Doug Flutie In The CFL

In dominance like no other, Doug Flutie was “the man” in the CFL for seven consecutive years in the early to mid 1990s leaving a grand legacy. The CFL at the time needed a superstar and Flutie was happy to oblige.

Flutie had emerged as the Heisman Trophy winning Quarterback from Boston College who was most famous for the hail mary pass he completed to Gerard Phelan to beat the University of Miami. After a brief time in the USFL with Donald Trump’s New Jersey Generals, followed by not too much success in the NFL with the Chicago Bears and New England Patriots, Flutie tried his hand playing football north of the border in Canada.

From 1991 to 1997, the only seven football seasons he played in Canada, Doug Flutie won the Canadian Football League’s Most Outstanding Player Award an incredible six times. In 1992, Flutie’s second season in the CFL he passed for over 6,600 yards setting not only the CFL record but the record for all of professional football. In 1993, his first year as a member of the Calgary Stampeders, Flutie brought the Grey Cup championship to Calgary. Flutie would go on to win Grey Cup championships with the Toronto Argonauts in 1996 and 1997, the only two seasons he played for the team.

A performance like this has seldom been seen and goes primarily unnoticed in the United States. After this success in the CFL, Flutie returned to the NFL with the Buffalo Bills, San Diego Chargers, and finally the New England Patriots before retiring to pursue a career in broadcasting.

Sports fans spend a large amount of time comparing one player to another, both their abilities and their impacts. When looking at the impact Doug Flutie had in the CFL for the seven seasons he played there it is hard to come up with a sports personality who had a bigger impact on their league than he did.