Courtesy Vancouver Province:

It’s a move that was simply too obvious for the B.C. Lions.

JoJuan Armour is the new starting middle linebacker of the CFL team. Javy Glatt will remain in support, but his biggest contribution will now be on special teams.

Coach Wally Buono took one look at the carnage on the game film of his team’s latest loss against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and realized he had no choice but to spend his extra available import starting spot on one of the team’s most chronic areas of concern the last two seasons.

Armour is rejoining the team that gave him his CFL break five years ago, receiving a majority of first-team defensive reps at his first practice Monday.

And by the time the Lions meet the Saskatchewan Roughriders at B.C. Place Stadium on Friday, the 33-year-old will either have the plays on his wristband typed up rather than the hand-written version he had to use Monday, or have them memorized.

Glatt’s reaction to losing the starting job, which has been his exclusive property for four of his seven seasons with the Lions, was predictable.

“What do you want me to say? I can pout about it or be myself,” he said. “Being professional means you can be pissed off if you want. If you’re told things and you decide to believe them maybe you’ll get down, but I don’t believe I’ve scraped through seven years.

“It’s how you deal with adversity and I choose not to cause a bleep-storm about it.”

Buono said he looked not at just what Armour might do for the Lions’ run defence, ranked a distant eighth in the CFL, but also the fire it could potentially light in his reeling locker-room as factors in making the switch.

“Here’s an available experienced player that will bring a spark. I’m addressing it with one player,” the coach said. “I’m not saying one player is going to be the difference, but [Armour] was one guy that could give us a spark.”

So the Lions have replaced last year’s divisional all-star middle linebacker, as awarded by the CFL, with the player voted by his peers as tops at his position last season with the Calgary Stampeders. It was not a subtle switch for a team reeling from a 1-4 start.

It would be downright idyllic if both the Lions and Armour could simply roll back the clock. Two of the best years of Buono’s tenure came when Armour joined the Lions for the 2004 season.

Armour developed apprenticing under Carl Kidd, then forged a CFL career during three seasons with Calgary and Hamilton.

What the Lions will discover now, however, is if the Armour who returned is the same player as the one who left. Though he had no issues during his first B.C. stay, Armour made headlines for the wrong reasons everywhere else.

He was arrested on charges of felonious assault in his native Toledo, Ohio, upon joining the Tiger-Cats and lit a fuse with Stampeders coach John Hufnagel that eventually led to his release.

Hufnagel held Armour out of a game last year because of an incident at a Calgary bar and tore a strip off him in another game when the linebacker was ejected for inadvertently striking a game official. He released Armour at training camp this spring because of a practice altercation with a teammate.

“Life throws you curve balls. I am a different player now than I was before,” Armour said. “When I came here I wasn’t contributing, but there’s been some growth that comes with age, being a husband and a father.”

Now he’s being asked, and in no uncertain terms by the Lions, to be a leader.

“A catalyst,” Buono said.

Message received.

“I’ve never been a guy who just fits in; I’m a vocal person. I don’t hold anything back,” said Armour, who was four weeks from retirement and taking a teaching job had Buono not called.

“The thing that felt so warm was that so many guys were in my corner and were telling Wally to bring me in. It felt awesome, but it also means I have a huge task ahead of me.”

That, too, is as obvious and glaring as the move the Lions had to make Monday.

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