The Hamilton Tiger-Cats will be the East’s representative in the 2011 Grey cup.

Their core of Veterans, lead by Kevin Glenn, and a very healthy mix of young players make the Tiger-Cats ready to take the next step in 2011. With the addition of Avon Cobourne to the line up, the Cats have added a lot of depth at the Running Back position.

Prediction

In 2011, the Cats go 10-8, win the East final, but lose to the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the Grey Cup.

Players to Watch

Offence

• Arland Bruce III had an amazing season in 2010 with 1303 yards receiving, expect Glenn to look for Bruce in the red zone a lot in 2011.

Defense

• Dylan Barker in his second year as the full time starter at safety will really anchor the Ticats Defense this season.

Courtesy Hamilton Spectator:

Ticat head coach Marcel Bellefeuille often says that his team has 24 hours after a game to either savour a win or lament a loss before turning their focus to the next game. But after the 42-8 shellacking at the hands of the Alouettes last week, Bellefeuille seems to have broken his own rule.

“I didn’t sleep well Friday night and I was up early watching film on Saturday. No, it wasn’t a great weekend,” said Bellefeuille yesterday.

“Was it wake-up call? No question.”

Having now broken down the film and analyzed his teams’ play, Bellefeuille said he found a number of issues that he felt were “correctable.” He credited a strong Montreal squad with playing a near-flawless game but said his charges didn’t play to their potential.

“We have to be a lot better and continue to improve if we’re going to compete with those guys. But was it a true representation as to where we’re at? No, it probably wasn’t that either,” he said.

While Bellefeuille said there were breakdowns in a number of areas — he declined to go into specifics — he refused to lay the blame on the shoulders of quarterback Quinton Porter, who was pulled after one half of play in favour of veteran Kevin Glenn.

“I didn’t think he struggled. On the contrary, he was four of six and had a deep ball dropped and ran twice for first downs,” Bellefeuille said. “I told him at halftime, ‘it wasn’t your fault, I just have to do something to try and spark the team.’ Obviously, that didn’t work either, but I had to try something.”

Bellefeuille said he hasn’t settled on a starter for Saturday’s tilt against Calgary but it sounds like Porter will get the nod.

“We have to finalize our decision, but there’d be no reason not to. He beat Calgary last time and this was one game you can’t put on the quarterback,” he said.

The team will also get four players back from injury: defensive linemen Darrell Adams and Garrett McIntyre, wide receiver Prechae Rodriguez and defensive back Geoff Tisdale have all been cleared to practice.

“We’re getting healthier. Everyone has the potential to play this week,” Bellefeuille said.

Offensive lineman Marwan Hage said he doesn’t think the loss to Montreal will impact the team’s confidence going into Saturday’s game against Calgary.

“You never expect to go 18-0. Whether we lost that game by one point or 40 points, it’s the same result. It won’t affect us in the future — you just move on. It’s a setback, but it doesn’t prevent us from reaching our goals this year, which is to make the playoffs.”

With six games remaining in the regular Canadian Football League season, the Cats are still two games clear of third place Winnipeg in the East Division and control their own destiny when it comes to making the post-season. They travel to Calgary this week — a team they beat 24-17 on Sept. 18 — before returning home for a key matchup against the Blue Bombers.

“We just played Montreal and Calgary back-to-back and got a split. I think part of that gets lost because we got beaten so badly,” Bellefeuille said.

The final impact of the Montreal game has yet to be determined, Bellefeuille said.

“It can refocus you, it can rejuvenate you. It can also go the other way, demoralize you. It all depends on the character of the people.

“The sky is not falling. As soon as you say it is, it will.”

Read more….

Courtesy Hamilton Spectator:

Say this for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Both previous times they’ve pitched a stinker this year — prior to Friday’s 42-8 nostril scorcher — they responded the following week with a huge and completely unexpected win.

You’ll recall the discouraging effort in the season opener against Toronto that had the more-emotional fans buying cyanide tablets. But several days later, Hamilton marched into B.C. where they never win, and won.

