This was a great story and check out how Doug speaks of NFL vs CFL and the feeling of being on a Grey Cup winner.
How he feels around the NFL as an outsider yet back in the CFL it's a special feeling.
“When I go back to NFL functions today, I feel a bit on the outside looking in. I played 13 years in the NFL, and I loved it – made a Pro Bowl and went to the playoffs – but I always felt like I was having to knock the door down to get in,” Flutie said. “It’s not quite the same feeling as being on close championship teams in the CFL, the way the league felt about me being there. I felt comfortable in the CFL and I still feel that way when I see my CFL teammates.”
Both he and Darren would be great to see in Canada.
“My first two years in the CFL, all I thought of was getting back to the NFL – it was like ‘I’ll put my time in up here and go back.’ But then I started enjoying it,” said Flutie, who was the CFL’s highest paid player by far from the time he entered the league with the B.C. Lions in 1990 through his return to the NFL in 1998. “Then I went and signed a nice contract in Calgary and was like ‘hey, I can make a living up here, this is great football, and I’m having a blast.’ I won my first championship and thought ‘I believe I can hang out with you fellas for a while.’
“You can’t explain it to someone from the States how important it was to win the Grey Cup. People are like, ‘oh, that’s nice, do you play that in an arena up in Canada? I’m like ‘No, it’s real 12-man football.”
The recall of plays back to days of sand lot touch football is which helps Doug's athleticism and skill as a QB go to beyond the norm:
PINBALL:“From the moment he wakes up on a day when we have a baseball game, he treats it like a Grey Cup game. To him, it’s no different than trying to win a professional football game – he’s extremely competitive,” said his brother Darren Flutie, who is No.<TH>3 among the CFL’s career receivers. “We’ve all been lucky to call Natick home our whole lives, always coming back to our family and our best friends.”
“It’s such a blast and we sit around in the dugout until 1 a.m. afterward and rehash every play,” Flutie said. “It replaces that lockerroom feel guys miss when they leave sports.”
Many of Flutie’s old CFL teammates seem to describe the years they shared with him as the most fun they ever spent playing football. Legendary Argos running back Michael (Pinball) Clemons calls Flutie his all-time favourite teammate.
“Doug had physical and mental excellence merging at the same time, and that doesn’t happen for athletes very often,” Clemons said. “He could instill a huge level of confidence in everyone around him because we knew how intelligent he was and how much harder he had studied than anyone else.”