Johany Jutras/CFL
TORONTO — Sometimes when you win a Grey Cup everyone wants a piece of you.
That was no doubt the case for the 2012 Toronto Argonauts, who three years later have only one coach from that Grey Cup-winning season on their staff.
Head Coach Scott Milanovich, set to enter his fifth season with the Double Blue, is the last man standing in Toronto from that Grey Cup-winning team, but his fingerprints can be found across the league. Including Milanovich, four CFL head coaches were part of the Argos’ last Grey Cup-winning season, while another is considered one of the top prospects to soon make it five.
Teams losing coaches is not all uncommon, especially in the year or so following a championship – or in the most recent case of the Edmonton Eskimos, barely even a week after winning. Esks head coach Chris Jones made quick work of turning Edmonton, a 4-14 team the season before he arrived, into a perennial team that last year went 14-4, won the West and won the Grey Cup.
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Jones officially took a job as the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ head coach, general manager, vice-president of football operations and defensive coordinator only eight days later, and he took with him to Regina virtually his entire coaching staff.
While this in itself was unique, so too is the unparalleled success of the Argos’ 2012 coaching staff. If neither of the four former Argos are dismissed after this season and Orlondo Steinauer gets hired as a head coach, more than half of the CFL head coaches former members of the 2012 Argos staff.
Here’s a breakdown of the Argos’ 2012 coaching staff members that have had success elsewhere after leading the Boatmen to an historic victory in the 100th Grey Cup on home turf following a 9-9 regular season:
Head Coach: Scott Milanovich (2012-Present)
Milanovich, also the de facto offensive coordinator, was hired in 2012 and wasted no time getting a big hand on the defensive side of the ball, hiring defensive guru Chris Jones. With Jones and off-season trade acquisition Ricky Ray at his disposal, Milanovich made the Argos an instant contender with a highly efficient offence and an aggressive, hard-hitting defence.
Toronto went on to win the Grey Cup that year and while the Argos have since gone through many ups and downs, from one year winning the East and the next year missing the playoffs, Milanovich is considered one of the best coaches in the business – and after four seasons of coaching one of the most experienced.
Defensive Coordinator: Chris Jones (2012-2013)
The first thing Milanovich did after arriving in Toronto was go out and get a right hand man he was closely familiar with, and that was Jones. Jones arrived from Calgary to become the Argos’ defensive coordinator, assistant head coach and assistant GM, while he had worked with Milanovich in the past on the Montreal Alouettes’ coaching staff.
The Argos were a top-ranking team defensively in 2012 which allowed the offence the time it needed to gel in Milanovich and Ray’s first year on the team. Jones’ focus on American scouting also helped the Boatmen recruit high-end talent that could fit together quickly and by the end of the year and, while the Argos were a .500 regular season team, by playoff time they were just hitting their peak.
Jones was hired as head coach of the Edmonton Eskimos in 2014 while Mike O’Shea went to the Bombers that same year, making it two coaches from 2012 that had secured jobs elsewhere. Since then, even more impressively, Jones has earned another promotion, now becoming the head coach and GM of the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
So far Jones has skyrocketed to the top of the CFL coaching world, going 26-10 in two seasons and winning a Grey Cup in 2015 – all on a team that won only four games the year before he showed up.
Special Teams Coordinator: Mike O’Shea (2010-2013)
The former Argos and Ticats linebacker was already on the coaching staff before Milanovich arrived in 2012, but surely for O’Shea working closely with both Milanovich and Jones lent a hand in his eventual promotion.
O’Shea won a Grey Cup with the Argos in 2012 before moving on in 2014, taking a job as head coach of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. So far he isn’t off to an ideal start in two years in Winnipeg, but the Bombers appear to be trending upwards while the addition of veteran coach Paul LaPolice should also help the Bombers this season.
Quarterbacks Coach: Jason Maas (2012-2014)
Maas was initially a receivers coach then became a quarterback coach for the Argos shortly after ending his career as a CFL pivot, and his career trajectory since starting as a coach in 2012 has impressive.
He learned under a fellow former quarterback in Milanovich for three years, helping the Argos win a Grey Cup in 2012. Then in 2015 he was hired by the REDBLACKS to be their offensive coordinator, a move that immediately paid dividends for a second-year Ottawa team looking to bounce back from a two-win season.
Maas worked with 40-year-old Henry Burris, coming off the worst statistical year of his career, to help the REDBLACKS become the CFL’s most productive offence. With a high-volume, quick-release passing game, no passing attack was more dangerous than Ottawa’s and it led the REDBLACKS to an East Division title and eventual appearance in the 103rd Grey Cup presented by Shaw.
What Maas did in Ottawa led to him getting a coaching job in Edmonton to replace Chris Jones, making him the third member of that 2012 Argo coaching staff to get a head coaching job elsewhere.
Offensive Line Coach: Stephen McAdoo (2010-2013)
After coaching the Argos’ O-line from 2010-2013, McAdoo followed a familiar face in Jones to Edmonton in 2014 to become the Esks’ offensive coordinator. McAdoo oversaw the Eskimos as they became one of the CFL’s most explosive offences, led by the emergence of Mike Reilly and Adarius Bowman.
McAdoo continues to be a solid coaching prospect today and has now moved on to Saskatchewan along with Jones, where he’ll continue to be Jones’ top man to run the offence along with Jarious Jackson.
Secondary Coach: Orlondo Steinauer (2010-2012)
He’s one of only a couple on this list not yet a head coach, but Steinauer’s future is as bright as anyone’s. The former star safety has been considered a top coaching prospect for at least a couple of years now, in part because of what he’s been able to do with Hamilton’s defence.
After winning a Grey Cup in 2012 as the Argos’ defensive backs coach, Steinauer went to Hamilton under Kent Austin and played a major role in transforming the Ticats into a perennial contender. Two years in a row the Ticats made it to the Grey Cup Championship, while every year under Steinauer their defence has been all-world.
Steinauer’s name is yelled, not whispered, every time a head coaching vacancy opens up in the CFL, so it’s hard to imagine him having to wait long to get his chance.
Hard to bounce back from
The Argos may have gone 9-9 that season, but they won their three playoff games including the Grey Cup by a combined score of 104-68. They won the division the year after that and were upset in the Eastern Final, and then in 2014 they missed the playoffs altogether.
What happened between 2013, the year they won the division, and 2014, the year they missed the playoffs? Four important pieces of their coaching staff – Mike O’Shea, Orlondo Steinauer, Jason Maas and Chris Jones – had all departed.
No, it’s not the first time a team has had trouble maintaining the core that helped it win a championship – but the success of the Argos’ coaching staff following that 2012 season is hardly paralleled.