Then two weeks ago against the Argonauts at Rogers Centre they premiered a 60-minute piece of performance art titled, “Remember The Bad Old Days?” only to follow that up with a statement-making win over Calgary at home.

Whether they can do it a third time on Saturday in Calgary is going to answer a lot of questions about this team’s psyche and resilience. Even more than the other two. Because the way they lost on Friday was different. In neither of those earlier cases were they made to look as outclassed as they were against a vastly superior Montreal team. From the coaches to the last man on the roster, everyone was outmatched in this one.

It was the kind of thorough butt- kicking that has the potential to sow some seeds of doubt in a dressing room that’s shown admirable mental toughness but hasn’t yet had to confront a discouraging situation like this.

The coaches and players are certainly saying all the right things. After Friday’s thrashing, head coach Marcel Bellefeuille talked about watching the game film, fixing the problems, and then flushing this game down the toilet. Otis Floyd was busy saying that as pros, you simply have to walk out of the dressing room and leave that game behind. And Jykine Bradley was offering much of the same sentiment.

But it’s hard to believe it’s really just as easy as speaking it into reality. Particularly when you consider what Montreal did to Hamilton in this one game.

First, Anthony Calvillo and the Als’ offence absolutely dismantled a Ticat defence that has been very, very good this year. The same unit that tied Calgary in knots a week before offered about as much resistance as a bug flying into a windshield. Watching the best part of their team get destroyed has to burrow into the players’ heads to some degree. Doubt may be denied, but it’s natural.

Just as there have to be some questions in the dressing room about whether the Cats have a good enough kick return team to compete with the best. If the defence was terrible, the returners were vomitous. Fumbles, bobbles and negligible runbacks aren’t going to build a great feeling of destiny among the troops.

Then there’s the offence. The players say they still believe in Quinton Porter. Bellefeuille certainly put up a spirited defence of his embattled quarterback after the game. But the truth is, he’s not playing well. Not close.

Equally troubling, the offensive line that was built in the offseason to be the strength of the team was ineffective. Top it all off with some stupid penalties, some dropped passes and little from the running game and you’ve got a smorgasbord of awfulness.

But again, history says, hold on. This is a team that’s done substantially better the week after bad losses. Not just this year either. Last year the team followed a 23-point loss with a mere five-point loss. Then a 27-pointer was followed by a six-pointer.

They repeated the 23-point-to-five-point spread again, won after being shelled by 30 and lost by a single point after losing by 31.

Most of the time over the past few years though, expectations were low so losing was disappointing but hardly a shock. On Friday, many people expected the Cats to win. Believing they’d closed the gap on Montreal makes losing this way particularly painful because it exposed how far they still have to go.

Which brings us to Calgary. A rebound win this weekend and most will dismiss Friday as just one of those nights.

The kind that happen to everyone now and again.

But another ghastly effort and suddenly so much of the good feeling that’s been brewing since July gets called into question.

Especially with a huge conference game on deck against Winnipeg the week after that Hamilton absolutely should win, and then a trip to Montreal. Games that would become bigger than just battles for two points.

Because losing games is bad enough. But heading into the playoffs having lost all the momentum and confidence you worked so hard to gain isn’t much better.

Read more….

Courtesy Hamilton Spectator:

Calgary running back Joffrey Reynolds slices through the Ticat defensive front and into space, just one player to beat on the way to pay dirt. Sandy Beveridge is neither the biggest or the fastest of safeties but, using near-textbook positioning and technique, he hauls down Reynolds in the open field. The gain is 22 yards, but the scoreboard change is zero. Three plays later, Calgary is forced to punt.

Dylan Barker is second in the league in special teams tackles with 23. He has all the physical gifts — size, speed, strength — that you’d expect from the 2008 first overall draft pick. After missing all of his rookie season with a broken leg, Barker is slowly developing into the player the Ticats hoped he would become — a bona-fide starting safety.

But, for now, he is Beveridge’s back up.

“I’m happy with the progress of both those guys,” said defensive co-ordinator Greg Marshall. “Dylan’s capable of being a starter in this league, but there’s no timetable. Sandy’s doing a great job and it doesn’t matter to me if your eighth year or first year, free agent or first-round pick, the best guy is going to play.”

