By Rob Vanstone
The three finest quarterbacks in Saskatchewan Roughriders history were imbued with several attributes, but a rocket-powered arm wasn’t at the top of the list.
Ron Lancaster’s right arm certainly does not elicit comparisons to the howitzer of Michael Bishop, whose powerful passes were recently recalled in this cherished space.
Early in Darian Durant’s tenure with the Green and White, one of the criticisms pertained to an allegedly suspect throwing arm. Durant soon rebutted his detractors, guiding the team to three Grey Cup appearances — including a home-field championship-game victory in 2013 — while launching a series of picturesque passes.
And then there is Kent Austin, who compiled eye-popping passing statistics during a dizzying span that began with the 1989 Grey Cup game and carried through the 1993 CFL season. He did so without being deemed worthy of inclusion in the Regina Leader-Post’s list of the Roughriders’ 10 strongest throwing arms.
The same can be said of Saskatchewan’s current marquee pivot, Cody Fajardo, who in 2019 was named a CFL all-star and the West Division’s most outstanding player. Fajardo’s throwing arm is undeniably solid, but nothing reminiscent of, say, Joe (747) Adams.
Moral of story: All-world arm strength, while beneficial, is not the be-all and end-all for a quarterback.
“I really don’t think it’s an essential thing,” concurs Dan Farthing, who played slotback for Saskatchewan from 1991 to 2001.
“When you know you have to put the ball in a particular place before that becomes an open place to put a football, you can get it on its way earlier and you don’t have to get it there as fast.
“I used to love it when I would run my route and you would have a rapport with your quarterback and the ball was more than halfway there when you turned your head. You’d turn around and react to the ball immediately.
“The thing that a receiver hates over and above all things is running your route and turning around and the ball’s still in the quarterback’s hands. They’re waiting for you to get open and that’s way too late. Even if they get it there super, super fast — before it can be knocked down and before that window closes — that’s a tough thing to do if you’re late on the draw.
“If you’re a student of the game and your pre-snap reads and early-play-development reads are taking you somewhere just because of what you know, that super-strong arm is not an essential asset. It doesn’t have to happen.”
Mind you, it is a bonus if it does happen.
The top-10 list — compiled with input from several erstwhile Roughriders receivers and long-time CFL general manager Eric Tillman — included Henry Burris (No. 2), Kerry Joseph (No. 4) and Glenn Dobbs (No. 5), all of whom were premier passers.
Burris is a mortal lock for enshrinement in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.
Joseph guided the Roughriders to a Grey Cup victory in 2007, a year in which he was named the league’s most outstanding player.
Dobbs, the Western Interprovincial Football Union’s most valuable player in 1951, guided Saskatchewan to a Grey Cup berth that year as a newcomer to the Canadian gridiron ranks.
In 14 regular-season games, Dobbs threw a previously unthinkable 28 touchdown passes — a total that was not approached by a Roughrider until Lancaster put up a career-high 28 in 1966 en route to guiding the team to its first Grey Cup title.
“Quarterbacks don’t need to have big arms, but they do need to have smarts, touch and anticipation, and Ronnie had all of the above,” says Joey Walters, who in 1978 caught Lancaster’s 333rd and final touchdown pass. “Ronnie mastered those skills and that is why he is one of the greatest players to play in the CFL.”
Dobbs and Lancaster shared the Roughriders’ single-season record for touchdown passes until 1991, when Austin amassed 32 (despite missing 5 1/2 of the team’s 18 games with a partially separated right shoulder).
Austin followed up with 35, an enduring franchise record, in 1992. He added 31 in 1993. Durant (with 31 in 2013) and Burris (30 in 2000) are the only other Roughriders to reach the 30 milestone.
“Kent gets less credit than he should for having a strong arm,” Farthing notes. “He could throw the ball downfield a long way.
“I don’t think people ever think of him in the same light as a Henry Burris as far as arm strength, but he had a lot stronger arm than people think, for sure.”
That was evident during the 1989 Grey Cup game, in which Austin threw for 474 yards and three touchdowns to help Saskatchewan defeat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 43-40.
In addition to throwing a 75-yard touchdown bomb to Jeff Fairholm, Austin’s precise passes routinely zipped through tight windows into the hands of Ray Elgaard, Don Narcisse, James Ellingson and Mark Guy. The latter receiver caught a 52-yard bomb from Austin in that game.
Most importantly, Austin threw a ball that receivers loved to catch. So did Burris, even though his fastball inspired awe throughout his 20-year CFL career.
“Quarterbacks with super-strong arms sometimes can throw what’s called a soft ball, too,” Farthing points out.
“What that means is that the ball might be coming at you, but just the way the orientation of the tip is coming toward you, it makes the ball either easy or hard to catch.
“So sometimes a hard-throwing quarterback will throw a ball and the lead edge tip of the ball is kind of tipped downward.
“There’s just a little nuance about it that makes it seem like it’s a stone instead of something that’s a leather ball that you can actually catch. The other one is like a missile that seems to be made out of concrete. Those are not fun to catch.
“Henry did not have that. Henry actually had a ball that was easy to catch, even though you could hear it coming.”
The antithesis of Burris was Charlie Harding, whose trajectory was such that the effectiveness of his velocity could be negated.
“Harding heaves what is known in the trade as a ‘hard pass’ in contrast to the ‘soft pass’ tossed by Frank Tripucka and (Frank) Filchock, the old master himself,” Hank Johnson wrote in the Regina Leader-Post on Oct. 21, 1955.
“A soft pass floats with the nose up, instead of down (like Harding’s), and is easier for the receiver to handle.”
Even so, Harding completed seven of 11 passes for 128 yards as a member of the 1955 Roughriders, with one touchdown, nary an interception, and an impressive efficiency rating (133.9).
The following year, as a member of the Ottawa Rough Riders, he went 1-for-10.
rvanstone@postmedia.com
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VIA: https://leaderpost.com/sports/football/cfl/saskatchewan-roughriders/rob-vanstone-a-quarterbacks-touch-can-lead-to-touchdowns
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