The Benefield Files

Now I've Seen It All

OK now I’ve seen everything. Are you freaking kidding me 6-0, 6-0, now I know the apocalypse must be upon us. Nobody comes back from winning a Grey Cup, then loses star players, loses a star head coach, and comes back 6 and freaking 0. To make me more scared and play into my apocalyptic mentality causing me to continue to pack my Land Cruiser to head for parts unknown. Dinwiddie got his first start of the season and puts up FOUR big ones and some change on the Stamps. Then Dinwiddie pulled an Icarus and came crashing to earth against a slick veteran Argo squad. I knew California put out some deftly talented quarterbacks but going highlight film on the Stamps is nuts. Then again the Stamps have about as much defense as the “school grinder” in the back seat of your parents station wagon at the Drive-in. Remember the drive-in, and what was her name? I really have to question the Calgary Defense not to take away too much from “The Riders.” But is the Stamp defense the new Hamilton of the West? Expect to see some new recruits for the back nine of the season. The big question can the Riders continue to rewrite the meaning of the word team? Another reason to panic Pam Anderson has a new tv show.

Dark Clouds approach.

Riders on the storm Into this house were born

Into this world were thrown

Like a dog without a bone an actor out on loan

Riders on the storm, thanks Morrison for chiming in.

Injury, I never did like that dude much or any of his friends; tweaks, breaks, compound fracture, mild sprain, and the runt of the group little sore. The problem with little sore he can swell up into a big, bad customer if he’s not looked after real quick, properly, and pronto. So Ivan you had better stay on point. The football landscape is teeming with out of work NFL Europa trainers.

Things to listen for from players

The players that sit around on the practice roster, taxi squad, the cool male cheerleaders crew, the developmental team, and the all, “you watch what happens when I get in team.”

Whatever names these guys go by they are waiting for their big chance to play, and now is the time the training wheels are coming off.

The interviews of those playing this week because of injuries will be, “well you know, you don’t want anybody to get hurt,” followed by the obligatory “you know what I’m sayin.”, Another fav, “when its your moment you have to shine.” I like the, “I’m just going to have to do my part.” But I just wish I could hear one guy say, “geez I hope I don’t suck.” It would be equivalent to the time Richard Pryor said, “I hope I’m funny.”

As players we all sit around like vultures waiting for our moment. The moment is always bad for the player whose spot we are waiting to take. Its not like high school and your sitting around saying I can’t wait for these guys to graduate. Or in college I hope that guy goes pro early, or if you’re at a infamous college, “man I sure hope that guy gets arrested.” Or in the pros I hope that old dude calls it quits next year, unless you’re Aaron Rodgers. But no one ever says, “I hope that guy gets hurt so I can play.” Well now is your chance sub-type guy, you had better make it count and make it a great one. Why because it’s just so simple so many people are watching. Who, must you ask? The league is watching. Your agent is watching, your parents will be watching but most importantly ET, and the coaching staff will be watching. You play well you’ll stick around, if you stink, oh please don’t stink because with the glut of players on the market ET’s phone will get blown up like Megan Foxx of the Transformers leaking her email address at the ComicCon convention.

You have to figure with NFL teams having 80, or (2560) guys for 32 teams in camp this year. 53 (1696) will make the active roster, 45(1440) on game day, 8(256) will be on the developmental squad. So using my California math 27(864) guys are going to be packing at some time or another in the next few weeks. Of those 27(864) guys 7 (224) guys are legit ballers, that can start in the NFL at some time or another but they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. 10(320) of those 20(640) that are left are good to great CFL players, or NFL role players. The other 5(160) are hit or miss just average football players. The remaining 5(160) are just garbage, camp bodies. So you have to shine right now.

CAN THE CFL GET SOME COOL COMMERCIALS FROM REEBOK?

I just saw the “join the migration” commercial by Reebok. It sent chills down my spine.

The CANTON extravaganza.