What Beveridge lacks in natural talent — “It’s deceptive speed, it’s long strides,” he jokes — he makes up for with experience and smarts.

“I’ve been in this league seven years and I’ve seen a lot, I understand a lot. Maybe it’s the instincts, but it’s the film study and working hard in practice that makes it easier on game day,” he said.

Marshall joined the Ticats in the off-season, bringing his defensive scheme from Winnipeg. It’s a complicated defence that demands a lot from the safety position.

“Sandy’s basically the quarterback for us back there. He makes the checks and gets us lined up and gives us a chance to execute the call. It’s a very key position and he’s doing a very good job,” Marshall said. “He’s been around the block a few times and he’s seen a few things. He understands what offences are trying to do to us.”

Barker, meanwhile, has the raw physical tools but “raw” is the operative word.

“The reality is Dylan’s a rookie. He’s learning the game and doing a good job in trying to grow his understanding of what offences are trying to do and how that affects his role,” Marshall said.

“Slowly but surely, we’re bringing him along.”

Both Beveridge and Barker are quick to stress that, despite their competition for playing time, they have a constructive relationship both on and off the field.

“Dylan and I are a team. We work hard in practice, we watch film together. If I were to go down, I’d want him to go in there and make plays.” Beveridge said. “There’s no animosity between us, we were working together on a daily basis and we hang out together off the field.”

Barker said Beveridge has been open in sharing what he’s learned since joining the Ticats as a free agent in 2003.

“He’s really been helping me and we work really well together. There’s no feud or anything like that,” Barker said.

Like many young Canadian players, Barker is cutting his teeth on special teams, something he says will help his learning curve on defence as well.

“When you have those returners bearing down on you, it helps you get a feel for how shifty those guys really are, the Tristan Jacksons and Larry Taylors of the league,” Barker said.

If Beveridge is the present, Barker would certainly seem to represent the future at safety for the Ticats. But Beveridge says he’s just relishing the first starting job of his career.

“It’s a great opportunity for me right now and I’ve been waiting a long time for it and I’m just trying to make the most of it. I can’t worry about decisions that might get made down the road,” he said.

Read more…

Courtesy Hamilton Spectator:

The Ticats will head into tomorrow’s game against Montreal without a few starters in the lineup.

Defensive linemen Darrell Adams and Garrett McIntyre are both “questionable” for tomorrow’s game against Montreal, while wide receiver Prechae Rodriguez is unlikely to play.

Halfback Geoff Tisdale is also battling the flu, something head coach Marcel Bellefeuille said has affected the team for weeks.

“Just before the second Toronto game, the flu went through our team hard — we never talked about it because I didn’t want to make excuses. But we seem to be on the other side of it, so we just want to be on the safe side and let him rest,” Bellefeuille said. “He’s played enough so if he’s healthy enough we can play him, but we have to make that determination.”

With Rodriguez out, receiver Airese Currie will get another shot against the Als. Currie made three catches in last Friday’s win over Calgary but also had some drops.

“He’s probably the fastest player on the field. He has great speed, great elusiveness and that adds a different dimension,” Bellefeuille said.

* * *

Defensive lineman Bryan Robinson was released yesterday after less than a month with the team.

Robinson has an opportunity to play in the new United Football League that is set to launch its inaugural season in October.

Bellefeuille said the parting was amicable.

“You hate to prevent a guy from getting a chance to play. Practice prepares a player to play and playing makes them better,” he said. “He’s a guy we may bring back in training camp next year.”

Read more……

Courtesy Hamilton Spectator:

If you build a winner, they will come.

That was the conventional wisdom used to explain sparse crowds at Ivor Wynne Stadium during the past few seasons of Tiger-Cat football. Winning 17 games in four years and being out of playoff contention by Labour Day can have a dispiriting effect on even the most hardy of fans.

But this season the Cats are better. They’ve won as many games, six, as in the previous two seasons combined. And they’re putting on a good show at home, winning five of six — they even knocked off the defending Grey Cup champions last Friday.

