Great guy, that Michael Clemons.Smiles a lot. Always says the right things. Yanks money from his pocket occasionally to feed the poor. Heck, he even took the shoes off his feet at a hospital one dayand walked away in his socks to cheer up a sick kid who expressed interest inhis footwear.
Yep, that’s Pinball. He’ll probably be Toronto’s mayor some day.
In the meantime, however, he’s a CFL head coach, and please do not be fooled. Behindthose pearly white teeth and that heart of gold is a shrewd andeven ruthless football mind.
That’s why Pinball fired Kent Austin as the Argonauts’ offensive co-ordinator earlier this season. It was a cold, calculated move. And yet, from a football perspective, it was as shrewd as it was ruthless.
See, Austin was fired because he wouldn’t endorse Pinball’s desire to employ two high-profile, running backs in the same backfield. The CFL is a passing game, argued theex-quarterback, and if Clemons wished to use both Ricky Williams and John Avery simultaneously, he’d have to do so without him.
And so Austin was terminated, and Clemons prepared to move on with the CFL’s version of the Yankees — with two highly paid running backs, both former first-round draft choices in the NFL, sharing the workload in unusual fashion.
There were some unexpected delays for Pinball’s plans, as Avery and Williams took turns getting injured.
Yesterday, however, the tandem was unveiled together for the first time at a Thanksgiving Day tilt in Toronto, and it was fairlyimpressive.
Williams and Avery undeniably helped the Argos defeat the beleaguered Eskimos. They amassed decent numbers and confirmed that, yes, Pinballis on to something here. Edmonton defenders may not have been mezmerized by the Double Blue’s Double Threat, but they clearly didn’t know which back to key on, and so Williams and Avery ran well enough, caught well enough and blocked well enough to accomplish the mission.
As the new landscape becomes more familiar, the tandem will improve, and the truth is that the Argos are a good bet now to represent the East at the Grey Cup game. That’ll be in Winnipeg, where it’ll be cold and probably wet and where a productive rushing attack will be vital. No one throws very well in the CFL any more, anyway, not with theheavy new football the league is using this year.
So Clemons presumably was right; Austin wasn’t.
Don’t worry about Austin, though. He’ll be the next head coach in Saskatchewan, maybe very soon after a dreadful loss by the Roughriders in Montreal yesterday. And when Austin rebounds, Pinball will be delighted.
That’s the wayhe is. Great guy, that Michael Clemons.
Marty York’s column appears Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.
