Storied pivots improve East’s lot in CFL

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/01/2012 (5013 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

With the trade of Ricky Ray to Toronto early this off-season and another swap last week that brought Henry Burris to Hamilton, it is now fair to say the Eastern Division in the Canadian Football League just started bringing guns to what has traditionally been a knife fight.

In the course of little more than a month, and off the back of two trades, there has been a paradigm shift in the balance of power in the CFL that has now found its way to the Eastern conference.

In what will be the 100th Grey Cup in Toronto in November 2012, it appears two rival teams have done their homework in procuring key elements they feel will place them at an elite level in competing for this prize and the data happens to back them up.

The last 10 Grey Cups have been awarded to teams with either multiple all-star quarterbacks, league MVP QBs, Grey Cup MVP pivots or a combination of all three. Anthony Calvillo has won three cups in the last decade, Ricky Ray has won two, Dave Dickenson won one, Kerry Joseph won one the year he was the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player, Damon Allen won one, Henry Burris won one, and Travis Lulay won everything he was eligible for in 2011.

Ricky Ray and Henry Burris moving to the Eastern Division bring with them three Grey Cup rings, six all-star selections, two Grey Cup MVPs, one CFL Most Outstanding Player award and a bunch of inappropriate tweets and Twitter pics, but we won’t get into that. That kind of hardware and those kinds of accolades carry weight all by themselves in a locker-room.

I can guarantee you players on both Hamilton and Toronto got a charge simply with the signing of such storied pivots. Of course, it bears mentioning 32-year-old Ray hasn’t won a championship since 2005 and Burris, 36, hasn’t won one since 2008 and was benched last year for his erratic play. But nothing jump-starts a career like a trade and insertion into two unfamiliar environments to teams that over the last few seasons have been unhappy with their quarterback play.

Ray joins a team that has had little choice over the years but to be a run-first football team. The last time we faced off against Toronto when we actually had to worry about the pass was against Michael Bishop in 2007 and a stretch against Damon Allen as he closed out his career. Because of this stark reality, Toronto became very adept at running the football because, quite frankly, they didn’t do anything else as well. Now they have one of the most accurate and best touch passers in the league behind centre to make them multi-dimensional, and this is a team that already beat the Blue and Gold twice last year.

The biggest mark Burris will make in Steeltown, in my opinion, is the level of athleticism he brings to the position. Kevin Glenn can be a very good quarterback and a very inconsistent quarterback, just like Burris. But Burris brings a degree of athletic ability with him that I haven’t seen at the pivot spot in Hamilton in my tenure, plus a rifle arm like Danny McManus had when he wore the tiger stripes at the end of his career.

Hamilton already possesses the weapons and tools to score 52 points on the road in Montreal in the playoffs. Imagine how dangerous they become when Henry Burris uses his mobility to extend plays and brings his level of improvisational skills to the table? Throw into the mix new head coach by George Cortez, who makes his living tweaking and fine-tuning pivots, and you have an exponentially improved team in Hamilton.

Finally, what’s that other team in the Eastern Division? Oh yes, the Montreal Alouettes, who had an off year in 2011 and merely tied for first. They have a quarterback in their stable, Anthony Calvillo, who if he retired today, would go down as one of the greatest to ever play in the CFL.

There were seasons of late in Canadian football where the Eastern teams weren’t given much respect throughout the league as they weren’t very successful against their Western counterparts. With the defection of these two quarterbacks to the Eastern bloc and two new head coaches blazing a trail into town, it is fair to say times are a changing my friends.

 

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