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Will James Franklin continue his signals in Toronto?
When training camp hits next month, James Franklin will be taking his first reps with his new team in Toronto.
But before that happens, I thought I’d take one last opportunity to talk about one of my favourite things from when he was still a member of the Eskimos. If you attended any Edmonton game (on the road or at home) you already know what I’m talking about.
It’s the signals that Franklin and Danny O’Brien would do on the sidelines.
When I sat down with Franklin during Mark’s CFL Week in Winnipeg, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to ask him about it.
My first question was simple: ‘will we be seeing the signals in Toronto?’ His answer? Nope.
“It was definitely Coach Maas’ thing about the signals and I know that we don’t do signals in Toronto so don’t expect that to be coming any time soon,” he laughed.
So how did Franklin and O’Brien come up with the elaborate signals?
“There’s two different ways to look at it,” he explained. “We’ll do the same signal we did the last year or the year before and we won’t worry about the coach or the defence looking at those signals and knowing what the play is. The second way of looking at it is there is no way they can process that information fast enough because when we signal to the receivers, the coach has to then decipher what that signal is and then he has to communicate that to the defence.
“Really all they can communicate is if it’s a pass or a run because how are you going to tell, without being in their head, how are you going to tell a defender, ‘they’re running two in routes, one out route, they’re going to run a post here.’ There’s a little process that goes into it. We’ll try and do something as ridiculous as possible and then we’ll do it for the receivers and if they like it, if it sticks we’ll keep it. If not, we’ll change it or we’ll take some suggestions. It’s really fun trying to think of some different signals.”
While watching he Super Bowl this year, a commercial with Odell Beckham Jr. and Eli Manning stole the show. They danced to I’ve Had the Time of My Life and at the end finished off with the iconic scene from Dirty Dancing.
But just a few months earlier, on a Canadian football field, Franklin and O’Brien had already done that move together!
So I sent out a tweet comparing the two versions and the responses I got were that the two Esks QBs were the clear winners.
Who did it better? 🤔🤔🤔 @CFL @NFL @JFrankTank1 and @DannyOBrienQB
OR@OBJ_3 and Eli Manning? pic.twitter.com/zo9hJVuinB
— Kristina Costabile (@kcostabile1) February 5, 2018
Of course, Franklin said that he and O’Brien’s version was better.
@JFrankTank1 $ @DannyOBrienQB for sure
— James Franklin (@JFrankTank1) February 5, 2018
“I couldn’t believe it,” he said when he first saw Beckham and Manning’s version.
“I saw that and the first thing I thought was, ‘they cheated.’ Because they had the wires on! I know Eli is bigger than me but I feel like I have to be stronger than he is! He lifted him up like he was a pillow!”
Franklin said that doing the signals weren’t only fun for him and O’Brien, but was also cool to connect with fans on social media who were really into it as well.
“It kept guys relaxed, it kept guys laughing,” he said. “We could just come up with ridiculous things. And of course, the fans loved it too because they were always tweeting us or tagging us on Instagram. People sent me videos that they recorded from their phones. It was so fun.”
