Bombers signing Durant a bold, brilliant and dangerous move

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This article was published 22/01/2018 (3136 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When you sign a 12-year CFL veteran to your football team, you pretty much know what you’re going to get. That is, unless, you sign a 12-year veteran and put him in a role he’s never played before.

Signing quarterback Darian Durant to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers is an unabated eyebrow raiser. It’s bold, it’s aggressive, it’s brilliant — it’s counter-intuitive because he was a ‘Rider for a decade — and it’s also dangerous.

To no one’s surprise, Durant has come out and said all the right things since his acquisition. He has talked about how, when he started his career, he went from being a practice-squad guy to a third-stringer to a backup pivot. How he had to “work my way up,” and, therefore, coming in and deferring to Bomber starter Matt Nichols and becoming a “security blanket” for him won’t be an issue.

There is no disputing that he has been a backup in his career before, so how could these inches suggest that he is breaking new ground as a No. 2?

Quite simply, Durant has never been a backup after throwing for almost 32,000 yards and 167 touchdowns. He has never been a backup after leading a team to a Grey Cup championship in 2013. He has never been asked to support another player and be an understudy after being a two-time divisional all-star and earning millions of dollars over the course of his career.

If you think that being a backup at the start of your career is the same as being one at the end of it — when you are 35 and have accomplished what Durant has accomplished, and thrown for almost a hundred more touchdowns than the guy standing in front of you — you simply don’t understand the players who play this game.

Oh, and if these kinds of numbers, accomplishments, and statistics, weren’t already hard enough to move beyond, then add to the mix a hearty dash of Paul LaPolice familiarity, because Durant had arguably his second-best season ever with LaPolice at the helm of the offence in Saskatchewan, and received his first ever all-star nod working under him. In fact, in 2009, not only did Durant and LaPolice, now Winnipeg’s offensive co-ordinator, help lead the Riders to first place in the Western division, but they won the Western final together, and would have won a championship, too, if counting past 12 wasn’t prohibitive in Saskatchewan.

If I can remember how well these two worked together, you had better believe that they haven’t forgotten either.

The problem with trying out a former superstar in a new role will always be whether he is truly committed to it or not, and whether that chip on his shoulder is gone. His actions in training camp, during practice, and on the field, will speak louder than any words uttered during a press conference. It will not be easy to relinquish being the face of every franchise, to playing second fiddle.

The nature of the aging superstar athlete, coming off of a terrible season, is to prove everybody wrong, and to regain his or her form for another year or two. To deny wanting another shot at the limelight, to take the reins of a football team one more time, is to deny human nature. It takes a whole lot of maturity and perspective for a once-elite athlete to recognize that his best years are behind him, and to truly accept his new, and reduced role.

In an ideal world, Durant will come in and adjust seamlessly to being out of the spotlight. He will keep his head down, let his star power and legacy fade gracefully into the night, and be the perfect teammate, support system, and mentor to all those around him.

If Nichols gets dinged, however, and Durant regains a taste of his form and productivity within a LaPolice system, then all bets are off, and this gamble could do more than raise an eyebrow or two.

 

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

Twitter: @DougBrown97