Nonetheless, just 19,448 fans came to watch that thrilling, come-from-behind victory — far below the roughly 30,000 seat capacity of Ivor Wynne.

The team has averaged just 22,759 on the year, second last in the CFL and well below the league average of 28,283.

The only team that’s worse is Montreal — which has sold out its 20,000-seat stadium 92 consecutive times and is expanding next year.

So where is everybody?

Ticat president Scott Mitchell says there are a number of factors, not the least of which is that you don’t climb from the morass of perpetual mediocrity overnight.

“When you have a franchise that struggles for a number of years, it’s next to impossible to turn it around the first year,” Mitchell said. “Attendance is dictated to a large degree by season tickets sales and that’s not going to change during the season.”

Following that logic, should the Cats continue with their promising campaign — including the buzz created by a possible home playoff date — the team should see a bump in 2010.

“We are bullish about group sales and season seats for next year — I’d like to see a marked improvement in both. That’s where the proof will be in the pudding,” Mitchell said.

There are additional factors at play. Tourism Hamilton’s David Adames says that, not only has the sluggish economy affected how dollars are spent, the gainfully employed are more cautious with their ducats, too.

“There’s folks that may have been laid off or are between jobs so they have less discretionary money,” Adames said. “But the other market that is working and does have leisure dollars are making different decisions on how to spend that money, too.”

Entertainment and leisure options in the city have multiplied exponentially in the past 10 years — Adames says there is at least one special event per weekend in the city — and the Cats are facing stiff competition.

Mitchell says he believes the economy, in particular, is a factor. The team has seen end zone, family and corner seats sell well while premium tickets and suite sales have been sluggish.

“I don’t think any other CFL city has been hit as hard as Hamilton. Obviously that has an affect,” Mitchell said.

Compounding matters further is that Cat fans also have the option of staying in the comfort of their own homes and enjoying the game at a fraction of the cost of actually going. With the ready availability of economical, large flat screen televisions and high definition — not to mention cheaper beer — couch potatoes can enjoy a nice experience.

“In Hamilton, we have fans that have watched every Ticat game for the last 10 years on TV and have never come to the stadium. Because we haven’t used blackouts, fans just expect the games to be on TV,” Mitchell said.

The team has the option to black out one of the remaining home games but isn’t planning to do so.

Karen Ironside is the president of the Cat Claws Fan Club and says she expects attendance to pick up if the team continues to win.

“Hamilton is a fair-weather city and if they think there’s a bandwagon to be jumped on, they will. But they will be latecomers to the game,” she said.

Ironside said she’s fine sharing space with fans who haven’t necessarily been religious in Ivor Wynne patronage through the (very) lean years that preceded this one.

“They pay their dime just I like I did — in fact, they pay more because I have season tickets,” she laughs.

“Whatever fills the stadium and helps the team.”

Read more…

Courtesy Hamilton Spectator:

The win notwithstanding, a team with any designs on going deep into the playoffs can’t have too many outings like the Ticats did on Friday. At times it looked like a pre-season contest with the inexplicable fumbles, dropped passes, silly penalties and a third-down attempt being stuffed at the line.

Even some of the players admit that last year or the year before that or even the year before that, an effort like Friday’s would’ve ended as a loss. When things didn’t go right, the momentum would’ve begun spinning away from them and Calgary would’ve danced out of town with the two points.

“That’s true,” says linebacker Ray Mariuz. “That’s fair. We’d just find ways to lose.”

And yet the Cats won. Despite playing much of the game in a way only Picasso could love, they found a way to pull it out.

So what’s changed? A little more than half a season into a resurgence that’s five years in the making, what’s happened that this less-than-crisp performance could end in a victory?

The obvious answer is a vastly improved defence. But, for the more subtle explanation, we turn to Marwan Hage. Having spent the past few years winning games about as often as Kanye West demonstrated class, the team’s veteran centre is now enjoying the turnaround as much as anyone.

According to him, you can chalk up the change to three things. All found between the ears.

