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The Cannabis Football League
05/22/06
by DJ

The CFL. This is like the annoying yet surprisingly entertaining kid brother of the NFL. It seems as if it has been in the news recently a lot as a possible playing ground for several well known football players. Plus SHAW just went up to Canda and mathed his ass off, and Doug Flutie just retired, so it was fresh on my brain. I am glad this is another option for players not in the NFL, as I have a respect for players who have the wherewithal to peddle their athletic wares away from US soil. I have no problem with this as continuing your pro athletic career is something not everyone can do. It can be a profitable living. Or so I’ve heard. This is about the types of people who have sought out employment there as a rehab or other reasons. I got to thinking about the CFL and thought, are there only refugees from the NFL going there? People who flee to Molson country like draft dodgers in the days of Vietnam? Is this league the Convict Football League serving as a penal colony or rehab center for the NFL making it some sort of latter day football version of Australia? I’m going out on a limb and saying the no drug testing policy could play a slight role as to why some of these dudes end up there so I will call it the Cannabis Football League. So I compiled a list of some infamous exports from the US to the CFL:

Ricky Williams - He quit the NFL because of the ganj, then he returned because of the ganj, and now he is now serving a suspension because of the ganj. He needs to make his mind up, and what better place to do it than Canada, eh? Rumor has it the Dolphins will release him only of he can come back to them in November, hopefully a changed man while he serves out his latest suspension. The owner for the Toronto team said Williams can only play if he is clean AND be a ‘Say No to Drugs’ spokesman in the community, even if he offered to play for free. That’s like having Sam Cassell be a judge on ‘America’s Next Top Model’. Got news for you pal, if the NFL couldn’t keep him sober, then freezing ass Canada won’t. It’s so cold he’ll be holed up in his room talking to Senor Cheeba 24/7. Better take the good with the bad and just brush it under the rug and hope he decides to come. At least it’ll put asses in the seats.

There is no way you would believe this man was college football's all-time leading rusher if you only saw this picture.

Onterrio Smith – This ex- Viking pretty much has had trouble surrounding him his whole career from Tennessee to Oregon and in the pros after he admitted marijuana use while in the league. Last year, Smith was caught by security at the airport in Bloomington, Minn., carrying a handful of vials of dried urine and "The Original Whizzinator," a device which includes a fake penis, bladder and athletic supporter and is used to provide drug testers with a false urine sample. When you would rather carry around a fake penis than stop smoking pot, that my friends, is a marijuana addiction. He is also serving a year long ban in the NFL. Most recently he actually told reporters he isn’t in the best shape heading into camp, but he hopes to shed about 20 pounds to get into playing condition in a press conference for the Winnipeg Bombers. This tells me his respect for the league or team isn’t too high. Speaking of high, Mr. Smith pretty much always is. Twenty pounds of munchy weight isn’t easy to lose, especially considering how he got it. Also his potential teammate, Kyries Herbert was actually convicted in Texas of domestic abuse. Long story short, the Bombers may live up to their name this season.

Unresolved question: does the whizzinator come in different colors? Or was Onterrio going to claim to have Michael Jackson's disease if queried.

Marcus Vick – I am putting him on this list only because this is where I believe he will end up, and probably do well. The league would be a good fit for him if he wanted to play QB. As it is now, he signed with the Dolphins and has to make it on special teams. But it’s better than freezing in Canada tossing around an oddly colored ball. But seriously, this dude must be doing back flips in glee in regard to how many chances he has been given to succeed, based on pure potential alone. I honestly believe after breaking every single law imaginable he will have to kill someone before he finally runs out of lives. Don’t worry Canada, you will get the Vick experience soon enough.

Presumably kids at Canadian McDonald's will be even more afraid when they are confronted with guns.

Rashaan Salaam – This man actually smoked himself out of football. That is hard to do. He actually admitted publicly that he habitually smoked copious amounts of green sticky throughout his first three seasons. Why on earth would you admit to something like that for no reason? So it’s clear he was also insane and now rumor has it he was a promoter of Chinese martial arts fights, which as we all know is the natural progression of a Heisman Trophy and Doak Walker Trophy winner. It’s hard to get on him because he is a beloved CU Buff, but he too went to the CFL via the Herbalese Highway and was with Toronto Argos who I now believe is the Betty Ford for NFL players.

