After five seasons of struggling to find a foothold in the NFL during the 1980s, Doug Flutie ventured to the Great White North to join the Canadian Football League.
Flutie spent eight years in the CFL before returning to the NFL.
The former Bills, Patriots, Chargers and Bears quarterback wrote a column Tuesday for TheMMQB's "Canada Week" about his time in the CFL. In the piece, Flutie opines that the current NFL looks a lot like the CFL during his playing days.
"The game in Canada was more exciting, more explosive, more wide open," Flutie wrote. "It was what the NFL is now becoming. We were going no huddle, over the ball, from the time I got up there. No-back sets, six wide receivers, throwing the ball all over the field. There is a 20-second clock between plays rather than 40. It just creates a pace that the NFL is now realizing to be more exciting-and actually more effective. The NFL is turning into a no-huddle, up-tempo, fast-paced, throw-the-football type of game now. The CFL has been that for the past 30 years."
Flutie celebrated the fact that in the CFL he had more control over play calling, while he felt restrained during his two stints in the NFL by coaches who "want total control because their necks are on the line" due to the money being made.
The former signal-caller did admit quarterbacks like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning enjoy freedom in the NFL he was never given. However, Flutie said that if he played in today's NFL, his success would have been closer to what it was during his CFL days.
"I'm pretty sure the trajectory of my career would have been different today," he wrote. "I would have been in a position to be more successful in the NFL running some of these current styles of offenses, and I think an NFL team would have been more open to turning me into a franchise guy if things went well. ... It has turned into a little bit different mentality now with the success of guys like (Drew) Brees and Russell Wilson, and the success of the spread offenses in the NFL."
In the latest episode of the "Around The League Podcast," the guys discuss Rob Gronkowski's expected return to action and Cordarrelle Patterson's potential rise this season.
