CFL Central Columns

Toronto BarkerNots

September 19th, 2011

Hopefully David Braley is paying attention to the Eskimos 2011 turnaround.
Hire the right GM, who hires the right coach, who hires people that understand the CFL game… presto chango!
With the “right” GM and HC in place – the first order of business is to find the QB who can lead the team… which in the CFL, is everything.
I will leave the GM and HC positions alone for now – except to say, Jim Barker has to go… from both jobs.

Just as an aside – Braley also needs a decent VP of Marketing as well… all you need to do to discover this is try to buy Argos merchandise.
The Argos are failing on the field and off the field.
The community doesn’t hear enough about them – and when the faithful few football fans come to check out the product, they are disappointed.
Paint Hogtown double blue – and give people a reason to wear the colors.

Toronto’s QB situation…
We all know that Barker was determined to make Cleo Lemon into a CFL starter.
Pretty much everyone except Barker realized about midway through 2010 that it was never going to happen.
Enter Steven Jyles off the injury list, where he has been since the Argos stomped him out of a game in Winnipeg as the Bomber backup last year.
Jyles is a journeyman QB who, like Kevin Glenn – is a solid backup, but falls just short of ever becoming a quality starter.
Dalton Bell may turn into a starting QB someday, and maybe not… he needs to bide his time and develop.
Right now the Argonauts have a couple number two QB’s and a couple number 3′s… no legitimate starters.

There are 4 QB’s sitting at home right now that are as good or better than anything Toronto has on their roster currently.
1. Casey Printers – still young by QB standards, and with the right situation may become a marquee QB once again.
Age and a couple doses of harsh reality will have gone a long way to tempering Printers ego from successes that are now ages ago.
2. Jared Zabransky – it remains a mystery why Edmonton dumped him, and unless there is something sinister in his background – it appears he was cut due to a philosophy change by Eric Tillman.
When Zabransky played in 2010 – he showed enough that he bumped Jason Maas to 3rd string, and at times there were calls to start him ahead of a faltering Ricky Ray.
3. Michael Bishop – is a veteran QB who is likely the most “game ready” of all 4 QB’s listed here, having played with Calgary for a stint already this year.
Bishop is not a long term fix, but nevertheless a good enough QB to stabilize the Argos in that position for this year and possibly 2012.
4. Adam Tafralis – might be the diamond in the rough. He decided to try his luck with the United Football League this season rather than return to the Tiger Cats, where it is evident that the coaching staff were not going to give him an opportunity to move ahead of either Kevin Glenn or Clinton Porter.
Unfortunately for Tafralis, the UFL folded prior to the 2011 season, so he now finds himself out of football.

Out of the 4 I have hand picked… either Printers or Zabransky could develop into a quality starter if given the same opportunity that Cleo Lemon had.
And going in… both have proven CFL stats, game knowledge and wins – unlike Lemon, who now is just another in a long line of NFL rejects who failed in the CFL.
However, until the Toronto executive suite decides to pull the plug on the present onfield staff and start fresh – it isn’t likely there will be any change in the personnel.
Personally, I think Toronto has more depth than Edmonton did before their dramatic 180 turn… which is another reason for ownership to consider the “Eskimo method”.

dave@cflcentral.net

Entry Filed under: CFL Football