CFLQuarterbacking then and now

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Russ Jackson, here completing a pass against Toronto in the 1969 playoffs, says the game Anthony Calvillo quarterbacks has changed in many ways, but the role of the pivot has not. (The Canadian Press)

Wally Gabler remembers a time in 1968 when his then-Toronto Argonauts were playing Ottawa in a two-game East final, and coach Leo Cahill came to his quarterback for a chat.

Leo, Gabler says, had just had a dream. And in that dream: Gabler was playing quarterback in the shotgun formation, and beating the powerful Ottawa Rough Riders.

Not that they had tried the play, of course. Never even in practice. But Gabler was going to run it against the Riders.

"We lost 15 yards on the first play, and 10 yards on the second play, and we told Leo we weren't running it any more," says Gabler, chuckling down the phone line from Kimberley, Ont.

Bet Anthony Calvillo has never dealt with that one.

But as the Montreal Alouettes' quarterback passed Damon Allen for most touchdowns thrown in a CFL career Friday night against the Toronto Argonauts, it is instructive to think of how the position has changed in 40 years as seen through the eyes of some stars who played the position back then - the great Russ Jackson, Wally Gabler and Chuck Ealey.

What's changed?

1. Formations

When Calvillo comes to the line and peeks behind him, the Als' star does not often find a fleet running back standing in front of a hulking fullback in an I- or T-formation.

That's taken deception out of the quarterback's game.

"We had two running backs and a lot of what I would call faking, and deception with the ball handling in the running game is gone," says Jackson, who spent 11 years as a quarterback with the Rough Riders up to 1969, won the Grey Cup three times and is still considered by many of a certain vintage the best the CFL has seen.

"[Deception] is still important, but not as important as it was 40 years ago."

You don't see Calvillo often put the ball into one back's stomach, sneak it back out and then hand it off stealthily to another back going the other way, for example, except on the occasional reverse.

Quarterbacks used to practise endless hours on just that one move.

Also gone with the fullback for the most part is the classic tight end, a big guy who could block on running plays and offer a lot of protection for the quarterback.

"That leads more to the lack of the running game," says Gabler, who played seven years in the CFL to 1972 after coming out of the University of Michigan. "You take away a blocker and turn him into a receiver, so the guys up front have to do the majority of the blocking."

But, replacing the fullback and tight end also spreads out the defence itself because it has to react, so Calvillo is looking at a lot less guys inside when he scans the defenders.

2. The sweep

There was nothing more basic in 1960s football than the sweep, known in the NFL as the Lombardi Sweep, or "four yards and a cloud of dust."

In Canada it was perfected by the Saskatchewan Roughriders out West, with Ron Lancaster handing off to George Reed, and by Ottawa with Jackson giving to backs Ronny Stewart or Vic Washington.

Both guards would pull, hustle outside and join the tight end and a receiver to set up a wall the running back could follow.

At first glance, that play seems gone from the CFL book, but Jackson says it isn't. It's now the hitch screen pass (coach Bob O'Billovich's favourite play), where you toss a delay out to the flats for a receiver who still has those guards and blockers in front of him to go.

Michael "Pinball" Clemons made a career out of it.

3. Movement

Nothing has changed more than the way receivers and backs move around prior to the snap. Especially when you have four receivers who begin 10 yards back and hit the line on the snap at full speed (often offside, not that the referees call that, but that's an argument for another story).

"We were much more stationary," says Gabler, who actually was in on the first big change from everyone being set (like they still do in the No Fun League down south), to creative motion.

"Leo Cahill ... put in the "student body left" and "student body right" where he'd move two [receivers] across the offence and force the defence to follow them and work out if they were going to use zone or man coverage," Gabler says. "That was innovative."

And it worked, so over the years the motion became ever more creative until now the CFL is featuring the "waggle," where three receivers running up to the line cross at the last moment to confuse a defence.

When things were stationary, 40 years back, you had time to work out who was covering who and pick out the matchups you want.

Now, things happen for Calvillo much more quickly and that has created more of a "recognition game" on the run, Gabler says. That's harder.

4. Film

When Jackson would sit down with legendary coach Frank "The Professor" Clair two days after a game, they would work off a big reel of 16 mm they could run forwards or backwards that presented the game from start to finish.

