Columnists
-
Impartial arbitrator: Good concept, but...
Doug Brown When pitted against the NFL in terms of marketing, financials or professionalism, the CFL does not always come out on top in the court of public opinion. <Full Story> -
Top rookies get capes to wear with uniforms
Doug Brown There is no other time of the year when football franchises are so full of optimism and hope. Everybody is undefeated and the brain trust of every team has just finished selecting a crop of players with seemingly unlimited potential and capabilities. <Full Story> -
TSN tackling CFL draft via webcast a good call
Doug Brown It's not exactly the NFL draft extravaganza that took place in New York City on the weekend on the NFL's own television channel and network, but it's a start. <Full Story> -
Do the CFL salary cap's teeth bite too hard?
Doug Brown We all witnessed first-hand the effects of an enforceable salary cap in the CFL in 2007. The two publicly owned teams that had experience contending with budgets for years found themselves competing against one another for the league's championship for the first time ever in Toronto (even though the Riders were over the cap in 2007 by $50,000). <Full Story> -
Rookies' big cash doesn't add up
Doug Brown When it comes to the drafting of collegiate players into the realm of professional football, the NFL could learn a thing or two from the CFL about the appraisal and economic valuation of its prospective athletes. <Full Story> -
Players' association looking strong
Doug Brown Take 16 active CFL veteran players (two from each team) and put them in Las Vegas for four days and you have the players' association's version of our annual general meeting where issues affecting the future of the league and its players are addressed to no end. <Full Story> -
Intensity works better on the field than in life
Doug Brown The Adam "Pacman" Jones story is one that every professional football player has been forced to contend with at one point or another during his career: the quandary of how to react to someone joining your football team who has had multiple transgressions with the law and who at the same time also happens to be supremely talented. <Full Story> -
Is now the correct time to revive the Renegades?
Doug Brown So now that it appears the franchise formerly known as the Ottawa Renegades is poised to make its third (and final?) return to the CFL in time for the 2010 season, all that remains is the question of whether or not they actually should. <Full Story> -
Canadian prospects compare well to Americans
Doug Brown For as long as there have been two professional football leagues in North America, coaches, players and fans have argued over what makes the American NCAA football recruit, for the most part, a superior entity to his Canadian collegiate counterpart. <Full Story> -
Memo to Riders: It's not the system, it's the players, stupid
Doug Brown If you knew nothing of the vast differences between the CFL and NFL, let this week's controversy around the trade of the CFL's reigning MVP to Toronto teach you one big thing. Win a championship in America and you can do no wrong as a general manager for three to five years. Win a Grey Cup in Canada, and you are back on the spit being slow-roasted less than four months after the coup de grace. <Full Story> -
Buono, not Austin, deserved CFL coach of the year honours
Doug Brown WHILE I was off on my annual snow retreat to sunnier destinations to play beach volleyball like a man who was looking to become one with the sand, the CFL had its annual congress in Calgary, Feb. 25-27. <Full Story> -
That `other' all-star team worth a look
Doug Brown THE release of the CFL player's association all-star team was met with relatively little fanfare and/or publicity when it was announced last week by the player's union. This may have been because of the timing of the list -- the season has been over for many months now and the other all-star team comes out at the start of the post-season -- or a perceived lack of prominence when compared to the CFL, Football Reporters of Canada (FRC) and fan all-star compilation. <Full Story> -
Free agency proves money isn't everything
Doug Brown LIKE the profession of football wasn't volatile enough as is. Throw in the prospect of free agency -- which began last Friday night -- and your employment, future, and career can take a turn for betterment or disaster in one fell swoop and signature. <Full Story> -
Who's afraid of the big, bad NFL? Not me
Doug Brown AM I imagining things or has everybody started to panic a little since the announcement by Ralph Wilson at the Rogers Centre last week that his beloved Buffalo Bills will be playing exactly one regular season game a year in the house of the Toronto Argonauts at the end of the CFL football season? <Full Story> -
A fine line between winning and losing
Doug Brown EVERY professional lineman, offensive or defensive, will tell you for as long as you will let him, that football games are won and lost on the line of scrimmage and nowhere else. <Full Story> -
Championship time full of potential pitfalls for players
Doug Brown FIVE days away from the Super Bowl, the challenges facing the players of the New York Football Giants and the New England Patriots run a lot deeper than just the matchups you will be reading about all week and the competition on the field. <Full Story> -
A chance to be the hero is too hard to resist
Doug Brown It's the one fundamental in football that can never be preached or practised enough to override the instincts of the professional gridiron player. <Full Story> -
$150,000 bump not a feather in CFL's salary cap
Doug Brown LAST Friday, seemingly every CFL player who has an e-mail address received correspondence from the players association reporting that the new cap figure for the 2008 season would be $4.2 million, an increase of only $150,000 from the 2007 cap of $4.05 million as agreed upon by the CFL's board of governors. <Full Story> -
It's nicknamed Winterpeg for a reason -- we need a dome!