Somewhere someone kicked their dad who actually fulfilled a Christmas wish of autographed Rashaan Salaam helmet with the Bears.

Lawrence Phillips– "I'm not worried about myself getting into any more problems, and I don't see why anyone else should." I really could stop typing after that last quote, which he fatefully uttered in 1996. I bet he is the only guy who actually wishes he only had a drug problem because his life would have been better. His talent made him one of the original multiple chance athletes that have become so popular today. The guy was absolutely unstoppable...as an athlete. As a human being, Phillips was a time bomb with a violent temper and a history of ugly episodes. While at Nebraska, he scaled a wall, broke into his girlfriend’s third floor apartment, battered her face and then proceeded to drag her down three flights of steps by her hair. His rap sheet then grew longer than a Fat Joe freestyle and would make a mobster proud. Most recently he was ordered by a judge to stand trial for assault charges for driving a stolen car into three teenagers after an argument in a pickup football game in LA... while he was already on the lam for beating his girlfriend. From battery to kidnapping to weapons charges to attempted murder, he is the most versatile football felon of all time. There is nothing he can’t do, except keep his fists off women’s faces. And he has pled no contest to virtually all the charges. How in the world can he keep affording lawyers who can get him off? Oh, by the way he played for the Calgary Stampeders and the Montreal Allouettes.

Phillips grimaces ruefully upon being told that one car does not, in fact, equal two hands in a game of touch football.

Carl Weathers – You probably know him better as Apollo Creed. He made the list because this is really just hilarious to me. Before researching this I had no idea he played pro ball before. He played linebacker for the Raiders and the BC Lions in the CFL. I can only picture him as Apollo or Major George Dillon in “Predator.” Me and the Baron have been discussing hilarious visions of a running back breaking a tackle and Weathers gets up all pissed, rips off his shoulder pads, and pulls out some hundred pound machine gun and mows him down just yards before he reaches the goal line with a stubby smoking cigar in his mouth. Christ that’s hilarious….

Or maybe you know him best as the one-handed golfer from Happy Gilmore.

Joe Theismann – Before his NFL career, he led the Toronto Argonauts to a Grey Cup appearance in 1971. He had a successful NFL career until LT snapped his leg like a matchstick on MNF, which is the reason to this day why I don’t watch injury replays. He made this list because of his post football career as a horrible announcer for ESPN Sunday Night football. I think he set the Guinness Book of World Records mark for randomly exaggerated words in an excruciatingly obvious statement during one of his telecasts. Also, he and Paul McGuire are going to either kill each other or get caught having angry rough sex in the booth during a timeout. Either way is fine as long as he gets fired.

Theismann reacts upon being informed that he actually played in the CFL.

Quincy Carter – I find it hard to believe that Quincy Carter still doesn’t have a job in the NFL. He is better than lots of backups in the league now and some starters plus he is only 28. He is now with the Montreal Alouettes. Admittedly he has conceded that he had a drug problem in Dallas, but like they say, when in Rome…. Previous to his situation, I thought having a drug problem while playing for the Cowboys was a prerequisite. Apparently it lands you in faux-Frenchland, struggling to even be starter. But I actually have hopes for QC, because if Anthony Wright, Jim Sorgi, and Jesse Palmer still have jobs then there is hope for anybody.

For years Carter has rued the day he chose the red and black striped rugby.

I may have missed a couple, but I believe you get the point. Is the CFL turning into a rehab clinic for the troubled stars of the states? If so it’s sad because the CFL is a good opportunity for athletes who haven’t don’t make it to the big show or ones that were there and didn’t stick. I watched a few CFL games before and while the rules and ball is a bit weird, the games themselves are pretty entertaining. The TSN network does most of the games if you ever want to catch one. The only unresolved question I have is: How hot would the games be if the cheerleaders were all made up of trashy women trying to reclaim their careers as well? Nashville’s own Pamela Rogers would be a top draft pick.

    
The only criminal to leave men begging to be victims...and the CFL's finest?

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