Now, Jackson says (and he almost sounds wistful down the line, as though wondering what they could have done with modern technology), film is broken down into packages of first downs and second downs, and pass plays vs. run plays, and how the defence reacted to short passes, etc.

That's a huge advantage for Calvillo and his ilk, vs. what the old folks had at their finger tips. It also means anything new the offences come up with, the defences can react to almost right away.

"You are able to see things the day after Hamilton plays Montreal, and the team that's going to play Hamilton next can break everything right down right away," says Jackson, who was a head coach in Toronto in the 1970s after his playing career ended.

The traditional checker game is now so much more intense as a result.

What's the same?

1. Fundamentals

Chuck Ealey, who never lost a game as a starting quarterback through high school and college until he got to the CFL in 1972, is adamant that once Calvillo takes the snap he's playing the same game they played all those decades ago.

"For Anthony, and Russ and myself, much of the job is still reading the defence and getting the ball to a certain area [where the receiver will be]," says the man who took Hamilton to the 1972 Grey Cup win as a rookie.

"It's the same field, the same number of players, finding what spot you have to [throw to]," he says, adding the key point is that despite all the movement, all the deception, the "waggle" and whatever else, the receivers are still going to the same spots they always did.

"It's just how they got there [that's different]."

2. Play calling

Modern quarterbacks, with a few exceptions and Calvillo is at times one of them, do not call their own plays as the old fellas did. They can still change them by calling audibles (signals that alter the call) at the line, but you do that at your peril if you get it wrong.

Back then, if a coach wanted to get a play in, they used the "shuttle" system, sending out a receiver to bring the call and taking another out. Now, with the helmet communication technology finally arriving in the CFL, that's gone, and it does take some of the fun out of it for quarterbacks.

Jackson used to not only call his game, but he'd make it up sometimes as well. He remembers making changes on the sidelines and in the huddle as well, recognizing a defensive tendency and working out a reaction on the spot.

That would leave coach Clair scratching his head on the sidelines because in all the excitement they'd, you know, forget to tell the coach, but the plays would work more often than not.

Not to say, of course, they were playing sandlot football out there, but if creativity was needed, you could use it.

Calvillo, and Doug Flutie before him, probably comes closest to what an old fashioned quarterback might have been able to do.

And there's no doubt for any of them that if Calvillo came up in a system where you always had to call your own plays, he could. Just as the older pivots are confident if they came up today, not calling the plays and dealing with all the motion, they too would adapt.

3. Leadership

This, they all agree, will never change unless something fundamental is altered in the rules.

"The quarterback is still the ace," Gabler says. "He's got to do the job. He has to command the respect of the players. He has to be the disciplinarian on the field."

It's easy to see the ones who do it best, as well.

"You take the guys like [Tom] Brady and [Peyton] Manning and Calvillo, they run the game, they know what they're doing and what has to be done," he says. "The difference with them is so obvious it's unbelievable."

Jackson concurs.

"The quarterback is the kingpin," says a man who was the undisputed kingpin in Ottawa. "He's the one that has to make it go, especially today with the passing game [where you can throw twice as many times as they used to].

"You have to be able to read defences, progress through your reads ... and it's difficult to understand how to read defences, and the progression."

Jackson says it takes a number of seasons to learn to do it right, and that's why you'll so often see young quarterbacks with superb arms in training camp who, when the games begin, can't learn to read the progression from one receiver to another to another as the play unfolds.

Calvillo, who does it superbly, is reading a more complicated defence now, one that has halfbacks coming on the blitz (only the linebackers used to come at you) and one that is offering a regular combination of zone and man to man, sometimes on each play.

Would it be fun to play now?

"I think so," says Jackson, who turns 75 later this month (can that be true?). "I always enjoyed the idea of me vs. you. Of you're the quarterback and you have to make decisions."

Gabler remembers a documentary he saw a few years ago that had a lot of old NFL star quarterbacks sitting around talking about what they didn't miss, like training camp, for example.

"And [Fran] Tarekenton says 'I miss having the ball on my own 20, with two minutes to go, and seeing if I can win the game.'

"That's the big challenge."

A challenge Calvillo has met so well, he's well worthy of sitting around with those other guys in years to come, talking about what they miss.

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