One Question For 2024: How do the Argos move past 2023?

CFL.ca Staff

As the 2024 season approaches, each team has a question that looms over it that will shape its season. CFL.ca asked players across the league about that question. Our series shifts to the Toronto Argonauts, who are trying to put their shortcomings of 2023 behind them.

TORONTO — The Toronto Argonauts were a history-making team last year, in almost every way imaginable. They raced out to a 6-0 start, looking every bit the defending Grey Cup champions. When they hit 10-1, they had locked up the East Division; it wasn’t even the middle of September yet. With nothing left to play for in their final six games they didn’t slow down, posting a franchise record and league record tying 16-2 mark.

We all know what happened after that.

The Montreal Alouettes ran through the Argos in the Eastern Final, looking like a ballhawking red blur as they rolled to a 38-17 win. After all of that dominance, the Argos were one-and-done in the playoffs. The awards that followed for members of the team — they claimed five of the seven annual league honours — rang hollow.

As the Argos come through a tumultuous off-season that has added plenty of wrinkles itself, the question that’s hung over them since the evening of Nov. 12, 2023 still applies: how do you move forward from this?

“It’s never losses, only lessons,” Argos receiver DaVaris Daniels told CFL.ca last month at the league’s content capture in Hamilton.

“I think that it was something that we needed. We didn’t lose much, so we didn’t really know how to deal with that. There’s no bigger lesson than losing the one game that means the most. I think that going into this this year, it helps us kind of live in the moment a little bit more and not look ahead at all and make sure that we’re taking care of the business that we need to take care of on that day.”

Daniels, who went over the 1,000 receiving yard mark for the first time in his career last year, pointed to a 2023 roster that had gone through significant change at quarterback, with Chad Kelly taking over for McLeod Bethel-Thompson and other new faces working their way into the roster in all three phases of the game.

“We needed it,” Daniels said of the crushing end to the season.

“I say we needed it, you wish it never happened. But it gives us something to strive for this year. I don’t think that we necessarily care about setting a record for most regular season wins. I think we care about one game at a time and I think that you’ll see that this year, for sure.”

Change is constant in the CFL and the Argos aren’t exempt from that. The team is set to be without Kelly for the first nine games of the season due to suspension. It also had a number of its big names from last year plucked away in free agency, with a chunk of defensive players migrating south to the rival Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

“Yeah, we did lose some some good people, some key pieces that have helped us have success over the last couple of years,” he said. Defensive linemen Brandon Barlow and Dewayne Hendrix and defensive back Jamal Peters all left the Argos to join the Ticats. Linebacker Jordan Williams was traded by the Argos to the Ticats over the winter, but retired when the Ticats opened camp.

“I think that a lot of them going into Hamilton kind of puts a fire in some of the guys,” Daniels said.

“We’re going against Hamilton, but now we’re going against guys who know us a little bit more and it just makes the rivalry I think a little bit stronger. Obviously we had some great players on our team and now that Hamilton has locked in some of those great players, I think that the games will be slightly closer,” he said, with the confidence of a player that won all of his games against that team last year.

The personnel changes weren’t just on the defensive side of the ball. The team lost star tailback AJ Ouellette in free agency and traded receiver Kurleigh Gittens Jr. to Edmonton for d-lineman Jake Ceresna. Corey Mace was given an offer he couldn’t refuse in Saskatchewan and left to become their head coach. Kevin Eiben and Will Fields will team up to take on the defensive coordinator role this season in Mace’s place.

Ka’Deem Carey steps into an excellent opportunity with the Argos, assuming starting duties from the departed AJ Ouellette (Greg Fulmes/CFL.ca)

“Offensively, we lost AJ. We gained pieces with Ka’Deem (Carey) and (Rasheed) Bailey where we lost Kurleigh. I think that we’ve gained enough pieces to pick up where we left off offensively,” Daniels said.

“Defensively, I think that we’ll have some some challenges. I think the offence will have to put up a lot of points early, while the defence figures out that chemistry. Also we lost Corey Mace in the coaching staff, those are big losses. But I think we have the right leaders in the room to keep us afloat and heading in the right direction and peaking at the right time.”

What gets overlooked in the roster changes that the Argos are facing this season is that the team boasted tremendous depth last year. There is in-house talent that’s been using the last couple of weeks of training camp to make a case for starting jobs.

“There’s a lot of opportunity there for guys who got to see some time at the end of the year to really prove that they can play on this level. I’m excited to see that,” Daniels said. “I think that’s another thing that people kind of forget, is how deep we were last year, especially on defence.

“Fortunately last year we didn’t have that many injuries or key injuries on offence that held us back from having success. Just having everybody back another year under our belt with the camaraderie that we have on the offensive side, I think that we can put up a lot of points and defence will obviously gain some chemistry I think as they year goes on and I think that there’ll be one of the best in the league.”

There’s enough of this Argos team returning and getting ready for this season right now that will feel the sting of how the 2023 season ended. As Daniels said, there are no losses, just lessons. There could be an important one lingering through this roster as the season inches closer.

“I think for the most part, there’s a bitter taste in our mouth because we didn’t accomplish the only thing that we really set out to accomplish last year,” he said. “And we’re looking to correct that.”

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