About Doug Brown:

Doug Brown, always a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.

• Bombers of '93 likely the best to not hoist Cup

  One of the approaches utilized this pre-season by coach Mike Kelly has been to unmask the history of this football club and to reveal how, back in the day, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers were seemingly always in contention for the Grey Cup.

  Players have been brought in from the championship runs of this franchise to speak to us about how things used to be when they played for this storied club that has won 10 league championships since its inception.

  View Full Column | 30/06/2009 1:00 AM | 2

• CFL camps get job done

  They say there are too many limitations to training camp in the CFL -- not enough time to evaluate quarterbacks and players, not enough pre-season games to properly prepare, and so on and so forth.

  I disagree.

  View Full Column | 23/06/2009 1:00 AM | 1

• Dinwiddie decision made by those who know best

  Have you ever seen 40-plus players hold their breath and live a precarious existence for an entire season? Come down to 1465 Maroons Rd. some time this season and you just might get the opportunity.

  Fresh off the heels of the axe falling on another Bomber familiar, Ryan Dinwiddie, my immediate thoughts were that this coach and these player personnel directors are definitely not messing around when it comes to moulding the roster to their liking -- probably a good three months after this same realization had dawned on a number of Bomber fans and supporters.

  View Full Column | 9/06/2009 1:00 AM | 5

• Two-a-days are brutal, but bearable

  This time of the year you can always count on an ageless thirtysomething veteran of professional football to burst everyone's bubble and make his opinions known as to how he feels about buckling down and setting up shop for the necessary evil that is training camp.

  Less than a week away from the opening of two-a-day practices for veterans, Ben Cahoon of the Alouettes (36), Gene Makowsky of the Roughriders (36), and Davis Sanchez of the Alouettes (34), all griped to the press (in a story publicized on TSN.ca) about regardless of how things have evolved over the years in terms of player preparations in the off-season, training camp remains an archaic monster that has been rearing its ugly head in the same fashion for as long as any of us have been playing.

  View Full Column | 2/06/2009 1:00 AM | 0

• Irvin's made-for-TV barf-athon can't hold jockstrap to real camp

  In case you have missed the latest thing in reality television, Spike TV has come up with the first real world football program of its kind called Fourth and Long: it takes a legend to find a star.

  While that remains to be seen, it certainly offers a sensationalistic twist on the rigours of professional football training camp, and I wonder if its participants realize what they have signed up for.

  View Full Column | 26/05/2009 1:00 AM | 0

• Press clippings, Purex have only one function

  Last year, it was very evident that the 2007 Grey Cup runners-up, who were favoured in the off-season to win the 2008 championship, fell far short of expectations and underachieved all season long. As we stumbled out of the gate to an 0-4 start, many wondered how a team that could have easily won the 2007 title game were it not for the broken arm of a quarterback, fall so far short of expectations with such a talented roster the following season.

  While I'm not going to be the one to draw any parallels from our 07/08 team to the 2008 Grey Cup champions, the Calgary Stampeders -- mainly because they won the big game and we lost it -- I can tell you from experience that when you start talking about championships to come in the off-season and opportunities to become "the best team that's ever been in the CFL," as exclaimed last week by who else -- Nik Lewis -- to Allen Cameron and the Calgary Herald, you are getting way, way, ahead of yourself this early in the game.

  View Full Column | 19/05/2009 1:00 AM | 3

• Getting top NFL draft pick can be a curse

  Last year around this time I lamented about how absurd it is to give players who have never played a single down in the NFL salary guarantees of $30 million, $22 million, and $34 million respectively, for the first three picks. This year, with the 2009 NFL draft taking place in New York Saturday and Sunday and without a consensus No. 1 pick, it seems several teams are no longer overly excited about their top tier positioning on draft day, and rightfully so.

  In fact, look no further than the 2008 winless Detroit Lions to see how being presented with the top pick may prove to be more of a curse than a blessing after the flash bulbs go off.

  View Full Column | 21/04/2009 1:00 AM | 0

• When NFL shows you the money, better be careful with it

  In an article penned by Pablo S. Torre for Sports Illustrated a few weeks ago entitled How and Why Athletes Go Broke, Mr. Torre divulged some statistics and figures that were so eye-popping they surfaced at our CFL Players Association meetings in Las Vegas. The one statistic that collectively made the CFL union representatives' jaws drop was the fact that "by the time they have been retired for two years, 78 per cent of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce."