The first is confidence in the coaching. In an assessment that falls somewhere between shockingly blunt and really shockingly blunt, he says there’s sometimes been a “disconnect” between the coaches and players over the last few years.

“In the past, when it went bad we looked at the coaches and said, ‘Your systems aren’t working,’” he admits.

That lack of confidence in the game plan destroys everything. In football, every play is scripted and requires each player to fulfil a certain task in order to work. If players start losing faith in the plan and believing it’s taking them nowhere good, it’s going to take a toll psychologically. That will eventually manifest itself on the field.

On the flip side, if the players think the coaches are putting them in position to win, they learn that if they just keep going hard and keep things close, they’ll eventually be presented with the directions to the other team’s soft spot.

Hage’s second offering is an extension of that. He says players now believe they’re going to win instead of merely hoping it’ll happen.

Consider the difference. If you’re going to jump off the roof of a building onto a pile of cardboard boxes, you’re going to leap with a much higher level of comfort if you’ve done it before so you truly believe the landing spot will hold rather than just hoping it might because you saw someone do it on TV once.

That kind of comfort level lets everyone relax. As anyone who’s ever played a sport knows, it’s much easier to play when everything’s loose and guys are having fun.

“As soon as you start winning, everyone stays relaxed,” Mariuz says. “That’s the big difference. Not being scared to lose.”

As for Hage’s third explanation, well, it combines parts of the first and the second. Coaching and belief.

Players throughout the dressing room will tell you that, since the first day of training camp, head coach Marcel Bellefeuille has been preaching a three-word mantra. The Next Play. Doesn’t matter what happened a moment ago. The next play is the most important one. Don’t dwell on a mistake, just make sure the next play is better.

“We’ve heard it so much from him it’s kind of boring,” Hage quips.

So how does that apply in a tangible way? Midway through the fourth quarter Friday, the Cats sent in third-string quarterback Adam Tafralis to fill his usual role as third-and-short guy. Except he didn’t get the couple feet he needed for a Ticat first down, which could’ve been a devastating moment in the game.

But next time the team was in the exact same situation, in goes Tafralis again. And showing no sudden lack of confidence in his pivot, the coaching staff calls for a deep pass that’s thrown perfectly to Arland Bruce for a touchdown.

It’s a microcosm of why Bellefeuille’s the leading candidate for coach of the year right now. It’s why guys have smiles in the dressing room these days. It’s why the Cats were able to knock off the Grey Cup champs despite a less-than-perfect game. And why they’ve now equalled their win total for the past two years combined.

It’s not complicated. But it’s clearly working.

Read more….

Courtesy Hamilton Spectator:

The two-pronged quarterback attack just became a pitchfork.

After all the talk about Quinton Porter and Kevin Glenn, the game-winning touchdown pass was thrown by third-string and short-yardage quarterback Adam Tafralis. His 36-yard strike to Arland Bruce gave the Cats a 24-17 win over the Calgary Stampeders last night.

The winning play came with less than five minutes left in the game. Tafralis looked set to perform a quarterback sneak on second and short — he’d been stopped on third down the series before — but instead launched his rainbow to Bruce.

“I put it an area where Arland could make a play and he did the rest,” Tafralis said. “As soon as it left my hand, I knew it was a touchdown.”

The other quarterback played pretty well, too, though he was shaky early on. Porter, starting his first game since missing three with a knee injury, fumbled on his second play from scrimmage, setting up the Stamps’ first TD. He fumbled on the next series. He also threw an interception in the endzone — all in the first quarter.

“I was trying to do a little too much when nothing was there,” he said. “The flip side of that is there were some plays I made. When you come away from a win, it’s hard to question it too much.”

He wasn’t the only Ticat struggling. DeAndra’ Cobb coughed it up and Calgary’s Milt Collins ran it back 39 yards for a score and 14-3 Stampeder lead.

But head coach Marcel Bellefeuille said the team kept its composure on the sidelines.

“The one thing I did take solace in was that they weren’t moving the ball very well against us and the turnovers we had on offence, we were actually moving the ball,” Bellefeuille said. “I knew we were playing good defence and I knew we were moving the ball so there was no panic.”

