O’Leary: Timing couldn’t be better for Argos to sign Carter

If they were the Gotham Argonauts, Friday night might have been the time that they put out the bat signal.

Sitting at 3-6, coming off of a humbling loss to the Montreal Alouettes and their position in the East Division looking uncertain at best, the Toronto Argonauts could use some saving.

Without the sky lighting devices afforded to a police commissioner, Argos GM Jim Popp put out a beacon of his own, reaching out to free agent Duron Carter. The team made his signing official on Sunday.

The hero that answered the call isn’t a clear-cut saver of days, though. We all know this. Toronto is Carter’s third CFL stop since he came into the league in 2013. We know the positives that he brings: insanely athletic plays on both sides of the ball, he’s productive and he can help teams win.

RELATED
» Argos officially land Carter
» Bio: Duron Carter by the numbers
» O’Leary: Carter’s next move will be his most telling
» Nye: Don’t expect Carter to change

We also know about the other things that he brings with him. He’s gotten in fights with teammates. He’s seemed to thrive on creating controversy out of nothing, a self-proclaimed expert level troll on Twitter (more on that soon). Carter will answer the call in Toronto but he’s a flawed hero, at best.

So how will this work? How does Marc Trestman get the exceedingly good that Carter has and wrap up, harness, mitigate, whatever you want to call it, the exceedingly bad that has cost him his two previous jobs in the CFL? At last year’s Grey Cup rally in downtown Toronto, Popp called the team The Love Boat, a product of the loving environment that Trestman and his staff, along with the players in that room, built over the course of the season. It’s something that McLeod Bethel-Thompson and Marcus Ball have spoken of this season. Trestman and the football utopia of a locker room that he’s trying to build will be put to the test for the final 10 weeks of the regular-season.

Carter’s abrupt deletion of his Twitter account could be a step in the right direction. He’d been meeting with the Argos over the past week and that sort of move — it’s been gone now since at least Aug. 16 — is something that would be a sign of good faith to Trestman, who prefers his players low key. If Carter didn’t have a Twitter account at all, how much controversy would he have avoided throughout his football career?

Carter should be a fit in the team’s offence. He could provide the punch DeVier Posey took with him when he went to the Baltimore Ravens. SJ Green and Armanti Edwards have had their moments this season, but the Argos — who are also on to their third quarterback this season after Ricky Ray was injured in Week 2 — haven’t had the consistent success they need out of their receiving corps. Carter can provide that punch and keep defences’ attention on him, which helps every other target on the field.

The other area Carter might be able to help the Argos in is ticket sales. When news of Terrell Owens first surfacing on Edmonton’s negotiation list broke, he almost seemed like a good fit in Toronto, where a big name with a good football resume and a big personality could pull more fans into BMO Field. Carter provides much of the same (a different football resume, of course), without questions about his durability or fit in the game.

Most important, he makes the Argos a better team and as Friday night’s loss to Montreal shows, they need help. From the second Carter was released by Saskatchewan, it was a given that his next destination would be determined by a team’s desperation. The Argos went into Week 11 with a huge opportunity, sitting in second place, tied at 3-5 with Hamilton. The Ticats won what many thought would be a tough one against Edmonton, while the Argos lost what many thought was a gimme against Montreal.

There are two distinct sounds that haunt the Argos right now.

One is the echo of Zack Medeiros’ 54-yard field goal attempt thudding off of the upright in Montreal. The other is the less easy to discern but equally painful sound of a massive opportunity slipping between the team’s fingers.

Things don’t slip through Carter’s fingers too often. Toronto gets its hero, flaws and all, and makes a high stakes gamble on its season.