Argos Cut Tailback Boyd; Eskimos Pick Him Up

It was a release whose shock waves were felt around the CFL. On Sunday the Toronto Argonauts booted Cory Boyd, the league’s leading rusher. Almost as quickly, it turned out to be a bonus for the Edmonton Eskimos, who have reached a verbal agreement with the tailback.

Boyd in 2012 had amassed 82 carries for 447 yards on the ground and two touchdowns, and another 70 yards on 23 receptions and two more TDs. Those numbers would look pretty good on any team, but Argos head coach Scott Milanovich insisted it was more than numbers which informed the team’s decision.

“You can read between the lines,” Milanovich told the press. “The bottom line is we felt like we needed to get more production there.” Wait, what? Boyd has more than 500 combined yards and four scores in six games, and the coach says he needs MORE production? Something didn’t sound right about that.

Ex-CFL offensive lineman and former Argo Rob Murphy threw fuel on the fire when he tweeted this:

Fine, then. If Boyd is a “fraud” and “not a good teammate” as Murphy said in his tweet, that’s one thing. Murphy ought to know; he played with Boyd. However, Milanovich said that “we needed more production there” when a player has put up the numbers over a period of time the way Boyd did (he had the second-most rushing yards in the league the past two seasons), and then to have general manager Jim Barker insisting it was “strictly for football reasons” looks strange on the face of it.

However, Milanovich noted in the same interview that he wanted better blocking as well as a good ball-carrier. From this and Murphy’s tweet we can figure out that Boyd wasn’t as interested in working without the ball. Still, the decision has been made: Toronto has released the 27-year-old Boyd in favour of 25-year-old Chad Kackert, who ought to see time in the backfield along with the Flyin’ Hawaiian, Chad Owens, when the Argos take on the Stampeders in Calgary next Saturday.

Further up Alberta Provincial Highway 2, the Eskimos announced their agreement with Boyd late Sunday night. “Cory will be flying into Edmonton Monday morning,” said Eskimos general manager Eric Tillman, “where he will take a physical and sign a new contract with our club.”

Regardless of his reputation in the locker room, the addition of Boyd greatly bolsters a backfield which already boasts the fifth-best rusher in the league, Hugh Charles. Now head coach Kavis Reed’s task is to figure out how to give time to both players, while Kackert should get his first opportunity to play for the Boatmen since the opening game of the season.