And the second quarter saw the Stamps struggle. On the first play of the new frame, Markeith Knowlton blocked a Burke Dales punt and the Cats were set up at the Stamps’ 14-yard line. Hamilton could only muster a 13-yard Nick Setta field goal that cut the lead to 14-6.

He connected on a single and a 32-yarder to cut the lead to 14-10 at halftime.

Working against the wind in the third quarter, the Stamps controlled the ball for more than nine minutes, though they got just three points off a 17-yard Sandro DeAngelis field goal. The Cats entered the fourth quarter down 17-10.

But Porter connected on a 17-yard touchdown pass to Bruce less than three minutes into the final stanza and the game was all tied at 17. That set up the Tafralis-to-Bruce heroics.

Bruce finished with six catches for 105 yards and the two TDs. Porter went 19 for 30, 247 yards, one touchdown and one interception.

“It’s a huge win,” Porter said. “We were 5-5 and this was probably a pivotal swing game for us. It says a lot about our character and personality.”

Bruce, meanwhile, said the team’s goal is clear:

“I get to look at 15 Grey Cup banners every day and that’s on my mind when I come to work.”

As for Tafralis, he doesn’t expect to be added to the starting QB debate as the Ticats prepare to face the Alouettes on Friday at Ivor Wynne.

“I wish,” he said with a grin.

Read more….

Courtesy Globe and Mail:

So how did the two principals in the Hamilton Tiger-Cats’ tag-team quarterbacking system handle the news that Kevin Glenn would be bumped in favour of Quinton Porter for Friday night’s game against the Calgary Stampeders?

In Glenn’s case, by hanging around and scarfing down a DQ Blizzard after practice – in uniform – talking about the difference between being “disappointed and upset” and “disappointed and understanding.”

Porter? He approached it as somebody who, in his own words, “has no preconceived conceptions of where my career should be,” who believes “everything is for a reason, although not always some big reason that you can think of right away, you know, in your head.”

With his 5-5 team embarking on a stretch in which four of its next five games are against the CFL’s measuring sticks – the Stampeders and Montreal Alouettes – Tiger-Cats head coach Marcel Bellefeuille has turned back to Porter, who played in just two series last week to get his legs under him after suffering minor knee-ligament damage on Aug. 16.

Bellefeuille tried to make it sound like a no-brainer (“The reality of it is he [Porter] was our starter and got hurt and had a 3-1 record and he’s healthy now,” Bellefeuille said, “so we have won with him.”) but also suggested he was aware that this decision has the whiff of a defining moment.

“One of the challenges they’ve had here in Hamilton is not finding the right quarterback, who can stay here for a number of years,” Bellefeuille said. “They haven’t always looked in advance, to find help for four or five years, but instead have tried a one-season turnaround.”

The fact that Bellefeuille put Porter into last Friday’s 25-22 overtime loss to the Toronto Argonauts for a couple of series – despite the fact Glenn played well in a 31-30 loss to the Edmonton Eskimos and was at the helm in the Tiger-Cats’ 34-15 hammering of the Argos on Labour Day – suggests this return was thought out well in advance. So what if it goes pear-shaped? A natural question, because as Glenn had said just minutes earlier between mouthfuls of ice cream: “Competitive sports is all about proving somebody else wrong.” And, you know, that’s what we’re here for, to help think up the worst-case scenario.

“It’s a challenge,” Bellefeuille said. “You have to look at whether it’s him [the quarterback] or the people around him who are struggling. And that’s a decision you make on the sidelines. When you have a guy like Kevin who has been productive, sometimes you don’t give the other guy the opportunity to play his way out of situations.”

Stampeders head coach John Hufnagel is prepared to see both Porter and Glenn.

“They have two quarterbacks they can parlay off each other,” Hufnagel said. “Quinton did a nice job early on. He’s a very fast quarterback, probably faster than what most people think. When he gets the edge? He’s getting some yards down the field. Kevin has the ability to make plays in tight situations, but if the protection broke down, not that Kevin can’t get a first down, I’d be a little more afraid of Quinton’s ability.”

