Johany Jutras/CFL.ca
There’s so much drama and so much to talk about in the CFL right now.
Duron Carter is playing defence and, on Thursday night, scored his second career pick-six in his second career start. Diontae Spencer still burned him for a long touchdown and called him out afterwards.
You have Johnny Manziel, who signed in Canada after a year of speculation but is on the bench because the quarterback listed ahead of him on the depth chart, Jeremiah Masoli, is quietly becoming a star.
And if that’s not enough, on Saturday, the Argos will host the Stamps in a rematch of one of the most stunning endings to a championship game pro sports has ever seen — just imagine the hungry egos and lingering feelings that are about to collide Saturday night at BMO Field.
There’s more, but you get the picture.
Somewhere after all that is Drew Willy, who’s about to make the 40th start of his professional career, but the first against the team that decided at roughly this time two seasons ago that it would be better off with someone else under centre.
Drew Willy faces pressure from Lions defensive end Odell Willis in the 2018 season-opener (Jimmy Jeong/CFL.ca)
It’s sort of appropriate, isn’t it, that Willy’s first start against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers comes somewhat as an afterthought? After all, that’s mostly been the narrative of his career.
My stance on Drew Willy is never a popular one, but I’ve always respected him for his calm and quiet demeanor off the field and his natural ability on it. He’s also a good teammate, by all accounts, and has the dedicated work ethic required for success at a professional level (I took a deeper dive on this right here, two years ago, including some insight from his former college coach and once-CFL quarterback Turner Gill).
In saying that, it feels like the eighth-year man out of Buffalo has gotten an unfair deal in this league, whether it’s from fans, players or media. The closest comparison I can think of is Blake Bortles, a former high draft pick and average NFL quarterback whose infamous reputation for being ‘awful’ spawned a Twitter account that now has just shy of 100,000 followers.
While Willy has been portrayed in the CFL about as poorly as Bortles (at least up until Bortles helped the Jaguars go as far as the AFC Championship last winter), the fact is he was a once-promising star in the league, and his play with the Bombers and, so far with the Alouettes, has been at least adequate. Maybe not incredibly exciting or earth-shaking or MOP-calibre, but at least adequate.
The reality is Friday night probably marks the biggest game of Drew Willy’s football career.
He’s not likely to admit that. In fact, if you ask him, he’s sure to put it mildly, what it means to be facing the team that cut him loose. Instead he’ll talk about moving the Als in the right direction after a forgettable 3-15 season, and possibly re-establishing himself as a regular starting CFL quarterback — a job he won fair and square against several comers last month in training camp.
But the one thing Willy will understate the most, as most quarterbacks would — name someone at the position that isn’t calm and reserved with the media, much like is required in the huddle and on the field — is the level of pride that’s involved with this type of situation.
Just like the equally unfortunate Bortles, Willy doesn’t talk about what he sees and what he hears people say about him. But he knows about it. The jokes. The narrative. People thinking he’s awful. The same people thinking at this time several months ago that his career was over.
Perspective can be complicated, but take a moment and really open your mind and juxtapose Willy’s career with that of Zach Collaros.
Collaros hasn’t been himself for two years since his season-ending knee injury and was benched after an 0-8 start last year. He lost 12 games in a row. Yet when he was traded to Saskatchewan, there were many who said he could return to his MOP form. That he could be the franchise quarterback the Riders are looking for.
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That, of course, isn’t out of the equation for Collaros and the Riders. But those two quarterbacks have more in common than we’re led to naturally believe. Willy is two years older and Collaros has made 13 more starts, but the trajectories aren’t all that different.
This is where I get lost in all of the general assumptions about the demise of Drew Willy. He has started exactly six games since his benching in Winnipeg. Three with Toronto and now three with Montreal.
Only one of those was with a full training camp under his belt.
Willy is 11 starts removed from having the Bombers off to a 3-3 start, while playing a high-calibre of football that had Bombers fans believing he could be the franchise quarterback they had long been searching for. His numbers that year, in 2015, before suffering a season-ending knee injury on Aug. 11: 1,434 yards, eight touchdowns, three interceptions and a quarterback efficiency rating of 106.6.
Including the game Willy got hurt, the Bombers were 2-9 without him under centre that year.
This is where pride comes in. Never underestimate the pride of an athlete, at any level. That word, pride, it’s such a powerful one, and it’s appropriate for what Willy is likely feeling going into this game.
For Drew Willy, this matters so much.
A sports moment that will always stick with me was when Jim Schwartz was the Buffalo Bills’ defensive coordinator after he was fired by the Detroit Lions. The next time the Bills played the Lions, it was a rallying call. Schwartz’s defence wanted to win for him, and did so by shutting down the Lions and sparking a dramatic upset.
Afterwards, the defence carried Schwartz off the field.
I remember reports that Ron Wilson, when coaching the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2011 after being fired by San Jose, offered his players $600 — out of his own pocket — if they could beat his former team the next time they played. He even paid the fine for breaking the league rules.
Pride has incredible meaning in sports and whatever he says, Drew Willy has that in mind Friday night and likely so do his teammates. They want to win for him.
Two years ago he was benched. Undeservedly, he surely feels. In Toronto, he was starting long before either he or Head Coach Scott Milanovich would have hoped. In Montreal, he played late in the season in an already-doomed campaign.
Now he’s getting his chance. At 31, he’s still got plenty of time ahead of him — if he can pull it all together. If he can prove, once and for all, that he should be an everyday starting quarterback.
There are qualities in Drew Willy that have made him appealing to many of the CFL’s bright minds, from O’Shea and Milanovich to Kavis Reed and Jacques Chapdelaine, and now, Mike Sherman. A strong arm. Accuracy. Big but can run and escape a jam when he needs to.
The negatives? He doesn’t fare well under pressure. When the O-line crumbles, he loses his confidence. And ever since the knee injury, he’s been more tentative. Less willing to take his shots — to be aggressive and go downfield.
For Willy, this is all he could ask for. An off-season to fully embed himself in the offence with his coaches and teammates. A training camp where he won the starting job. A team that believes in him.
In the first quarter of a Week 1 loss to BC, we saw the Willy of old. The one that wasn’t afraid to make any throw, and could attack a defence and find the tightest of windows. That evapourated, as did the Alouettes’ lead, as the team was shut out the final three quarters in BC.
Now it’s a matter of consistency. And now, there are no excuses. The Als know this and so does Willy. He knows this is his last chance to be a starter in the CFL. And the Als know this is their best chance to be a contender this year.
The Alouettes need Drew Willy as much as Drew Willy needs the Alouettes.
Friday night isn’t going to define his career. Not at 31, not 40 starts in. And not against rookie Chris Streveler, with the guy that replaced him on the sideline. But against his former team, in a situation where no one outside of his own organization is giving him a chance to be someone, to be good, to win football games, this means everything.
In one sense, things have changed for No. 5. A year after being walked around on Media Day, seemingly miscast as one of the big stars of the inaugural Mark’s CFL Week in Regina only to be released soon after, Willy is starting his team’s home-opener. He’ll be on programs, tickets, ads, video boards.
But there’s this burning desire for more, because for the first time in a while, it’s available to him.
If Willy can play like the star we once imagined, and the Alouettes can win a critical early-season game and defy expectation, he won’t be shoving it down anyone’s throat. He won’t be cocky or arrogant or vindictive.
No, he’ll shrug and say that he’s happy. That it was an important win for his team. That the offence is on the right track, and that it’s about carrying that momentum forward.
But everyone else? Maybe everyone else can start paying attention again to one of the league’s long forgotten stars. Maybe it’ll be enough.
