With the Canadian Football League‘s 112th Grey Cup scheduled for Sunday evening in Winnipeg, we figured, let’s take the #FanTeaser to the great white north.
A case has been made – and who are we to argue it!?! – that Boston College product Doug Flutie is the greatest players in the history of the CFL.
If Flutie, in fact, is the greatest to ever play north of the American border, it was a circuitous route to the that top spot.
A 4-year quarterback at BC, Flutie capped his career by winning both the Heisman Trophy and the Maxwell Award his senior year. That was also the season he capped an improbable comeback against the Miami Hurricanes the Friday after Thanksgiving by launching a 48-year “Hail Mary” to Gerard Phelan in the game’s closing seconds to deliver the Eagles a 47-45 victory.
Flutie was selected in the 1985 territorial draft by the New Jersey Generals of the long-since-defunct USFL and wound up signing the most lucrative professional football contract at the time (five years/$7 million). The Los Angeles Rams later drafted him in the 11th round of the 1985 NFL Draft.
Flutie lasted but one season with the Generals because the league folded. The Rams traded his rights mid-season in 1986 to the Chicago Bears for a passel of draft picks. He played abley in place of an injured Jim McMahon. The Bears traded him to the New England Patriots prior to the start of the 1987 season.
Flutie crossed the picket line to but wound up only playing one game during this first season back in the northeast. He came off the bench a year later to lead New England to a 6-3 mark as starter before being benched himself. He saw limited action in 1989 and was released by the Patriots.
With no NFL takers, Flutie cast his gaze northward and signed with the CFL’s BC Lions in Vancouver. He spent two seasons in BC, the next four with the Calgary Stampeders, and his final two CFL seasons with the Toronto Argonauts.
During those eight seasons he established the franchise record at each stop for single-season passing attempts, completions, yards, and touchdowns. All but one (the completions in Toronto) still stand.
He won six Most Outstanding Players Awards (including four straight) during his eight seasons in Canada, he led his team to the CFL Grey Cup on fours occasions and won three of those (1992, 1996, and 1997). The Argonauts’ back-to-back titles is just one of two back-to-back winners since 1982 (the Montreal Alouettes turned the trick in 2009 and 2010). He was named the Grey Cup’s MVP in each of his three victories.
In 2006, The Sports Network (TSN, Canada’s version of ESPN) rated the 50 Greatest CFL Players of All-Time; Flutie headed that list. Flutie’s brother, Darren, was No. 50!
A possible rival emerged around the turn of the 21st Century in the form of fellow quarterback Anthony Calvillo who, over 19 CFL seasons, threw for nearly 80,000 yards, 455 touchdowns, and led the Alouettes to three Grey Cup titles and won three CFL Most Outstanding Player Awards.
For his part, Flutie returned to the NFL where he played nine more seasons for the Buffalo Bills, San Diego Chargers, and, again, with the Patriots. He earned Comeback Player of the Year honors in 1998 with the Bills, leading them to a 7-3 record as a starter.
Just to review, The Fan Teaser was the creation of former Ann Arbor News Sports Editor Geoff Larcom. Longtime friend and fellow Ann Arbor News alum, Pat Schutte, took it to heights previously unknown. We aim to keep it alive here at The Sports Fan Project. The cropped photo and the accompanying clue give you an idea as to who or what the image is of. We invite you to use the Comment option to take a crack at solving the Teaser and, if you’re so inclined, participate in some good-spirited banter with your fellow sports fans. The Fan Teaser will appear each Friday morning with the reveal coming to you Sunday.