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Alternative CFL awards: top tweets, quotes, dumb moves and more

Marcel Desjardins
Marcel Desjardins

Ottawa Redblacks GM Marcel Desjardins earned the 55-Yard Line award for Tweet of the Year. (OttawaRedblacks.com photo.)

The Shaw CFL Awards are set to take place Thursday night in Toronto, but many of the on-field awards seem relatively easy to predict: Bo Levi Mitchell, Solomon Elimimian and Dave Dickenson in particular should be heavy favourites. What if there were alternative awards, though, for some of the off-field things that went on this season? Here’s a look at how those might play out.

Best tweet: Marcel Desjardins at Shawn Lemon: Lemon’s decision to leave the Ottawa Redblacks for the Saskatchewan Roughriders in free agency (he was later traded to Toronto) sparked a fascinating Twitter exchange, with Ottawa general manager Marcel Desjardins saying the Redblacks didn’t bid on Lemon, Lemon posting what he said was a screengrab of texts from Desjardins, and Desjardins disputing that:

We still don’t have a definitive resolution to this, but “THOSE ARE NOT MY TEXTS” is the clear 55-Yard Line tweet of the year.

Top quote: Henry Burris tells “all those guys at TSN” to “shove it”: Burris’ on-again, off-again status as the Redblacks’ starter has been one of the most fascinating storylines this year, and given how he’s often been motivated by criticism, his particular reaction to criticism is an easy choice for quote of the year:

Interview of the year right there. The critics weren’t wrong, considering how Burris threw for just 218 yards with two interceptions the previous week, but his response is still gold.

Dumbest move: The Alouettes cutting Duron Carter and Kenny Stafford after the trade deadline: There were lots of contenders for this, including the Riders cutting John Chick and Weston Dressler and later trading away Shawn Lemon, the Argos cutting their three top receivers from 2015, and the Argos spending more for Drew Willy than they did for Ricky Ray, but Montreal’s bizarre decision to cut Carter and Stafford after the trade deadline (ensuring they couldn’t play for anyone else this year) really stands out. The Alouettes took top talents and turned them into nothing, and their timing may further hurt their reputation around the league.

Top shade: What Carter threw at Montreal: Here’s what Carter tweeted after the Alouettes cut him. As he noted, that’s a long way from what they said when they were trying to lure him back to town following his NFL stint:

Carter did go on to thank the fans, and that’s good to see. He wasn’t wrong to throw shade at Alouettes’ management as well, though, and he did so very well.

Top Grey Cup question and answer: The best question of the Grey Cup coaches’ press conference is always the annual Jim “Shaky” Hunt question about coaches’ policies on their players having pre-game sex, a tradition carried on by Terry Jones since Hunt’s 2006 death. The responses from Ottawa head coach Rick Campbell and Calgary head coach Dave Dickenson were outstanding this year:

It’s great to see that famous CFL tradition continuing and the coaches getting into the proper spirit, and that’s certainly deserving of an award.