subsequent release of former starter Cleo Lemon Tuesday morning certainly qualifies as a little mysterious.
Head coach and GM Jim Barker wasn't giving away secrets at practice on Tuesday but the thinly-veiled message was that Lemon's visible displeasure with being benched at halftime of Friday's loss to the B.C. Lions certainly played a large part in that decision. It's also possible there was salary cap pressure on the Argos as well, with Steven Jyles coming off the nine-game injured list this week.
Still, Lemon's season-and-a-half in the CFL has to go down as one of the oddest CFL quarterbacking stints of all time.
Lemon arrived here as an NFL veteran best known for being thrown to the wolves in the midst of an atrocious 1-15 season for the Miami Dolphins a few years back.
He was anointed the Argos probable starter just days into rookie camp last season, won the job despite being outplayed by Dalton Bell during the preseason and received the unqualified support of his head coach throughout the 2010 season, despite the Argos finishing last in the league in passing.
This season, with Steven Jyles injured during training camp, the job went to Lemon by default but Barker rarely gave any sense his belief in him was wavering. In fact, when he was pulled after going 11 for 15 (with three drops) against the Lions, it marked the first time in his CFL career he'd ever been benched for performance. (Lemon was pulled for one series of a game last season but Barker said that was to give him a chance to watch a series from the sideline, not because he was disappointed in his play.)
Somehow that all changed between the end of Friday's game, in which Lemon spent the second half standing by himself on the sideline, and the start of the school year.
Barker would neither confirm nor deny whether Lemon walked out on the team, something that seems plausible given that his contract was heavily laden with bonuses for being the starter.
But the end result is that Barker's bet on Cleo Lemon failed to pay off and the Argos are no closer to finding their quarterback of the future than they were when Barker took over during the winter of 2010 and cleared the quarterback decks completely.
If Jyles works out during the final half of this season, the Argos will have their man for 2012. If he doesn't, it's anyone's guess what the plan will be. And there will be pressure on Barker to explain to his bosses why the team has failed to develop a starting quarterback through two complete seasons.
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Just one more thought on Cleo Lemon. His struggles reinforce the point that former NFL quarterbacks who lose their role down south almost never succeed in Canada. (Doug Flutie would be the lone exception to this rule, but he is the exception to about a zillion rules in professional football.). If Flutie is the best former NFL quarterback ever to play in Canada, who would be second? Sean Salsbury? Jarious Jackson? The point is that if you put together a list of the top 25 quarterbacks in the CFL over the past 30 years, almost every single one of them came directly out of college with only a training camp worth of NFL experience.
The point here isn't that CFL quarterbacks in general are better than NFL quarterbacks. It's the simple fact that quarterbacks who come directly from college are more willing to learn, more willing to put in the time as backups and more prepared when their opportunity comes along. It was a point worth making back when Barker signed Lemon, former Bills backup Gibran Hamden, and former San Francisco 49er Ken Dorsey before the 2010 season. And it's a point worth remembering now that they're all gone and the Argos have turned to the six-year CFL vet in Jyles to right their ship.
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It is indeed hard to rationalize how a Saskatchewan team that appeared so flat under Greg Marshall could look so completely different against the team with the CFL's best record on Sunday.
It's one game, and it was Labour Day Weekend, which the Roughriders have traditionally owned in recent years. But there's no doubt the players demonstrated their feeling about the return of Ken Miller to the sidelines with their play.
One interesting development was Miller's decision to allow quarterback Darian Durant more input into the offence, including calling his own plays. Durant bristles at the notion that he and former offensive coordinator Doug Berry didn't get along. But he admits there were times he came to the sideline with suggestions which he felt were either ignored or implemented too late to have much impact.
The win at the very least gives Rider Nation hope that its season will be more than simply playing out the string. Another win this weekend in the Banjo Bowl would go a long way to solidifying that feeling.
But any degree of success the rest of the way is going to beg the question of whether Miller, who turns 70 next month, will return for another season? When posed that question this past week, Miller said he thought that was unlikely, but stopped well short of saying he wouldn't consider it.
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Speaking of the Banjo Bowl, too bad former kicker Troy Westwood isn't in for a cut of all the merchandise that's being moved on the Prairies to that theme. It was Westwood's comment to a bunch of reporters one day during the 2003 season that led what was once known simply as the second-half of the Labour Day Weekend home-and-home series to be branded the Banjo Bowl.
For the record, what Westwood said was that people in Saskatchewan were a bunch of "banjo-pickin' inbreds", which he later followed up with a faux apology, saying "the vast majority of the people in Saskatchewan have no idea how to play the banjo."
Westwood, who had a long and distinguished career as a kicker and punter in the CFL, is destined to have the legend of the Banjo Bowl far outlive the memory of any of his kicks.
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There are five players who played during the 2010 CFL season who managed to hook onto NFL active or practice rosters.
They are:
Emmanuel Arceneaux – WR -- B.C. Lions to Minnesota Vikings (practice squad)
Bandon Browner – CB – Calgary Stampeders to Seattle Seahawks
Tom Johnson – DL – Calgary Stampeders to New Orleans Saints
Philip Hunt – DE – Winnipeg Blue Bombers to Philadelphia Eagles
Garrett McIntyre – DL/LB – Hamilton Tiger-Cats to New York Jets
Five is actually a pretty significant number, historically, when it comes to players jumping from the CFL to the NFL. Consider that a year ago, former Saskatchewan defensive end John Chick was the only CFL player from the 2009 season to land in the NFL, and that was on the Indianapolis Colts practice roster. (Chick is still in the NFL but has moved to the practice roster in Jacksonville.)
The most impressive of the five who've made it so far was turned in by Browner, who is listed as a starter on the Seahawks Week 1 depth chart, and who played so well during the preseason that it allowed Seattle to trade away a former first-round pick (Kelly Jennings) to make room for him. Browner's impact is a bit surprising only because up until this past off-season, he couldn't get a sniff in the NFL.
At the end of each season, I put together a list of 10 CFL players most likely to get an opportunity in the NFL the next season. For at least two years, maybe three, I put Browner high on that list. Finally, this past winter, I left him off my list, figuring that if he hadn't got a shot by now he was never going to get one. Oh well …
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High hopes in Saskatchewan that former Roughrider defensive end John Chick would return appear to have been extinguished. For the second year in a row, Chick was offered a spot on the Indianapolis Colts practice roster. He turned that down to accept a spot on the practice roster of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
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Former University of Sherbrooke receiver Sam Giguere is apparently in no hurry to come to the CFL. The 2008 draft pick of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats was cut this summer by the New York Giants. And having spent the past three seasons on NFL practice rosters (two with the Colts and one with the Giants) he is only eligible to be on an NFL active roster.
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The B.C. Lions decision to trade for Arland Bruce a month ago was criticized in many corners as a move of desperation. Bruce, after all, was a non-factor on offence with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and it appeared the decline that sets in on almost all receivers as they reach their mid-30s was beginning to set in. But after an uninspiring debut with the Lions, Bruce has bounced back with 15 catches for 180 yards and three touchdowns the past two weeks.
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Not to take anything away from the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 41-point output against Montreal, but it should be noted that the Als entered that game missing four starters on defence – Etienne Boulay, Mark Estelle, Shea Emry and Jerald Brown.
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On a day with perfect conditions for throwing the football, two of the CFL's top quarterbacks – Ricky Ray and Henry Burris – combined for 263 yards passing during Monday's game.
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Edmonton Eskimos did not allow a sack on Monday after allowing 14 in their previous two games against B.C. and Montreal.
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