Watching the NFL induction Hall of Fame Show. Geez can we get some pomp, pageantry and some hype for our league, maybe just a little passion. What I found interesting is the way the new NFL players talk about the players before them. We need that in the CFL, but the problem is to pull film on past players is almost impossible. Also getting some of the, “hater reporters” to admit past players had game and recognize them, fans seem to but writers juts don’t want to give it up.

Even more interesting is Michael Irvin having a job in broadcasting with a major player that being the NFL Network. This is great because sure he has had his problems, but this shows a league, a network which is unafraid of players with baggage that are working hard to get through the ruff period of life. This is also huge because it shows that there is an executive with “cohones”, that is unafraid to put players with personality on the tube. I like that. One story in particular that I found most incredible is that of Michael Irvin having a conversation with commissioner Roger Goodell about bringing the younger players to Canton to see and feel the tradition they are now apart of. Listening to the interviews of younger players begging to see film of the great past players to learn, to study, to try to get an understanding of why, and what made these players so great is enough to give this incoming generation a standing ovation. The flicker of hope that these young men represent for the NFL is enough to become a fan of the league. If only enough powerful people gave a damn about our CFL.

Is Edmonton the Devil’s Triangle for Saskatchewan players? It has got to be the last place a Rider would want to sign in the offseason.

Why are people counting out the Lions already in the first third of the season?

Does Calgary’s Jo-Juan Armour get money, an apology letter, or anything back for the BOGUS call and ejection on the so-called hit on the official? Who was the ref that insisted he saw the play from start to finish and missed 300lb Gene Makowsky pushing 230lb Armour. First that ref needs to get his prescription filled, and secondly do we really want people in charge running around seeing things? Gino I’m glad you have finally perfected the “inviso-button.” Can I borrow it for a weekend.

The CFL East will now change their name to the CFL South East Conference. The name change comes with hopes that the eastern division can finally beat a western conference team.

All witness the power of Brett Favre. Bow down and know he is the man!

Finally photographers, videographers, when shooting people of color, especially dark people of color face them into the light.

Corey Grant is not a bad looking guy he deserves to be seen and not as a shadow. Corey I know this because I’m not just a member, I’m the president.

heydb@mac.com

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Great Time to Watch the CFL

First of all I have to apologize to Joe Hadesbeck at CKRM for missing his radio show. I watched as the clock counted down to 1:30pm PST and was ready to go for our phone interview and wouldn’t you know death, and destruction aka my two toddlers Ty 2 1/2 yrs old & Addyson 20 months spilled into the house with mom from their morning trip to the pool. Both are hungry, tired, and counting down to snooze time. So sorry Joe, time just flew when the category 4 entered the door.

Please excuse me readers for pulling a Marty York and jumping the gun on the Michael Bishop waiver thing. From here on out its only Adam Schefter type commenting on serious information.

Saturday’s game

The Riders should never play another night game again. Watching it on the tube was epic. I hated as a player playing in the rain, but that was on astroturf and these punk kids today are playing on field turf so there’s no problem. Simply put the game looked great. I move that everyone in Saskatchewan calls their congressman to make game day an official provincial holiday. If you have to go to the cottage then all tv’s, and radios must be tuned to the game if not you can, and will be fined. If you are traveling to the game by car or truck from parts unknown then an official Rider placard will be issued and your speed limit should be raised. Drive safely.

If I were a young football player and was coming to Canada next year and I caught the Rider & Als game on tv the Riders instantly go on the list of teams to talk to. It’s just something about big, face painted, standing, noisy, regular season crowds that speak to a players psyche. Sponsors, viewers, and everyone else just gets caught up in the magnitude of the event. So fans I guess this is the bed you have made, and now you must lie in it, you’ve set the set the table, now its time to eat and continue to live up to the standard you are presently setting, so see you next week. If players are held accountable to play at a winning level week in and week out then fans have to be held accountable to get it up every home game. It’s an easy job for 9 home regular season games, and a playoff game to bring it 100%.

