Mike Miller has earned a reputation as a bit of a “quarterback whisperer” over the years.
The Toronto Argonauts’ quarterbacks coach, in his third season with the club, has received glowing reviews on the way he handles the athletes he’s guiding. He has a reputation for getting the best out of his players in an almost fatherly fashion, with a calm and friendly demeanor that’s said to really resonate with the quarterbacks he’s coaching.
With a vast amount of experience, including NFL stops in Pittsburgh, Arizona (where was offensive coordinator for two seasons) and Buffalo as well as past CFL experience as offensive coordinator for the Montreal Alouettes, Miller has a mind palace stocked to bursting with coaching know-how.
With Toronto starting quarterback Chad Kelly being injured during last week’s Eastern Final, the Argos are turning to Nick Arbuckle to lead the offence during Sunday’s 111th Grey Cup, in Vancouver.
111th GREY CUP
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With only a week to prepare Arbuckle as Toronto’s QB1, some feel Miller has had a tough task to undertake. He, though, doesn’t see it that way, considering that Arbuckle isn’t some raw rookie being thrown into the fray. He’s a 31-year-old veteran of six CFL seasons, and has been in the Argos quarterbacks room since training camp.
“What am I looking for? Just the same thing we look for every day, every week,” said Miller of Arbuckle. “Comfortability. That he’s clear on what we’re trying to do.”
Here are five ways Mike Miller can guide Arbuckle to Grey Cup success.
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(Kevin Sousa/CFL.ca)
TAKE THE GUESSWORK OUT OF IT
Miller wants his quarterbacks to react in a tactical way as much as humanly possible. Grey Cup week preparations for he and Arbuckle, then, will have been focused in large part on some pillars of intelligent decision-making.
“I always say, we want to have a logical explanation for why we did what we did with the football,” the coach said.
“And it’s never going to be okay to say ‘Well, I thought…I figured…I was gonna….’ There’s a logical process why we’re doing what we have to do.”
Miller indicated that drilling a quarterback until that logical flow comes more easily is important but that it’s also necessary to know when something just is not going to stick and then to move on from that concept.
“I’ll see that they feel good, that they understand what they’re seeing.
“Or I get ‘no’ or ‘not sure.’ And then we’ll go back, delve into that and try to improve it. And sometimes it just doesn’t come and then we’re like, ‘Alright, let’s drop that one to the end of the list.’”
Miller, pictured here with QB Bryan Scott, works on the tactical side of things with Toronto’s pivots (Thomas Skrlj/CFL.ca)
GIVE ARBUCKLE SITUATIONAL CLARITY
Arbuckle said this week that being focused and aware on how a game is flowing is something with which Miller really helps a quarterback. And that means much more than just the Xs and Os of it all. It’s the personality of a game at that moment.
“It goes on feeling how the game is flowing,” said Arbuckle.
“Understanding when – as an offence – you have to win a game.
“Understanding when the offence just has to not lose a game because your special teams are making big plays, your defence is making big plays, and you’ve just got to make sure you don’t mess it up.
“Do you need safe completions and stay on the field? Or is your D lights out?” If they are, Arbuckle continued, “we can be a little bit more aggressive, we can take some chances. Because even if we mess up, our defence is just gonna get the ball back to us anyways.
“We talk so much about managing situations and managing games,” added Arbuckle. “And being a game manager kind of gets a negative connotation.
“But learning how to manage the game throughout each moment gives us, as a team, so much better of a chance to win.”
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(Jamie Douglas/CFL.ca)
KEEP HIM IN A LEADERSHIP HEADSPACE
One of the little nudges Miller finds he needs to employ with his quarterbacks, from time to time, is one where he reminds them to be the leader. Even though quarterbacks might be naturally inclined to be in charge, an occasional refresher might be in order.
“I always use an analogy for these guys,” began Miller. “That we’re the ones driving the stagecoach, and you got to have your hands on the reins. Because this team of horses in front of you? They’re going to need direction, but as long as they know that we’re up on that stage coach, then it works in symmetry.”
LET NICK BE NICK WHENEVER HE CAN
Miller has learned, over the years, that no matter how much work he and his quarterback are doing, no matter how much repetition and detail has gone into their prep, there will be circumstances in games that call for pure, off-script improvisation.
The 54-year-old native of Pittsburgh says he learned a valuable lesson about that from the late Sam Wyche, who for decades crafted his quarterback knowledge as a player, assistant, and head coach in the NFL.
“Working with Sam in Buffalo, we always spoke about that,” Miller told me. “He said (to the quarterback): ‘Look, we’ll get you 97 per cent of the way ready.’ But in every game, a situation is going to come along that the good ones have to apply their (own) rules in that three per cent category, right?
“And that goes beyond me. It’s why they are who they are.”
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(Kevin Sousa/CFL.ca)
RE-SET HIM ON THE FLY
In-game adjustments are not an overblown concept, Miller said. They are absolutely crucial to the success of a football team and that’s especially so for a quarterback.
“You’ve got to apply your rules, be disciplined, have a logical explanation,” said Miller of how a QB needs to head into a game. “And then, yeah, the chess match starts. And that’s fun.
“For the most part, you go through all your film work and run your statistics and then you see. But they might do something different and we gotta have an answer. Those that can come up with the answer the quickest are usually the ones that experience success.”
It will be up to Miller and Arbuckle to put their heads together in the heat of the battle, and Miller’s input will be crucial in how things unfold as Arbuckle makes his adjustments to Winnipeg’s defence.