Cleo Lemon’s adjustment to the CFL would have been helped by some time holding a clipboard.
You look at every starting quarterback in the Canadian Football League and there is a consistency. Almost every one of them started out as a rookie in the CFL and worked his way up to becoming a starter.
There is but one exception: Cleo Lemon, starting quarterback of the Toronto Argonauts. He was thrust into the starting role last year straight out of the National Football League, some of it as a starter, without any CFL experience.
He is similar in that respect to Doug Flutie, who spent time in the NFL, a portion of it as a starter, before coming to the CFL. The difference is - and by no means is this a comparison of the two or their abilities - Flutie apprenticed in his first season in the CFL. He did not become a full-time starter until his second year.
And what he did afterward is learn the game, both from the perspective of field size, extra player, rules and all those nuances that make it so much different from the American game. Flutie's instincts as a football player took over after that and he became a great player, perhaps the greatest quarterback in CFL history.
Flutie's ascension to greatness was followed in Calgary by his backup, Jeff Garcia. In turn, Garcia was followed by Dave Dickenson, who was then followed by Henry Burris. All won Grey Cups.
In Edmonton, Ricky Ray began his rookie season as the third-string quarterback, but moved up to starter in Week 5 - and has been a starter ever since. He has been a Grey Cup winner, and this season he is enjoying a resurgence that has contributed significantly to the Eskimos starting off 3-0.
In B.C., general manager/head coach Wally Buono has Travis Lulay as his starter, following a year and a half of being a backup, first the third-stringer and then the second-stringer. He shows all the signs of becoming the next great, young quarterback. He is third currently in passing yardage in the league. Buono is the winningest head coach in CFL history and has always placed a premium on developing quarterbacks, allowing the backups to move into a starting role once they have apprenticed.
Darian Durant worked his way up the roster and became the Saskatchewan Roughriders' starter in 2008 after Kerry Joseph, who was voted the CFL's Most Outstanding Player Award, was traded to Toronto. Joseph, who played in the NFL as a safety and special teams player, came into the CFL in 2003 so far down on the depth chart of the expansion Ottawa Renegades that he was but a blip. But not long into the season he became the starter and stayed that way until the team collapsed after four seasons.
Winnipeg starter Buck Pierce came from B.C., where he worked his way up from a backup to become a starter and then was let go via free agency last year when the Lions decided not to re-sign him because of his propensity for injuries.
Kevin Glenn apprenticed in Saskatchewan and then became the starter in Winnipeg and now in Hamilton.
Anthony Calvillo's rise from ordinary to greatness with the Montreal Alouettes happened through years of apprenticing in Hamilton, though he actually became a starter as a raw rookie with the now-defunct Las Vegas Posse in 1994. He had no professional experience prior to joining the Posse and had to learn the game and improve his mechanics as a backup in Hamilton and certainly after that with Montreal.
So the trend of developing as a backup first and then becoming a starter is the rule rather than the exception.
The list of former NFL quarterbacks who have come to the CFL and done well - certainly in the last 25 or 30 years - is extremely limited. Flutie is one good example and another is Mike Kerrigan, who was generally a backup in Seattle and came to the CFL in 1986 and won the Grey Cup in his first season with Hamilton and was named the game's Most Valuable Player. He narrowly missed winning another Grey Cup in 1989. He retired as the Tiger-Cats' all-time leading passer at the time of his retirement after the 1996 season. Another example is Sean Salibury, who was a backup in the NFL with Seattle and Indianapolis and then came to the CFL with Winnipeg in 1988 and led them to a Grey Cup win that year. Jim Zorn was a star in the NFL for awhile, but was demoted to backup and came to the CFL with Winnipeg in 1986 and lasted only one year.
Among those NFL quarterbacks who failed badly are Mike McMahon, Timm Rosenbach and Vince Ferragamo, to name a few.
Argo general manager/head coach Jim Barker has given Lemon every chance to succeed and indicated in training camp that his pivot had improved from last year's learning experience. But he has yet to fully show that with any consistency.
It would seem based strictly on the history of the CFL and quarterbacks that current Argo backup Dalton Bell is destined to succeed Lemon or at the very least be given a good luck, if only because of his experience in the CFL behind the starter. Steven Jyles, whom the Argos acquired in an off-season trade with Winnipeg and is currently on the injured list with an injured shoulder, was acquired to provide competition in training camp. He apprenticed in Edmonton, Saskatchewan and Winnipeg and would also seem to be in the Argos' plan.
It may be now or never for Cleo Lemon simply based on the history of active starting CFL quarterbacks. They had to learn to earn their way to the top. Lemon didn't.