Funny thing happened during the Lions and Winnipeg game. While up in the media area I pass by the Vancouver Province luxury box, which is next to the Maury Dueck box where Commish Marc Cohon is intently watching the game. My ex boss Jonathan McDonald of the Vancouver Province points out these two guys in Kelly green t-shirts that are sitting watching the game. He springs me on the two Rider fans one guy living in Ottawa, the other living in San Francisco. Apparently these two lucky souls are doing their own “endless summer” football style. The next day they were off to see the Riders, Als game.

“The power of Six Degrees of Daved Benefield

As an ex “defensive god”, “I’m laughing right now” who has played against some of the best running backs in the game for over a decade I would have to put Wes Cates in that elite group. If your defense can’t, won’t, and don’t stop “the Cates” then you are going to lose. He has all the ingredients of a great back, the vision, the balance, the speed, and a bunch of other things that a great back must possess. He reminds me of Mike Pringle in the way that he can take a hit, and fall forward 5yards. Oh and please think he’s tired in the fourth quarter so he can run up a C note on you. Mike loved doing that. He has the elusiveness of Blaise Bryant, the receiving ability of Robert Drummond and Archie Amerson. So he’s complete. So Cates you may now move into my locker.(kidding)

The new number 4. Darian Durant is looking more and more like a younger version of Kerry Joseph just without the open field, physical, running back nature. On a side note it looks like KJ is getting comfortable in the offense and his touchdown run was epic.

This is seriously a great time to be watching the CFL with all the great young quarterbacks in the league. Hopefully the propaganda machine of the CFL will catch up to the game, and its players, and make these guys the stars they deserve to be.

Reggie Hunt, 2 ints and a 1 sack wow you can’t tell me he’s lost a step, and this is playing in a new defense, with new people all around you. “Mr. Reaper way to come back home, and put on a great show for your fans.” People must remember this game is a business, a cold one at that, here today gone tomorrow maximize your income is number one.

Let’s face few players are looked after when the game is over. Career doors close faster than, Maurice Lloyd closing on a ball carrier. So like I tell young players the career is everything but sooner or later you have to make a decision what you want to do when you’re done, and where can you go in order to get your start. I think franchises that can cover this base will not only keep players, but will build stronger bonds with players and set themselves apart from other teams in the league. Now of course the trick is getting negotiations to be fair and not using community jobs and budding careers as a reason to not give players raises and fair market values. Looking back why did I leave Vancouver? A wise guy GM who tried to leverage the fact that I was making Vancouver home. His thinking I would play for what I made as a rookie because I wouldn’t want to leave. NOT.

Neil Hughes is not Chris Szarka but he’s a different sort of back. He’s like New England’s Kevin Faulk multi dimensional, versatile and just gets the job done. I wonder if Hughes is part Jamaican because, “he does so many things, and has so many jobs mahn.” Chris Szarka is a Mike Sellars type of fullback/tailback/ hback/ tightend sorta player, especially in this smaller lighter CFL. They both can exist and be productive in a well thought out CFL gameplan.

Marc Trestman has got to be one of the best new coaches I have seen in a long time make the jump to the CFL. You can totally tell Anthony Calvillo has a better connection with coach Trestman then he did with Marcel Bellefeuille. This is a lesson its better to communicate with your veteran qb’s, and players. Find out what they do best, then tweak the playbook to work. Especially for guys like AC.

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Michael Bishop is waived from the Argos? Are you freakin kidding me? So much for being the air-apparent, so much for advertisers, and their cardboard cut out life size Michael Bishop promotional gifts. So much for the Argo FatHead test market and so much for coaching up young talent. The ugly truth is in the CFL you have to come with big game. Skills are great, but every guy on a CFL field has skills. You have to have that raw sparkling talent in order to stick around. Think Kitwana Jones. (Now look here kid don’t go out there and make me look bad for mentioning you in my most holy blog.)

Look at the facts the CFL is the ultimate not for long league, which I feel hurts the league in more ways than one. In the NFL you can bounce around if you have the talent and the right credentials, but in the CFL you have only 8 chances to win Homer.