Doug Brown FORGET for a moment that Ultimate Frisbee enthusiasts and senior walking club members may all have an additional venue to enjoy their pursuits year-round with the inclusion of a $1.8-million polyvinyl fluoride dome in the revamped David Asper stadium proposal. <Full Story> -
'Get that guy' doesn't mean 'maim that guy'
Doug Brown LAST week, we were all privy to the small sacrificial ceremony whereupon current Anaheim Mighty Duck Todd Bertuzzi threw his former head coach Marc Crawford under the figurative bus, in my opinion, in order to disperse some of the blame for the Steve Moore incident and subsequent law suit. <Full Story> -
Once you've been God, high priest status hard to swallow
Doug Brown IF I was general manager of a NFL team and I was tasked with recruiting a new head coach, the last place I would look for a replacement in this day and age would be at the collegiate level -- NCAA or otherwise. <Full Story> -
Ego: It's why the Pats are so good and the Fish are so bad
Doug Brown THE fact the New England Patriots are undefeated and the Miami Dolphins winless this late in the season is a testament to both how good and bad they are, respectively, but for reasons you probably haven't even considered. <Full Story> -
There are two ways a team can deal with death
Doug Brown IT'S interesting how, as an active professional football player, your opinion on an issue that is prevalent in the NFL can be so different from an entire panel of NFL analysts, most of whom also have experience playing the game. <Full Story> -
A Grey Cup loss is the worst, but our fans are the best
Doug Brown AS far as I know as a player, there are only two ways to respond to a loss like we suffered in the 95th Grey Cup against the Saskatchewan Roughriders on Sunday. <Full Story> -
DOUG BROWN: Big stage can make men do strange things
Doug Brown TO a man, today is the biggest game of everybody's CFL career, and the only question that remains is how, as a player, are you going to play it? <Full Story> -
Doug Brown HAVE you ever had one of those nights when it became abundantly clear to you that it was just not going to be your day? Where a procession of bad omens lined up before you in such force that even the best rip/swim-counter-pass-rush move could not defeat it? <Full Story>
DOUG BROWN: Next time, I'll bring my own chairs to the banquet -
DOUG BROWN: Hard to keep secrets in Rogers Centre fishbowl
Doug Brown I had an epiphany while running through the rope ladder at our "closed practice" today at the Rogers Centre -- only two days away from the Grey Cup. <Full Story> -
Figuring out how the unfamiliar Riders operate is a vital task
Doug Brown TODAY we completed our first day of work at the Grey Cup in Toronto, and from the outset of looking at tape of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, a key to this impending matchup will definitely be how much time each team spends getting reacquainted with one another. <Full Story> -
Playoff success has its rewards
Doug Brown THEY say Grey Cup week officially begins when you arrive in the Big Smoke, but that's the modus operandi for teams that aren't from Saskatchewan and Manitoba. <Full Story> -
Why waste time mocking Argos? Blue have bigger fish to fry
Doug Brown I can't remember the last time I was so riled up about writing a column. I would probably have to go way back to 2002 when Carl Kidd and I were exchanging public comments prior to the Western semifinal and we hammered the Lions at home. <Full Story> -
Win over Als kinda like walking away from fatal collision
Doug Brown AS an undercover member of the media who has infiltrated a professional football team, my thoughts on Sunday's victory over the Alouettes might be a little different from what you have been seeing and hearing of late. <Full Story> -
Blue need their 13th man Sunday -- that would be YOU!
Doug Brown THEY say if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. It's too bad we didn't figure this proverb out before we rested our playoff positioning in the hands of the Saskatchewan Roughriders last Saturday. <Full Story> -
Dear Kent, please try to beat the Argos (since we couldn't)
Doug Brown ONE of the first things I learned -- the hard way -- from having a column the last six years is that they slip by absolutely nobody. If a person is involved in the CFL, it is pretty much guaranteed that they are going to be in your audience, whether you like it or not. <Full Story> -
This time, it really is the most important game of the season
Doug Brown WHEN it came time to prepare and focus on the next opponent during the regular season of 2007, there was a philosophy that this team tried to follow since the commencement of the year on June 28 against the Edmonton Eskimos. <Full Story> -
Move away from the panic button people... %$@# happens
Doug Brown THIS isn't exactly the most opportune of times in the course of a football season, but dare I say -- aside from 2001 when we practically won every game we played -- you just don't sail through an entire CFL season winning two games and then dropping one over and over again without having to circumnavigate some treacherous waters along the way. <Full Story> -
Olberman a moron; pretty boy QB got what he deserved
Doug Brown LAST Sunday, a former teammate of mine, Trent Green, a 215-pound, 37-year-old quarterback for the Miami Dolphins, chop-blocked Travis Johnson, a 320-pound defensive tackle for the Houston Texans -- who did not see him coming -- and got himself knocked out when his helmet collided with Travis's knee. <Full Story> -
Coaches, players must choose pre-game words wisely
Doug Brown AS the field generals of their football teams, all head coaches understand there is a fine line between vocalizing confidence with their gridiron squads, and allowing their words to inspire the play of others. <Full Story> -
CFL definitely not the place to suffer serious injury
Doug Brown YOU wouldn't know it if you were headline skimming on Monday morning, but there are calamities occurring in the world of football these days with consequences far more dire than a disappointing 31-23 loss to the Argonauts in Toronto. <Full Story> -
CFL yawned while Matthews kept on spying
Doug Brown I'LL be the first one to argue that the NFL and CFL are vastly different games that require different types of players with differing skill sets. But when it comes to player policy and ethics, for the most part, the leagues pretty much see eye-to-eye whenever it is financially prudent. <Full Story> -
Oh Canada, too bad real tailgating only happens on highway
Doug Brown THERE are a lot of differences between the CFL and the NFL, or the NCAA for that matter. <Full Story> -
Can a good quarterback really shine on his own?