The evidence suggests that Bellefeuille has got the plot right more often than not this season. As Hufnagel noted: The Tiger-Cats don’t take many penalties any more (second-last in the league) and they don’t turn over the ball all that much. “They don’t play a lot of bad football,” Hufnagel said.

That would bring a smile to the face of Bellefeuille, who said the first half of the CFL season was devoted to getting his team to increase the speed of its game, not just to act and react faster but to think faster.

“Play positively,” is how he describes it, suggesting a direction and a tempo more than a mindset.

The Tiger-Cats are now good enough that nagging little mistakes cost them games, as opposed to being the difference between a 25- and 30-point blowout loss. That’s progress. Considering the sense of direction Bellefeuille, president Scott Mitchell and general manager Bob O’Billovich have given this franchise, there’s no reason not to trust Bellefeuille’s reading of both his team and Porter’s learning curve, no reason not to trust him when he says they aren’t mutually exclusive.

Read more…

Courtesy Hamilton Spectator:

“The snow falls, each flake in its appropriate place.”

– Zen saying

Quinton Porter is on two different but parallel journeys. One is of a deeply personal and spiritual nature as he seeks understanding and perhaps even enlightenment, using the guidance provided by Eastern philosophies and their modern Western interpretations. He meditates, he does yoga, he thinks.

Narrated slide show

The second journey is to become an elite quarterback for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, and preferably sooner rather than later. He has been anointed the future of the franchise, the stud quarterback in training, a player that just needs a little seasoning before leading this long-suffering Ticat Nation to its own version of nirvana.

In many respects, these two paths would seem incongruous. Can an introspective, thoughtful person who sees football as only a part of life’s experience grow and prosper in an environment known for its rigidity and discipline and measured by a score line. In football, the journey matters a lot less than the outcome: winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing, as the phrase so famously goes.

It begs the question: Is a Zen State of Quarterbacking even possible?

* * *

There are only two tried-and-true methods to developing a starting quarterback in football. The first is sink-or-swim, where a young player is thrown into a starting role and allowed essentially to learn on the job. There are the inevitable bumps along the way, and the team is often terrible as a result. But if he survives — and that’s a big if — the quarterback can often be successful for many years. Montreal’s Anthony Calvillo — who cut his teeth playing some awful football for the Ticats — is a graduate of this school.

The second method is for a young quarterback to hold a clipboard for several seasons while waiting behind a veteran starter. He watches and learns.

When his opportunity comes, through injury or age, hopefully he’s ready to step in. High school and college QBs are often groomed this way, and Saskatchewan’s Darian Durant, a backup for his first three seasons in the league, is a decent CFL example.

But neither of these options were available to Hamilton Tiger-Cat head coach Marcel Bellefeuille when it came to Porter. The team had lost 57 games over four seasons, and the prospect of another difficult campaign while a young quarterback learned the ropes wasn’t going to be acceptable to an increasingly frustrated fan base.

So while anointing Porter the quarterback of the future in the offseason, the team acquired nine-year vet Kevin Glenn as a free agent. Porter started the first seven games of the season, but was pulled in three of them. Glenn has started the last three after Porter injured his knee in an Aug. 16 game against Saskatchewan. Their numbers on the season are remarkably similar: Glenn has an 88.1 quarterback rating — an aggregate measure of a QB’s performance — while Porter’s is 80.9.

“This model is more ‘let-the young guy play as much as he can’ to gain the experience, and see if he can be successful and progress as much as he needs to. Then we have the veteran guy who can take over in the middle of a game or start on any given week and give what you need to help you win,” Bellefeuille says. “In our situation, we have to develop the quarterback, but we have to juggle that with trying to win and have a successful season. That’s why this model fits this situation.”

In order for this system to work, however, the quarterbacks involved need to buy in. And in the alpha dog world of pro football, where every player wants to be The Man, it’s not easy to have your playing time yanked around. Both quarterbacks have tired of the endless questions about a quarterback controversy and who’s starting this week. And Glenn is being asked to essentially help groom his successor without actually being given the starting job — Porter gets the nod against Calgary tonight.

