By Jaime Stein
CFL.ca
I had the opportunity to watch the Toronto Argonauts season opener from the stands, about three rows back from the home team’s bench. I don’t recall the last time I was that close to the action during a game, but you can learn a lot – sometimes more – being near the sideline as opposed to up in the broadcast both.
In addition to seeing how the players interact with one another over the course of 60 minutes, you also gain a feel for the prevailing mood in the crowd like the one from an elderly woman in my section chirping Bashir Levingston for not going north-south on punt returns. The collective groan that arose when he was tackled for another loss was matched by only one other issue: Damon Allen.
From the get go, there were calls for Michael Bishop and Mike McMahon to enter the game. A man in the adjoining section wore a paper bag over his head and refused to take it off until Allen was removed from the game.
Frustration began to build when the Allen-led offence failed to attack the B.C. Lions defence. The boiling point arrived late in the second quarter following the fumble recovery by Leron Mitchell that gave the Argos a first down on the B.C. 11-yard line.
Allen’s pass on first down was swatted away by linebacker Javy Glatt and a course of boos began to rain down on the CFL’s reigning pass king. For almost two quarters he had failed to spark the Argos offence and now he was on the verge of failing to convert a golden opportunity into seven points. With shades of the East Semi-Final in their minds – the final home game of the 2006 season – the fans had seen enough.
Unfazed, though, Allen converted on second down and found Arland Bruce III in the end zone for a touchdown. The fans cheered, but clearly they were not giving 100 percent.
A man with such an impressive resume should not be exiting the game on such a stage.
One influential CFL veteran has made it known to several of his teammates and friends across the league that they should force an organization to cut them instead of making the decision to retire on their own. An awkward situation can arise, similar to the dismissal of Rob Hitchcock and Mike Morreale in Hamilton or the case of the Bombers trying to phase out Troy Westwood in Winnipeg.
Approximately two weeks has passed and the Argonauts find themselves in a difficult position as well. Whatever the appropriate word du jour is, they have a good old fashioned quarterback controversy on their hands. What makes this controversy so difficult to deal with is that it involves one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the CFL.
For any athlete, the decision to retire is difficult. In football, due to the close-knit team nature of the sport, the decision becomes that much harder to make. And for a quarterback, that might be the hardest decision of all from both a player and organization’s perspective. The quarterback is often the face and leader of the team.
The Argonauts were timid to snatch the reigns from Allen at the later part of the 2006 season when his performance began to decline. The Argos, it could be argued, were loyal to a fault when instead of allowing Allen the opportunity to retire graciously in the off-season, re-signed him and allowed him to compete for his job. Meanwhile, instead of deciding to call it quits after 22 seasons and a hall of fame career, Allen decided he still had some football left in him despite facing an uphill battle for his job.
The outcome has been an uncomfortable situation for the player and the organization. Allen has been relegated to third on the depth chart and the head coach has been left defending the character of his former number-one, who has come under attack for not being a good mentor to his teammates.
With the Grey Cup in Toronto for the first time in 15 years, this was hardly the sort of headlines the Argonauts had hoped to be making. Unfortunately, the controversy that no one will call a controversy will likely impend over the Argonauts for the remainder of the season.
Jaime Stein is the former play-by-play voice of the Toronto Argonauts.
