Familiar coach, new QB help Argos' Green have late career year

Ricky Ray knew he shouldn’t have thrown the ball. S.J. Green knew Ray shouldn’t have thrown the ball.

But Green’s job wasn’t to evaluate the wisdom of the pass, it was to catch it at the height of his jump between two Saskatchewan defenders. That’s precisely what he did, rising above halfback Kacy Rogers II and corner Ed Gainey to pluck the ill-advised ball from its dangerous flight path and land it safely for the touchdown.

In the grander scheme of things the play didn’t really matter. It was just one catch of 104 Green has made this season. It was merely 14 of his 1,462 yards. Worst of all — as far as Green is concerned — the Toronto Argonauts lost that Week 6 game 38-27.

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However, for the 32-year-old receiver that catch was enormously important because it represented a milestone in his relationship with quarterback Ricky Ray.

“That was the moment for me where I felt like ‘OK this guy really trusts me,'” Green said of the grab. “That was a great feeling because as a receiver to have a quarterback with that kind of faith and belief in you to come down with 50-50 balls in double coverage is amazing and humbling.”

“I remember that play,” Ray said. “He was running a go route on the outside. I was reading the play inside and I didn’t have the inside guy so I saw S.J. running and he beat his guy on the outside. The halfback was playing high over top and I threw it up anyways and he went up over two guys and made a big catch for a touchdown.”

“That’s the thing the great receivers have, even when the quarterback makes a mistake and probably shouldn’t throw a ball they make you look good.”

Coming into 2017 there was no doubt that Green had been one of the great receivers, but whether he could be going forward was an open question. The South Florida native turned 32 five days before the season opener, was coming off an ACL tear that wiped out almost his entire 2016 campaign and was adjusting to a new team for the first time in his 11-year career.

Those circumstances don’t exactly spell “career year,” but Green has bested his career high in catches by 17 and yards by 265. Only Andrew Harris has brought in more balls in the CFL this year and he lags behind just Brandon Zylstra in yardage.

Perhaps more impressive than his rank among his contemporaries this season is where he fits on the pantheon of receivers in Ray’s Hall of Fame career. In the veteran pivot’s 15-year career only one player has caught more balls from him or gone for more yardage: Terry Vaughn (fifth on the CFL’s all-time receiving list) way back in 2003. Even Vaughn’s best season topped Green by just two catches and fewer than 100 yards.

“What I’ve always looked for with the go-to guy on a team is just the confidence that he’ll be in the right spot and the confidence that good things are going to happen when you throw him the football,” Rays said about his connection with Green. “That’s been the case with S.J. I feel like his awareness, experience, knowledge, and his feel for the game has been the best I’ve been around in terms of getting to the right spots and seeing what I’m seeing.”

It would be easy to paint the Ray-Green connection as the driving force of the latter’s comeback year, but there’s also another key factor: Argonauts head coach Marc Trestman. Green played under Trestman for five years between 2008-2012, winning two Grey Cups and four East Division titles. Having his former coach at the helm has helped him enormously.

“For the most part I was running in the same offence that I’d had the most success in my career in. So it wasn’t a hard transition at all to be honest,” he said. “This offseason I was rehabbing my ACL and I was prepping myself for the season and I was running routes from the Trestman offence.”

Green is effusive in his praise of his coach’s offence and prefers it to any other by a wide margin.

“That wouldn’t be even worth comparing to any other offence I’ve played in when it comes to the organization, detail, and the game planning and play calling,” he said. “I’ve only been a part of something like that one time before and the coach was Marc Trestman.”

The combination of old coach and new quarterback has Green feeling “fortunate and blessed” about the situation he’s landed in. With the Argonauts hosting the Eastern Final on Nov. 19, Ray is thankful to have Green on board as well.

“He’s been doing this all throughout his career. Now I’ve got a chance to play with him and we’re writing our own story together.”