Gary Lawless TSN Senior Correspondent Follow|Archive

TSN Senior CFL Correspondent Gary Lawless takes a weekly look at the biggest news in the three-down game.

My colleagues Dave Naylor and Farhan Lalji won’t be happy about this, but they’re both wrong on the subject of Kevin Glenn and the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.

Glenn is closing in on 50,000 career passing yards. That’s a number that makes him a Hall of Famer, just like 300 pitching wins does in baseball.

We discussed the subject on Three Downs in Three Minutes this week. Farhan made the point that Glenn’s numbers are a result of how long he’s been in the CFL - a lifetime achievement award, if you will. Naylor quoted a well know axiom: “When you see a Hall of Famer, you know it. When I see Kevin Glenn, I don’t see a Hall of Famer.”

Fair points by both. And the whole point of Three Downs is to hit a subject fast and then move on to another. But let’s dig a little deeper.

Glenn has been in the CFL for 16 seasons, but his first three saw him ride the bench and be limited to only 170 passing attempts. The rest of his career has been a string of very productive seasons, including two with more than 5,000 yards in passing and three others where he was over 3,900 yards. Those aren’t average seasons, those are dominant seasons.

His career win/loss record is just under .500 at 94-96-1 and he’s never won a Grey Cup. He broke his arm in the last minutes of the East Final in 2007 and his Blue Bombers fell short in the title game. He was the East nominee for Most Outstanding Player that season. In 2012, he came off the bench late in the season to get the Calgary Stampeders into the Grey Cup where they eventually lost to the Toronto Argos.

Glenn is currently seventh on the all-time CFL passing yardage list. Every player above him is either in the Canadian Hall of Fame or headed there (Ricky Ray). Every player in pro football history with 50,000 passing yards is either in a Hall of Fame or headed there (Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Drew Brees).

CFL Career Leaders - Passing Yards RK PLAYER TOTAL PASSING YARDS 1 Anthony Calvillo 79,816 2 Damon Allen 72,381 3 Henry Burris 62,082 4 Ricky Ray 54,320 5 Danny McManus 53,255 6 Ron Lancaster 50,535 7 Kevin Glenn 48,813 8 Matt Dunigan 43,857 9 Doug Flutie 41,355 10 Tracy Ham 40,534

There are arguments to be made against Glenn. His lack of a winning record and championship ring stick out. Both of those could change in the next couple of years with him as a backup. Will mop-up duty on a championship team change his status? Not for me.

Glenn has accomplished what very few professional quarterbacks do. That 50,000-yards mark is special milestone. It signifies both excellence and durability — two things valued in all football players. So, I disagree with my friends Farhan and Dave. When I see Kevin Glenn, I do see a Hall of Famer.

Singleton stands out

Every year, minutes after the draft, the question gets asked: Who won? It’s an impossible question to answer. None of the players have even stepped on a CFL field at that point. Even now, it’s way too early to tell which CFL team had the best 2016 draft. We won’t know the answer for years.

Three players have stepped forward from the 2016 draft to have the most impact to date. Alouettes guard Philippe Gagnon (second overall), Calgary linebacker Alex Singleton (sixth overall) and Winnipeg safety Taylor Loffler (19th overall) have all played major roles for their teams.

All three have been excellent. If I had to pick who has been the best it would be Singleton by a very narrow margin. He’s got 25 tackles and two forced fumbles through the first 11 games of his CFL career.

GM of the Year

Back to Three Downs for a moment. Our process is to watch the weekend games and then hold a conference call on Tuesday morning to discuss the games and news of the week. We look for the most compelling storylines and hopefully have different takes to offer. The call can be fun and it can get heated. I often think we should record the call and play it back, but one of us swears a bit (I’m not saying who).

This week we immediately started talking about the Bombers/Argos/Alouettes trade. That was an automatic block. Then the tweets about the fight at Alouettes practice started to break, so we knew that was a block. We then moved on to whether Glenn was a Hall of Famer or not. Finally we discussed which general manager has had the most positive impact on his team this season.

While the Glenn discussion sparked debate, the GM talk lead to quick consensus. We all agreed it was Kyle Walters in Winnipeg. Walters had a strong free agency season, did well at the draft and finally pulled a blockbuster deal shipping Drew Willy to Toronto for futures and T.J. Heath while also getting Glenn from Montreal for a fourth-round pick.

The Bombers are 7-4 and appear headed for a playoff berth, the first in Walters’ three-year tenure as GM in Winnipeg. He’s been patient and focused on rebuilding Canadian talent. Now that he’s in a position to be aggressive, he’s proving to be a strong negotiator.

Top 20 On The Radar

The CFL's scouting bureau, made up of GMs, scouts and personnel directors released its first edition of the top-20 ranked prospects eligible for the 2017 CFL Draft. Three sets of rankings come out each season in September, December and April.

CFL Fall Scouting Bureau Ranking Rk Name Position School Hometown 1 Justin Senior OL Mississippi State Montreal, QC 2 Kwaku Boateng DL Laurier Milton, ON 3 Akeel Lynch RB Nevada Toronto, ON 4 Danny Vandervoort REC McMaster Barrie, ON 5 Eli Ankou DL UCLA Ottawa, ON 6 Christophe Mulumba LB Maine Laval, QC 7 Rashaun Simonise REC Calgary Vancouver, BC 8 Nathaniel Behar REC Carleton London, ON 9 Qadr Spooner OL McGill Brossard, QC 10 Antony Auclair TE Laval Notre-Dame-des-Pins, QC 11 Geoff Gray OL Manitoba Winnipeg, MB 12 Robert Woodson DB Calgary Calgary, AB 13 Junior Luke DL Montreal Montreal, QC 14 Faith Ekakitie DL Iowa Brampton, ON 15 Mason Woods OL Idaho Port Coquitlam, BC 16 Nakas Onyeka LB Laurier Brampton, ON 17 Kay Okafor DL St. FX Enugu, Nigeria 18 Jean-Simon Roy OL Laval Quebec, QC 19 Kwabena Asare OL Carleton Brampton, ON 20 Corey Williams LB Toronto Mississauga, ON

Quick hits

The Riders are better than their record and have become a tough out. They’ll win some games down the road. “We’re glad to have them in our rear-view mirror,” said one GM this week…Edmonton Eskimos general manager Ed Hervey spending some cash right now to try and close the gap in the West. Hervey has now signed NFL cuts Philip Hunt and Troy Stoudermire. The Esks are out of the playoff picture in the West right now and wouldn’t qualify as a crossover team. Hervey won’t want to miss the postseason the year after he won the Grey Cup and lost his entire coaching staff to the Riders…Lots has been written and said about the Alouettes this week and embattled general manager/head coach Jim Popp. A loss to Hamilton this weekend will fan the flames, but a win would put them right back in the playoff hunt…Hamilton has been a split personality team this year as their 5-6 record shows. I picked the Tiger-Cats to win the Grey Cup before the season. That’s not looking so great right now…The Redblacks need a boost. A win in Calgary this weekend would certainly put some life into their record and confidence. I think it’ll be a great game. See below.

The pick

Calgary hosts the Redblacks and is favoured by 11.5 points. That’s a fat line. Take the Redblacks to beat the spread.