SIMMONS: Argos remain the Toronto team everyone should want to equal
When the Maple Leafs were winning four Stanley Cups in the 1960s — the glory days — the Argos were winning absolutely nothing.
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The CFL was a nine-team league and the NHL had six teams the time.
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The Leafs were the standard for Toronto sport while the Argos once went 31 years between titles.
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But, over time, all that has changed, as has just about everything with the Argos.
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They are the defending Grey Cup champions. The win last November was the second for head coach Ryan Dinwiddie in just four years on the job. It was the fifth Grey Cup win for the Argos since 2004.
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That's five wins in the past 20 seasons.
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This has been the hottest team in Toronto for a lot of our lives, no matter how old you are, the team we want the Leafs and Raptors and Blue Jays to mirror — but somehow that's just not possible.
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The newest Argos season begins Friday night in Montreal and, if there is any consternation over the season opener, it's not heard in many places.
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The star quarterback, the controversial figure that is Chad Kelly, isn't healthy enough to start Week 1. The star running back of a year ago, Ka'Deem Carey, the thousand-yard rusher, was let go at the end of camp in a surprising transaction. Two stars from the defensive line, Ralph Holley and Robbie Smith, have gone elsewhere for more money, Holley to try and land a job in Cleveland, Smith went to Edmonton and all but doubled his Toronto salary.
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And yet coach Dinwiddie likes the roster he has to begin the season, figures these Argos are good enough to make the playoffs, could be back in the Grey Cup again, isn't ruling anything out. And why should he?
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Dinwiddie isn't easy to define. He doesn't have the head football coaching kind of presence that a Don Matthews had. He doesn't have the folksy way about him that a Marv Levy had in Buffalo. There isn't anything about him that particularly stands out except his resume.
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That alone should make him a legend for all time in Toronto. Leo Cahill never won anything and talked a great game and remains legendary with those old enough to have been around when he mattered as Argos coach. Matthews won two Grey Cups in two seasons in one of his stints coaching the Argos and had Doug Flutie as his quarterback in those years. He'll always be remembered for that.
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Dinwiddie has two Grey Cups — probably should have three — and he won while starting at quarterback with Macleod Bethel-Thompson in one game and career backup Nick Arbuckle in the other.
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