Star CFL receiver Duron Carter spent his time in Toronto trying to appease then-head coach Marc Trestman.
It began by deleting his highly active Twitter account.
“I guess, essentially, that was pretty much the deal. I don’t particularly mind being off of social media, it’s not something I invest a lot in, so getting off and deleting it was nothing for me. If that made the team happy or coach Trestman happy, I’m all for doing it,” Carter said on the 3DownNation podcast.
After the Argos league-worst 4-14 season ended on Nov. 2, Carter returned to social media by posting a video of him going around Montreal handing out $50 bills to people working at fast foods restaurants. It wasn’t a troll Tweet or shot at the Argos, instead Carter trying to make some nights better with free money.
“I was a free agent and coming off after the end of the season in Toronto I was contemplating if I wanted to keep on playing football. Not being able to say anything about what’s going on and everybody asking me questions and seeing articles written about me, it really is hard not to have a voice. I’m just sitting here going through the motions and everybody has all this speculation about me, so that’s why I came back, I gotta put a stop to all this stuff,” Carter said.
The 28-year-old playmaker signed with Toronto in late August prior to the Labour Day Classic. Carter was held out of the Week 13 Monday game in Hamilton, but Trestman decided to dress him the following week for the rematch at BMO Field.
“Going through all the politics and jumping through a whole bunch of hoops and still having somebody trying to undermine you it was just really hard. I had never been in a place like that before and every time I went to a team in the CFL, since my rookie year, I’ve been doing great and me being on the field and not producing put me in a place I’d never been in, it was very uncomfortable,” Carter said.
During eight games to end the season in double blue, Carter caught 10 balls for 119 yards and one touchdown while returning 12 punts for 49 yards, three kick-offs for 48 yards and three missed field goals for 61 yards. The Argos went 1-7 while Carter was wearing an Argos jersey.
“Coach Trestman, he had a great coaching staff, but we weren’t winning and me coming in and being the type of player that I am, that particularly coach Trestman wouldn’t have signed if they were winning, it caused strain on how people reacted to me being in there,” Carter said.
“It wasn’t a problem on the team, I loved my teammates. I had S.J. Green there, I had Armanti Edwards, I had some of the best teammates in the world, I had Bear Woods, some of the old guys I had in Montreal. We just couldn’t get the chemistry going for me to be productive.”
Carter was trying to do anything he could to fix the Argos sinking ship. General manager Jim Popp brought Carter to the CFL in 2013 and knew his special abilities as a receiver, but Trestman had specific and strict rules to follow.
“When I had to abide by how somebody else wants me to be, I can’t be me, I can’t be the same player that you expect, I can’t do all the exciting stuff and all the energetic stuff I do without any energy,” Carter said.
“That was my main problem in Toronto was just trying to get into being me and also abide by how they wanted me to be.”
