MISSISSAUGA, Ont. – Rookie Djems Kouame has thoroughly enjoyed reliving successfully cracking the Toronto Argonauts roster.
Head coach and GM Jim Barker? Not so much.
The two had vastly differing reactions to the first episode of The Extra Yard: Inside the 2011 Argos, a four-part documentary aimed at providing an glimpse into the behind-the-scenes lives of Toronto players and coaches and the challenges they face building a Grey Cup-contending team.
The second episode will air Aug. 4 on TSN and focus on Toronto opening the regular season with four straight road games. The final two will be broadcast in September.
The Extra Yard documentary mirrors HBO’s Hard Knocks series, which in recent years has offered in-depth perspective of the Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals, Dallas Cowboys and New York Jets during their respective training camps and documents their preparations for the upcoming season.
TSN commissioned the series and co-produced it with Aquila Productions. The opening episode, which aired earlier this week, dealt exclusively with training camp and focussed primarily on the intense battle for jobs – including veterans Cleo Lemon and Dalton Bell vying for the starting quarterback position – as well as the challenges (most notably injuries) wide-eyed rookies like Kouame, Toronto’s third-round pick (18th overall) in this year’s Canadian draft out of the University of Montreal, face trying to crack a CFL roster.
“It was great because I get to see what I did in the past and now that I’m with the team and learning a lot it’s like a joy for me, a good moment for me right now,” he said. “It was special every day seeing myself on TV, it felt very good.
“I’m just trying to stay humble about it and appreciate the moment I had.”
But Barker took no joy in watching the first of the series’ four hour-long episodes.
“It was very difficult to watch because the worst part of this job for me is what that show was all about, and that’s the challenge players have making a team and then actually having to end their dreams,” he said. “That part was hard for me because it’s not something I enjoy.
“I’ve always said football is a great game but a terrible business and that’s the way I feel about it.”
Especially difficult for Barker was watching when he released defensive linemen Miguel Robede and Nate Robinson, who were both competing to replace recently retired tackle Adriano Belli. Barker acquired Robede from Calgary to be a starter in Toronto while Robinson competed strongly for the job despite losing his brother in a shooting before sustaining a serious hamstring injury.
“Reliving that wasn’t fun at all,” Barker said. “But I think this is a good for the league and our fans to see this.
“It gives you an appreciation of what the players go through, that these are men trying to feed their families and basically every day on the field they’re evaluated on everything and could lose their job anytime. It’s like back to the gladiator days . . . where only one survives and the other goes home and has to find another way.”
And it’s the precarious nature of life in pro football that Argos safety Willie Pile said fans don’t always see and appreciate.
“It gives the fans a chance to see what we really go through and how tough it is to play this game,” he said. “While it’s a fun game and everyone sees it on TV . . . they don’t see the daily grind we go through and the fact lives are changed with one decision.”
But it seems CFL fans weren’t the only ones witnessing the anguish of being cut for the first time.
“It’s good to see the behind-the-scenes stuff that I don’t even see that fateful day people get axed,” said Argos veteran tackle Rob Murphy. “Obviously there’s a lot of emotion in those days.”
Added Lemon: “They did a great job of getting all the different storylines within training camp. There are so many guys here and so many different stories you can tell and I think they did a great job of picking the right ones.”
A more pleasant story, though, was Kouame making the cut mostly as a special-teams player despite being told to give up football after suffering a broken leg two years ago. But the opening segment also shed light on Kouame growing up in a single-parent home in Montreal and showed the importance of his mother – who was also featured – and family in his life.
Kouame also showed a refreshing vulnerability, repeatedly struggling in the segment to say his name and position on camera.
“I didn’t come here for the cameras, they came along so I just went with it,” he said. “I came here to play football so my priority first was to get better playing football.”
To gain that unique perspective, film crews have open access to Argos practices and meetings. For coaches and players, that means the added challenge of keeping an eye out for camera and/or sound crews during scrimmages and workouts.
And while the presence of cameras does present the potential exposure of sensitive football material like special formations, play-call sheets and the like, Barker said that’s not even become an issue.
“The key thing is I trust TSN and Aquila Productions,” Barker said. “My big thing was I didn’t want any player or coach embarrassed in this.
“We’ve let them into everything and I think that’s important in order for them to tell the stories they need to tell to help give our league the credibility and things it needs. If I felt like we were going to be in a competitive disadvantage at any time then we would draw the line but I don’t feel like that has happened.”
Comments