The announcement from the Ottawa REDBLACKS that Jeremiah Masoli will start against the BC Lions is in many respects a small piece of news.
Starting quarterback Dru Brown is not expected to miss significant time with his right leg injury so this development feels like the normal rhythms of any football team where quarterback injury is common, and it reinforces the need for proper depth at the most important position.
Finally, with the way Dustin Crum came in to help Ottawa salvage a tie against the Saskatchewan Roughriders this doesn’t even feel like a ‘season is lost’ situation for Ottawa. Normally I wouldn’t focus on the third-string quarterback for any team but Masoli isn’t any normal third-stringer.
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Shameful admission part of this piece: I had forgotten that Masoli was on the REDBLACKS’ roster. My focus was so much on the new guy (Brown) and the fast guy (Crum) that I had forgotten the next man up had once been the face of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, was the East Division’s Most Outstanding Player nominee in 2018 and has faced more twists than a M. Night Shyamalan film. (I heard ‘Trap’ was pretty good). The fact that I briefly forgot about Masoli shows that I’m getting old and how quickly things change in professional sports, often in a cruel way. Yet here he is, back in our football lives again.
With help from my old personal archives of columns and football notes over the past seven-plus years I have put together five reasons why the Masoli starting at home against the Calgary Stampeders is a story we all need to follow.
MASOLI’S CAREER NEEDS A BETTER ENDING
It’s been said so many times: most athletes do not get the satisfying final chapter of their career. For every one Henry Burris who goes out on top as the 2016 Grey Cup MVP there are a 100 other football players whose careers were cut short by injury or have just been cut by their team.
Masoli deserves another shot at glory after having his season cut short by a dirty hit back in July of 2022. I would rather not have my final Masoli memory be of him being helped off the field by teammates. The shame of his early exit was it overshadowed a promising start to the season that saw Masoli throw for over 700 yards in two games against the formidable Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ defence. Masoli’s bad luck when it comes to injuries has hit that top Shakespearian level of sports-tragedy. If there is an ACL or MCL on his body, it has most certainly been compromised over the past decade. If anyone deserves an extended stretch of NOT appearing on the six-game injured list it’s Masoli.
MASOLI HAS ALWAYS BEEN IN A STATE OF ‘BATTLE’
Battle is perhaps a bit dramatic and going over his past I can’t find any evidence of an especially negative quarterback room involving the 35-year-old passer. His career does have more than an ounce of Football Forrest Gump in it, though.
I’m curious to see what a possible next/final phase would look like. His early Hamilton years saw him unseat Zach Collaros for the starting job. Back in 2016 it was Masoli who started getting some run because the injury luck was impacting the other quarterback, in this case Collaros. Even though a healthy Collaros had the higher ceiling it seemed that whenever Masoli came into the game, he helped the Tiger-Cats find ways to win, even if he didn’t throw the prettiest of balls.
After Collaros was traded to the Roughriders it looked like Masoli had firmly entrenched himself as Hamilton’s starter; that was until Hamilton reached a deal with Johnny Manziel. Though Manziel’s time with the Tiger-Cats lasted about as long as my days in high school advanced French it still had to be a slight against the former Oregon Ducks star. His final years at Tim Horton’s Field saw him lose his job twice to Dane Evans in 2019 (torn ACL) and in 2021 (team decision).
This is a guy we have followed through crazy highs and lows:
Back in September of 2017 I wrote about the then young quarterback: “I have no idea what the trajectory is for Masoli, but I always root for a guy looking to prove he belongs.” I feel the same way now with the only real difference being that now he is in his mid-30s. I loved watching the progression of his career as he went from unexpected starter to a quarterback you can trust your franchise with. By 2018 Masoli had fully developed into a star where at the time I observed: “Suddenly he went from a semi-inaccurate passer who found ways to winning to games in 2017 to a fantasy beast in 2018.”
CURIOUS TO SEE IF HE STILL HAS IT
Every sports fan is attracted to the “lets see if he still has it” storyline.
There’s nothing better than the cliché of the old gunslinger showing he still has a couple bullets left. It’s easy to forget now but in his prime with Hamilton, Masoli was challenging for the record of most consecutive games with at least 300 passing yards.
I don’t expect him to be as productive as those peak years, but I am curious to see what he has left in the tank. Masoli’s career is filled with so many what ifs. The year before COVID shut everything down he was a part of arguably the most talented team he had ever played for, the 15-3 2019 Tiger-Cats. Masoli was 5-1 as a starter, had back-to-back 400-yard games and Hamilton had beaten up on the Toronto Argonauts to the tune of 64-14. Everything was finally coming together. Alas a non-contact injury early in a Friday night game against Winnipeg ended his season and kick-started Dane Evans’ career.
2024 RAMIFICATIONS
Let’s forget the past and focus on the present to end this one. The REDBLACKS have not had a winning season since 2018. The past four seasons have not been kind to this organization, but this year feels different. For Ottawa to have any chance to even stay close with the juggernaut Montreal Alouettes they are going to need an effective Masoli to help produce some wins, while they hold a one-point lead in the standings over the Argos.
The Jeremiah Masoli story has the potential to feel like so many sports comeback movies. His past is so compelling. How can it not make these next couple of weeks fascinating for all football fans?