  View Full Column | 14/04/2009 1:00 AM | 3

• In the little CFL, a full recycle bin means more drama

  This past Friday night, Obi Khan and I were doing a paid appearance at the Home Expressions show signing 2008 team posters and talking shop with interested passersby at the Spaworks hot-tub exhibition.

  View Full Column | 24/03/2009 1:00 AM | 0

• Sure, T.O. is a numbskull, but the guy still produces

  With Terrell Owens signing with Buffalo only four days after his release from the Dallas Cowboys, it just goes to show you that when it comes to the opinions of many speculative shock jocks that inundate us with their thoughts about professional football players, you can't always believe everything you read and hear. From the moment I heard that Owens had been released from the Cowboys, word was that this might be it for the troubled receiver. He had reportedly burned so many bridges and been so well documented as a cancerous personality that his reputation had finally exceeded his capabilities. Word came from the hired guns on practically every plausible sporting authority out there that of the 32 NFL teams, there would be maybe two or three that would be even remotely interested in acquiring his services.

  View Full Column | 10/03/2009 1:00 AM | 0

• I go away for a week's vacation and look what happens

  Have you ever gone away for awhile and come back home and thought, "Hmmmn, something just feels different around here," but you can't quite put your finger on it?

  View Full Column | 24/02/2009 1:00 AM | 0

• MMA critics are ignorant, cynical windbags

  Every now and again, it's a good thing for an employee to have their usefulness defined by those that employ them.

  In my case, when I ran into Free Press editor Margo Goodhand at the Manitoba Athlete of the Year dinner less than a month ago, she reinforced what my sports editors have been trying to hammer home with me for years. As a weekly columnist who moonlights as a professional athlete, my job here is to provide the readership with content that stems from my unique perspective as an entertainer in the wide world of sports.

  View Full Column | 17/02/2009 1:00 AM | 0

• Lost lineman sends out SOS from Starbuck

  I still remember my initial reaction when I was told I would be doing an "I love to read" appearance in my capacity as a Blue Bombers player in Starbuck last Friday.

  View Full Column | 10/02/2009 1:00 AM | 3

• Wasn't Warner supposed to be done years ago?

  WHAT the Arizona Cardinals are pulling off this year in the NFL post-season is something best summed up by the sign produced by their fans in the NFC championship game that read "Shock The World."

  It's not every day you see a 9-7 team that lost their last three regular-season games and got drubbed 47-7 by the Patriots a month ago run the table in the playoffs.

  View Full Column | 20/01/2009 1:00 AM | 1

• Absence of a game-changer can actually change games

  In the consummate team game that is professional football, it's not often you can look at a roster and point the finger at a singular entity as the reason why an organization lost a playoff contest. But in the case of the 2007 Super Bowl champion New York Giants, the evidence is overwhelming and more than just circumstantial when it comes to indicting Plaxico Burress as the reason the Giants will no longer defend their throne.

  There is no disputing that most football outcomes are determined by a collection of efforts by players on offence, defence and special teams that have individual assignments and responsibilities for which they alone are accountable. In virtually every instance it takes a collaborative effort from all three of these groups to determine winning or losing. But Sunday afternoon the Giants found out the hard way just how big of an impact the absence of one single player can make and how it can cost you a chance at a back-to-back championship.

  View Full Column | 13/01/2009 1:00 AM | 1

• Favre furor a bunch of Big Apple baloney

  To anyone who has ever played a team sport, the fact that three players on the New York Jets did not necessarily get along with or appreciate the addition of Brett Favre for the 2008 season -- as was reported this week -- is really no big surprise and not as big a deal as it is being made out to be.

  In the game of professional football, where on any given day you are surrounded by upwards of 60 or so teammates, three is actually a pretty decent number. Of course, we will never know whether these three represented the majority opinion in the locker-room, or whether the other 57 absolutely adored the golden boy and shoe-in for the NFL Hall of Fame or disliked him even more, but if there are only three dissenters you are actually doing a wondrous job of public relations in the locker-room.