With the lack of dollars in the CFL it’s hard to hire the bright young extra coaches needed in order to coach up players that need coaching. When you can’t bring in bright young position coaches to learn the game, and do the position coaching, then where do your next head coaches come from? See the void? This is another one of those things that continues to separate us from the NFL, which bludgeons us in the perception game.

You wind up having a lot of players from the CFL which either move into the AFL1or 2 or not playing at all because their game hasn’t improved from the college ranks no matter which conference they come from.

I don’t like the release of Michael Bishop because I don’t think a Kent Austin type coach has had Bishop lined up right in his crosshairs one on one like Austin had a Kerry Joseph in Ottawa and then again in Saskatchewan. Guys like Bishop need strong coaches to get them to become better pros improving on what has got them to this level. The CFL isn’t some college division where you are playing against some first year starting 18 year old that only because of his size, and weight was all state in a weak football environment.

I think back to all my years in football and where I got my best coaching. At the end of the day part has come from desire, drive, a few coaches who loved to coach, and a large number of great veterans with tons of football knowledge, and experience who were willing to teach, and answer questions. Who were the great coaches for me? Kit Lathrop, he knew how to communicate and break down what I was doing and make it better. He was also an ex defensive end in the USFL.

The veterans: offensive, defensive, and defensive coordinator Dave Richie in Ottawa in 1992. Taught me the 3-4.

Don Lindsay in BC in 1999, he was so college he would just rep you to death, but if you liked practice then it was the place to be.

Bobby Jurassin who was coached by James “Quick” Parker. This was a bitter-sweet experience because I got this coaching late in the career during training camp when I should have been on the seniors tour. I can’t think of how many older vets want to get extra coaching during camp when they could be resting or lounging between practices. The hard work paid off by allowing me to have more fun, and giving me a defensive MVP. I hate using the word “If” but had I taken this class sooner and Bobby showed up sooner, it would have been good for either another 25 sacks or 4 years in the NFL.

When you look at the CFL game and look at the best players you should know that most of these guys are running on athletic ability, smarts, and left over coaching from college, or some NFL camps. The longer you stick around in the CFL if you get lucky you find coaches who played the game that can teach you the finer points. These guys are worth there weight in gold. You combine these guys with seasoned vets that have the franchises, and coach’s approval and now you are getting coaching that is second to none.

Its like in Ottawa I had Les Browne, and Anthony Drawhorn, and Charles Gordon all in the same defensive backfield. Look at the information being passed down from Hall of Famer, to great player, to the next generation great player.

In the CFL we can’t discount the veterans that continue to play at a high level, as well as teaching the next generation of stars how to play this great game these guys become icons of our league.

heydb@mac.com

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The Weight of the Ring

What’s so easy about wearing a Grey Cup ring? The weight of the ring is too heavy for mere mortals. Some guys play a life time on a youthful never ending quest to obtain a ring and then in the twilight of the career they run out of time, gas, and retire, or worse get cut without the one thing they were after all along. For those in the back nine its dodging the specters of age, suspect GM’s, vultures of youth, and they finally get their lucky number called. The ring is the one bauble to make all those years and battles worthwhile. Forget the individual awards, pictures, placards, jerseys, and little black book friends. The ring is what you want! I didn’t comprehend it as a youngster. The idea to play pro football was all consuming, considering how hard it is to first be invited to camp, and then make a team was first and foremost in the thoughts. After getting into the profession becoming the best is what took center stage, and then one day after coming close to going to the show I was bitten by the, “must get the ring bug.”

Older players can handle the weight of the ring, and that being only some older players. Having a ring and a title“Grey Cup Champion” is a bit more than some simple sporting souls can handle. Wasn’t it Shoeless Joe Jackson who said,“I would play for food money." Which was probably why Joe was shoeless. I’ve watched pineriders, walk into a bar with a GCR and all of a sudden these guys became Rock Stars. The ring pulls old men, young men, and women like a tractor beam from all corners of the bars, and restaurants to behold the shining hunk of metal on this now godly finger. The drinks, the conversations, the chinning, and grinning of being so close to a GC ring easily makes average ale 200 proof.

