Legendary quarterback Doug Flutie has revealed previously unknown details about how the CFL helped to inspire one of the most dangerous offensive concepts in modern football.
In an appearance on the popular podcast ‘Games with Names,’ Flutie recounted the changes he witnessed throughout his 21-year professional football career, which spanned the USFL, CFL, and NFL. That included seeing the birth of the modern run-pass option (RPO) while he was employed north of the border.
“All that RPO stuff, that started with Damon Allen, (Pro Football Hall of Fame running back) Marcus Allen’s younger brother, who was in Edmonton. We ran all our run game out of gun and Damon was eyeing the backside end and pulling the ball, running naked off it if he closed down,” he told podcast host and former New England Patriots receiver Julian Edelman.
“I was like, ‘Hey, I can do that.’ Then I did it and I’d get five, seven yards and the corner or someone would come off of the slot or whatever to make the tackle. I’m like, ‘Screw that, you run a fade, you run an out. If he comes off, I’m throwing you the ball.’ And we started doing this stuff.”
Everyone from Texas high school coaches to Hall of Fame QB Brett Favre has claimed a role in inventing the RPO, though most American experts credit the innovation to Rich Rodriguez, who first introduced the concept at Glenville State in the early 1990s and perfected it the following decade at West Virginia. However, Canadian fans and former CFL players have long suggested they did it first.
While Flutie’s remarks are not unique, he did reveal new information about how these three-down ideas trickled across the border.
“Chip Kelly came up to Toronto, he was at (the University of New Hampshire) at the time. He came up to Toronto and watched all our film and was asking questions about this, that, and the other thing,” the former Argonaut recalled. “Then he goes to UNH and he just starts lighting it up. He went to Oregon and it all became the zone read stuff. Because in Canada, we didn’t have reins on us.”
Kelly, who is currently employed as the offensive coordinator at Ohio State, was still the offensive line coach for New Hampshire during Flutie’s final season in Toronto in 1997. He took over as the play-caller for the Wildcats two years later and helped the team average more than 400 yards of offence per game in seven of the next eight seasons.
His revolutionary up-tempo, spread offence made the Oregon Ducks a perennial national title contender when he joined that school in 2007, earning him three PAC-12 titles and AP College Football Coach of the Year honours in 2010. He later brought those concepts to the NFL as head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles (2013-2015) and San Francisco 49ers (2016).
It would appear that at least some of that success was inspired by the plays that Flutie was running in Toronto, much of which the quarterback says he adapted on the fly. Speaking about his later career, the former Heisman Trophy winner bemoaned the popularity of wristbands in the NFL and the introduction of helmet radios, which made him long for his days in Canada.
“I hated that I had a frickin’ radio in my head. I came from Canada where we’re spreading them out and slinging it all over the place, I’m calling my own plays and having a blast, to the second the play ends, you’ve got a radio in your helmet and your offensive coordinator is talking to you,” he recalled. “Shut the hell up! I got it, I was at practice on Wednesday. I know what we’re looking for.”
“Not that you stopped thinking but I went from, in Canada, calling my own plays. ‘Hey, how was he playing you on the backside?’ ‘He’s inside technique, we’ve got the corner route.’ ‘Ok, let’s go Robo Right, you’ve got a smash out on the backside, you guys will go 371 on the front side.’ Kind of thinking the play through and knowing where I wanted to put people to ‘Shut the hell up and listen.’ I hated the radio in my helmet, I liked thinking on my toes.”
Flutie’s unique ability to adapt and create made him arguably the greatest player in CFL history, winning six Most Outstanding Player trophies and three Grey Cups. In eight seasons with the B.C. Lions (1990-91), Calgary Stampeders (1992-95), and Toronto Argonauts (1996-97), he threw for 41,335 yards, 270 touchdowns, and 155 interceptions, running for an additional 4,660 yards and 66 majors.
The five-foot-10 playmaker returned to the NFL to finish his career, eventually retiring at the age of 43 after spending the 2005 season with his hometown New England Patriots. The freedom of the CFL’s larger field size and unique rulebook first made him an icon north of the 49th parallel and he believes it could have done the same for another undersized dual-threat passer.
“The CFL game, you could get away with being an athlete. I was thinking about this, if Jules had gone to the CFL as a quarterback, he would have stayed a quarterback. It just would have been on,” he said of Edelman, who played QB at Kent State before converting to receiver in the NFL.
“You could as a quarterback in that league get away with being an athlete and taking off and scrambling and be competitive. The difference was because the field was wider, there was more space. If you wanted to scramble, it was a joke. Like, ‘Okay, it’s on.’ I remember the first preseason game, we had slants or something and I held it. I moved to the right, went outside and kind of turned the corner and was like, ‘Holy mackerel, I’ve got 12 more yards!'”
Edelman was originally offered a contract by the B.C. Lions in 2009 to play quarterback but went on to amass 6,822 receiving yards and 36 touchdowns with the Patriots. Though he didn’t at the time, the MVP of Super Bowl LIII would now qualify as a National under CFL rules due to his mother being born in Kitchener, Ont.
While we’ll never know what kind of innovation may have come from Edelman taking snaps in the CFL, it is clear that Flutie’s time in Canada helped change the nature of football at all levels on both sides of the border.
