The revolution continues…
by: Ernie “This Is The” Pitts
Imagine you’re Michael Bishop for a moment. You’re hanging around your yard in the States, trying without success to hit the broad side of a barn with a few rocks. You haven’t thrown a football in months because not a single pro team wanted you, probably because of your inability to hit the aforementioned barn.
But goddam can you throw those rocks. They sail wayyy over the top of the barn, past the freeway and into some farmer’s field, where they rip through the corn rows like meteorites smashing down from the heavens.
You rear back to huck another rock and the phone rings. It startles you during your release, and you throw a rock clean through the front and rear windows of your H3, the last remaining toy from the days of easy cheerleaders and three-day work weeks. The rock buries itself three inches deep in a tree, and you answer the phone.
“Wassup, dog? Mike Kelly? Who? Google you? OK.”
Turns out Kelly wants you to start for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers next week, so you fly to Winnipeg and exchange rocks for footballs. The part about not being able to hit the barn stays the same.
Meanwhile, in the press box, Glen Suitor giggles with glee because now he can talk about “arm strength” for hours while offering no insight whatsoever into the CFL.
In the stands on the weekend, the long-suffering Bombers fans wonder how the hell it is that we can’t get a single decent quarterback to training camp but have to endure to has-been/never-was schmuck who was out of work on Tuesday and scored an infamous 10 on the Wonderlic intelligence and aptitude test. Stefan LeFors, for reference, scored a 30. Bryan Randall scored 19. Casey Bramlet: 25.
To put all that in perspective, Tee Martin scored 11 and Eli Manning posted a 39, for whatever that’s worth.
And so here’s the million-dollar question: where are the quarterbacks, and why can’t we find one? Just about every CFL team has a serviceable quarterback. Other teams have stars like Anthony Calvillo and Ricky Ray. Some teams, like the B.C. Lions, always seem to have several quarterbacks. Hell, you get the feeling Wally Buono is cloning them out in Vancouver.
In Winnipeg, we have a rocket-armed reject missing receivers by 30 feet during blow-out losses. Before him, we had a guy who was plucked from the bench of another team in one of the least memorable “steals” of all time. Before him we had choke artist with a bad arm and nervous feet. And then there was Khari Jones.
Jones might be the best quarterback to come through River City in some time, but it certainly didn’t hurt to have Milt Stegall, Robert Gordon and Arland Bruce hauling in fluttering wobblers heaved downfield on a prayer. I’m not bashing Jones, but he wasn’t an A-list quarterback. It’s true.
As for the other guys—T.J. Rubley, Mike Quinn, Pat Barnes, Tee Martin, Timmy Chang…. God. I can’t even type the rest of the names without feeling ill.
So what the hell, Lyle Bauer? What’s going on here? Are our scouts and talent evaluators lazy or stupid or both? Or are they non-existent? Or are they out of Mike Kelly’s famous napkins? What’s the explanation for this roll call of weak-armed, colour-blind so-called quarterbacks who couldn’t lead a drunk to The Trough late in the fourth quarter?
I’ll say it again: What the hell, Lyle Bauer. Where is our starting quarterback? You’ve had 20 years to find us winner—so where is he?