I remember in my early ring wearing period. I underestimated the power of “the GCR”. I was at dinner in Whistler with friends from California. These were the“old friends” the sort that knew me back when I was captain of the art club. These are guys who would laugh hysterically when the mere idea of Daved being a pro football player would enter their thoughts. I was a running, gut busting joke. How could this goofy guy who was first to throw water balloons into a crowd of sorority girls, and the last one to walk out of a massive Toga party wearing one shoe with the police helicopter overhead lighting the neighborhood, now be a pro football player, let alone a Grey Cup Champion?

At the end of a dinner, a group of ski sweatered, snooty, baby boomers were a booth away when the leader of the group happened to walk by our table and noticed the ring. Biff stopped gazed at the ring, introduced himself, then his wife Buffy, and his other dinner guests flocked over and marveled at the ring. Our table became the center attraction. I didn’t think it was a big deal because he said he was a long time football fan but he had never seen the GCR up close before. My friends were fascinated no longer laughing. Then I took off my ring and handed it to the man. He tried on the GCR and his face lit up like he had found the fountain of youth. Even his wife who looked like the only thing that would excite her would be a week shopping in Paris was taken by the way the ring took her husband away. The power of the ring! We never got a bill for that dinner.

Fears

What is the biggest fear for any veteran free agent signing with a team that has just won the ring? It’s that the guys in the room are not serious about getting another ring this upcoming season. It is really easy for the guys in the room to make excuses if the season isn’t going their way. You will hear the “I wish so and so were here, I wish this had happened, I wish, I wish.” Vets on the clock don’t have time to sit around and listen to other guys wish, and watch young guys live in the past. Young guys you don’t know when your time card will be punched either. It’s like being hungry and going to a friend’s pad that just crushed an all you can eat buffet earlier in the day. They aren’t too motivated about eating.

Teams that line up to play the Grey Cup Champions have a serious axe to grind. Teams are more aggressive its like if you could step into the octagon with the guy or girl who stole your girl or man. You would bring it! Also having hearing it blared over the PA system that the team you are playing isn’t the Saskatchewan Roughriders, but it’s the defending Grey Cup Champion Saskatchewan Roughriders. Opponents instantly become ticked off and it could be the first game of the season but teams are out to send a message, pile the points on, and will play you like it’s for the last spot of playoffs. It’s a superstition that you like some late night monster will return from the grave just in time to make a magical run during playoffs as if the magic is guaranteed to return. It’s not.

Fans

What about the fans? All the years of waiting for the love of the cup, and for their players to get, “the GCR.” Then once the goal is achieved the parades are over and the sponsors are signed up it becomes the past. It’s now about the present. Because for fans the game is seriously Janet Jackson, “what have you done for me lately.” Fans file the winning year away like a photo album, remembering the experiences that accompanied the run for the cup, birth of a child, new relationship started, new job, girlfriend dumped as all part of that magical year, and then they dust off the new space for the 08 album.

But fans are hungry enough to ask for a “back to back” winning season. It’s expected. Are there fans crazy enough to be consumed by wanting complete and total league domination and another GCR? YES, and it’s a good thing. So word to the 08 players, fans are quick to change tunes like Charlie Sheen changes women, so try not to let a blow out, or two happen, or a few uninspired losing games. The rest of the league is coming, and soon. Take it away Morgan.

Red: [narrating] I wish I could tell you that the Riders fought the good fight, and the rest of the league let them be champs again. I wish I could tell you that - but the CFL is no fairy-tale world. The Riders never said who did it, but we all knew. Things went on like that for a while - CFL life consists of routine, and then more routine. Every so often, the Riders would show up with fresh bruises. The league kept at them - sometimes the Riders would be able to fight 'em off, sometimes not. And that's how it went for the Riders - that was routine.

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