“One of the reasons Kevin’s here is that he’s mature enough and understands the situation and the game well enough to help us manage it. Not only that, but he’s a good enough player to help us win,” Bellefeuille said.

* * *

The risk is that the uncertain nature of it all shatters Porter’s confidence and, in the worst-case scenario, destroys his potential stardom. There are countless examples of quarterbacks cracked by poor play and the uncertainty that followed.

But Porter seems uniquely qualified to handle this new and sometimes awkward situation, essentially by relying on the spiritual lessons he’s learned since his father passed away in 2003 when Porter was at Boston College.

“I lost my father and the temporary nature of everything shocked me. It was the first time I’d experienced anything like that. You start to look for the things that aren’t temporary. The mere concept that something is temporary means there’s something behind it that isn’t,” Porter says.

“The body that’s here is temporary — even the cells that are here now will be gone in a few years. But there’s something here that’s not changing, that’s been here since I was born, since before I was born. The sense of ‘I am’ never changes. No matter what happens, underneath the form there is something that is always present.”

He’s studied Buddhism and has read extensively from the works of modern Western spiritualists such Ken Wilber and Eckhart Tolle, who’s written such bestsellers as the Power of Now and A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose.

Tolle emphasizes being aware of the present moment. He says it is the human ego which is the source of inner and outer conflict, and only by examining the ego may people begin to see beyond it and obtain a sense of spiritual enlightenment or a new outlook on reality.

“The idea of who you are can’t come into play. If I go into a game where things happen in split seconds, thinking ‘what are they going to say about Quinton Porter in the newspaper,’ then you’ve gotten in the way of yourself.

“The you that you believe yourself to be has gotten in the way of the real you. The real you is awareness, the consciousness that you are. You don’t need to know that stuff or talk about it. All athletes that play well know that without saying it or having heard it.”

This is weighty stuff for a 26-year-old who has to keep a massive playbook and a litany of defensive schemes and coverages straight in his head on any given week. It raises the questions whether Porter might actually be a little too self-aware for his own good.

But Bellefeuille doesn’t think so. “Football players that have good awareness are focused and they have a good sense of what’s going on around them. They can make plays because they can see things that are developing outside the structure of what you’re doing.”

Bellefeuille has also read Tolle — I’d like odds on another CFL team where both the quarterback and the head coach have read Buddhist philosophy — and says it has implications for football players.

“The one thing that’s interesting is Tolle’s idea of living and playing in the moment: if you’re thinking ahead, you can’t be as successful in what you’re doing today because you’re not totally focused on what’s happening now — like this particular play or this particular practice. Some of it is very applicable,” he says.

Focusing on the immediate task at hand has been Bellefeuille’s mantra all season as he has tried to insulate a young team from the franchise’s inglorious recent history and, after some early success, the rising tide of expectation. The coach is a deeply Christian man and has read widely, which enables him to reach not just his team, but his young quarterback.

“I understand the basis of what he believes in and how he processes things. That is helpful,” Bellefeuille says.

* * *

One of the elements of Buddhist teachings is that while enlightenment is the ultimate goal, it’s the journey that’s important. Porter sees the football part of his existence within his larger self, not the defining factor. “The snow falls, each flake in its appropriate place,” is one of his favourite proverbs.

“I believe that, there’s no doubt about it. The way things are today are exactly the way they should be. They will never be any other way. How they are moving forward, we’ll never know. All you can do each day is be present in each moment of the journey.”

But how does Porter reconcile these two journeys, his pursuit of knowledge and enlightenment and his more visceral and competitive pursuit of touchdowns and victories and team success?

The short answer is, he doesn’t need to. “It’s a paradox. On the level of time, which is in the mind, I’m a really competitive guy and I want the story of Quinton Porter to go a certain way and I work extremely hard at it because that’s a passion I feel inside,” he says. “I love football and it’s so fun to play.

“But on the level of the eternal, there’s only what’s happening right now, and that’s who I truly am. The mind can never truly understand life because it’s paradoxical.

“Reconciling them is almost futile — it’s never in need of being reconciled.”

Read more….