Doug Brown AS endless as that time-tested children's riddle over which came first -- the chicken or the egg -- is the dispute in professional football about which came first, the great quarterback or the great receiving corps and/or offensive lines, and whether one can cause the other. <Full Story> -
A spinoff benefit from public ownership?
Doug Brown IF Labour Day in Saskatchewan versus the entire Rider Nation wasn't already the most carnival-like atmosphere on the entire CFL schedule, we now bring to you the equivalent of a monster combine showdown between the two biggest of all the grain bins. <Full Story> -
New CFL boss nails one controversy, fumbles another
Doug Brown IN my opinion, and by my count as one of his disciples, I have our new commissioner of the CFL batting a respectable .500 after a couple of league controversies landed squarely on his plate last week both on and off of the field. <Full Story> -
That fine line between 'dirty' play and superstar status
Doug Brown SINCE I started playing football in the CFL in 2001, I have seen a lot of reputedly "dirty" players come and go. <Full Story> -
Lose a game... learn from it... be better in the stretch
Doug Brown AS hard as it may be to believe, I honestly think it is important for a team to lose a game like we did in Hamilton last Friday night at some point during the regular season. <Full Story> -
Egads! Stegall chasing yet another record
Doug Brown SO it's finally over for Milt Stegall. That elusive 138th touchdown finally came and went and we can all go back to our normal lives. No more brainstorming for adjectives to describe his superhuman accomplishments to reporters and no more tripping over the camera crews as they follow Milton everywhere, including to and from the restroom. <Full Story> -
If your opponent is desperate, you better be, too
Doug Brown SO the next two games on the schedule are against the one team in the CFL that has not yet won a contest entering Week 5 of the regular season. <Full Story> -
So maybe we shoulda all worn rabbit's feet
Doug Brown A lot of people think professional athletes are a little unusual because of our superstitious natures. After what transpired before, during and after last week's Football the 13th matchup against the Edmonton Eskimos, maybe the public will be more understanding of our peculiar off-kilter natures. <Full Story> -
Hey CFL, downed defenders have rights, too
Doug Brown THERE is a new rule in the CFL in 2007 that protects players on the ground who are in possession of the football yet are not trying to advance it. However, if you find yourself on the ground and without a football, you better be prepared to protect yourself. <Full Story> -
To heck with salary cap, let's have some bidding wars
Doug Brown WELL, it's time for your regular Tuesday columnist to flip on one of his opinions once again. <Full Story> -
Look, we know Hamilton ain't heaven, but this is pathetic
Doug Brown AT this point, entering my seventh season in the CFL, I am accustomed to the fact that Hamilton is not exactly one of the most desirable road destinations in the CFL. <Full Story> -
Passionate fans make Winnipeg a definite 'football town'
Doug Brown WHETHER a city or province is declared a "football town" or not is always a direct reflection of the fan base. <Full Story> -
Smart vets know how to beat their brains out
Doug Brown AS a veteran player, you never really understand the point of training camp until it is almost over. It doesn't matter how many of these annual passages you have been through or what you have picked up along the way; as a returning player, camp almost seems counterproductive and detrimental until you push through that crest that is only breached after 700-800 repetitions of work. <Full Story> -
Bombers reversing routines... and peeing in bottles
Doug Brown WHEN it comes to training camps, I never really remember how many I've been through -- it's like one long sweaty blur of drill after drill after drill. <Full Story> -
G-forces a killer as players go from 0 to 100
Doug Brown SO that's it. The off-season of 2006 is officially down to four days and no matter what you have or haven't done since November there is nothing that can be accomplished at this point to impact how ready you will be for training camp -- though you wouldn't know it from the scramble of players arriving in town and grabbing a last-second session at the stadium in an effort to fine-tune before it gets too real. <Full Story>