  View Full Column | 6/01/2009 1:00 AM | 0

• Road teams have the right stuff for NFL's wild-card weekend

  IN the world of professional football life isn't necessarily fair, whether we are talking about the 2008 CFL playoffs or the now actualized NFL post-season picture.

  This year in the CFL's East Division, many were of the opinion that an 8-10 team had no right to be granted a playoff berth in the semifinal against the crossover Edmonton Eskimos, but such is life in an eight-team league.

  View Full Column | 30/12/2008 1:00 AM | 0

• Players who run their mouths better be ready to carry ball

  IN professional football, running your mouth and calling out your coach and/or teammates means that you better show up when you get what you were asking for. Whining and complaining and expressing dissatisfaction with your role and lack of opportunities can only be tolerated if you actually have a legitimate grievance and the course of action and ability to rectify it.

  Just two weeks ago, Clinton Portis, esteemed tailback for the Washington Redskins, was smarting about not being utilized enough in a loss to the Baltimore Ravens where he only had 11 carries for 32 yards -- or just under three yards a carry. So he did what all egomaniacs in football do when they feel their "skills" are not being utilized properly and to their full extent. He called out someone else, instead of looking at what he could have done better. In this case it was rookie head coach Jim Zorn, whom he referred to as a "genius" in very insincere terms for benching him after the first series of the second half.

  View Full Column | 16/12/2008 1:00 AM | 0

• NFL falls flat on its prat in Rogers Centre proving ground

  For the first time in Canada, a NFL regular-season football game was played within the borders on Sunday.

  Sure there had been pre-season games and American Bowl games and even the American contingent of the now defunct wing of the CFL play in Canada, but never a game that was as big as the NFL bringing its regularly scheduled programming across the border.

  View Full Column | 9/12/2008 1:00 AM | 0

• Football players sometimes their own worst enemies

  The first thing anyone should know about injuries in football is that they are inevitable. The second thing the public should realize about football ailments and the treatment of them is that the frequency and severity of the injuries that keep an athlete on the shelf and off of the field are in large part within the control of each and every player.

  Of course there are some injuries that can't be helped and are inescapable.

  View Full Column | 2/12/2008 1:00 AM | 0

• I didn't come home empty-handed after all

  Now that I've been to four Grey Cups, played in two and watched two others, it's time for me to air my impressions in this latest version of "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly," Montreal style for the Coupe de Grey Numero 96.

  "ö THE GOOD -- The winner of this category, above all else, has to go to the people I encountered at the Grey Cup. Whether it was the infamous Winnipeg quadrant of the "Ryan brothers" I bumped into in the hotel lobby (Ryan Coke, Ryan Seven, Ryan Water and Ryan Beer), the 66,000 fans with their own version of Dancing Gabe that packed the stadium as poorly facilitated as ours, or any of the hundreds of fans I interacted with at anyone of my appearances at CN, Amp Energy Drink and Nissan, CFL fans are a different breed all unto themselves and define the Grey Cup experience.

  View Full Column | 25/11/2008 12:00 AM | 0

• League's best... and the rest

  WINNERS of the Canadian Football League's individual player awards presented Thursday night in Montreal:

  Outstanding Player Award

  View Full Column | 21/11/2008 12:00 AM | 0

• Shopping for head coach is tricky

  So you're pushing your cart down the aisle shopping for a new head coach for your football team. Just like buying groceries, I imagine it depends on what your individual tastes are, what's in season and what's on special.

  In my mind, the laws of the supermarket are applicable to such recruitment. To start with, you definitely don't want anything that won't last awhile. Anything too perishable or "instant" may look great at the outset, but it will deteriorate fast and eventually make you sick or force you to return to the store sooner than you expected.

  View Full Column | 18/11/2008 12:00 AM | 0

• This is no time to rebuild, just look at Calgary, Montreal

  I have played eight seasons with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, been to the playoffs six times, competed in the Grey Cup twice unsuccessfully, and been on the side of 76 wins, 67 losses and one tie during the regular season.

  During that time, I have seen three head coaches come and go, and if I am on the roster for 2009, will now see a fourth head coach appointed by the franchise.

  View Full Column | 13/11/2008 2:00 AM | 0

Advertisement

Ads by Google