Dave Cutler

[sj-roc]

I just happened upon the article below from 1985 reporting on a Lions/Esks preseason game. I was surprised to see that Dave Cutler had played in this game because I thought he had retired in 1984. What gives?

Lions' Lui Passaglia leads defeat of Esks

Toronto Star
June 18, 1985

EDMONTON (CP) - B.C. Lions rode the kicking toe and the passing arm of Lui Passaglia to a 17-16 win over Edmonton Eskimos in a Canadian Football League exhibition game last night.

Passaglia, who kept the Lions in the game with three second- quarter field goals, turned a bad snap into a long gain that led to the only touchdown late in the fourth quarter.

Quarterback Tim Cowan, who had all kinds of problems in the first quarter, took advantage of Passaglia's alertness by hitting Ron Robinson with a 25-yard touchdown pass at 9:04. The play followed a bad snap that Passaglia recovered and turned into a 33-yard gain.

Cowan threw to Mervyn Fernandez for the two-point convert that produced the one-point victory.

Until that time, Dave Cutler had outscored Passaglia in a duel of veteran placekickers.

With 44,878 spectators stifling yawns through most of the error- prone game, Cutler showed no signs of the erratic kicking that plagued him last season.

He kicked field goals of 33, 39, 42, 39 and 30 yards. He missed only once and that was nullfied by a B.C. penalty that led to another chance and Cutler didn't miss the second chance.

Tom Dixon added a 62-yard single.

Passaglia was three-for-three with successful kicks from 33, 22 and 21 yards.

The result left B.C. 2-0 in preseason and Edmonton 0-2.

[Arny]

44k to a pre-season game.

[Rammer]

44k to a pre-season game.

It is BC showing up to play. 8)

[D]

Passaglia, who kept the Lions in the game with three second- quarter field goals, turned a bad snap into a long gain that led to the only touchdown late in the fourth quarter.

Sure he played a long time and was money on kicks but the ability to make something from nothing is what made him the BEST!

[Hambone]

I just happened upon the article below from 1985 reporting on a Lions/Esks preseason game. I was surprised to see that Dave Cutler had played in this game because I thought he had retired in 1984. What gives?

I'm thinking Cutler came to camp in 1985 to give it one more shot but felt he didn't have it or had lost the desire to compete and retired before the regular season opened. The 1985 CFL Facts N Figures lists Cutler as a returning player on the roster. Their roster of new players showed both Tom Dixon and Terry Baker as new kickers. Dixon wound up handling all of the Eskimo placekicking duties in 1985.

[Robbie]

Great historical article you found, sj-roc! Do you have any other articles from the 1985 season? It would be great to see a recap of the 1985 WDF.

[sj-roc]

Great historical article you found, sj-roc! Do you have any other articles from the 1985 season? It would be great to see a recap of the 1985 WDF.

I got that from the Vancouver Public Library web site: go to http://www.vpl.ca and then through the "electronic resources" link. You need a VPL library card to get in there, but once inside there's a wealth of info to be found. I got the above article after going through a series of links and searching the string "Lui Passaglia". I got something like 644 hits, mostly newspaper articles, and the above was the oldest. I noticed tons of articles on the 2000 and 1994 Cup wins; the 1985 Cup run is doubtless also well represented although I didn't bother looking for it. Some of the articles are available as full text, others just have their headlines.

If anyone had the time and patience I'm sure they could get lots of game data (e.g., attendances, scores, etc) from articles such as the above. Actually, a better source for that info would be the brick and mortar Central Downtown library itself. They have a set of filing cabinets on the 5th floor filled with newspaper clippings on various topics (although they stopped updating this collection on Jan 1/03, what with internet capabilities). The clippings for the BC Lions take up nearly a full drawer, sorted by year into 8.5"x11" envelopes.

[sj-roc]

I just happened upon the article below from 1985 reporting on a Lions/Esks preseason game. I was surprised to see that Dave Cutler had played in this game because I thought he had retired in 1984. What gives?

I'm thinking Cutler came to camp in 1985 to give it one more shot but felt he didn't have it or had lost the desire to compete and retired before the regular season opened. The 1985 CFL Facts N Figures lists Cutler as a returning player on the roster. Their roster of new players showed both Tom Dixon and Terry Baker as new kickers. Dixon wound up handling all of the Eskimo placekicking duties in 1985.

Thanks for that, Hambone -- I though that he may have been cut or sustained a career ending injury in preseason, but it sounds like he went out on his own terms.

[PigSkin_53]

Passaglia, who kept the Lions in the game with three second- quarter field goals, turned a bad snap into a long gain that led to the only touchdown late in the fourth quarter.

Sure he played a long time and was money on kicks but the ability to make something from nothing is what made him the BEST!

You got that right D, remember the GC 1985 when Lou was hemmed deep in our own end by Hamilton in the last half of the third quarter, and with an obvious blocked field looming pulled out his Simon Frasher act to complete a 12 yard pass for a first down and a snatched our bacon fron the fire, making it the turning point of the game and our second GC championship.

Lou, Lou, Lou...

[MacNews]

Passaglia, who kept the Lions in the game with three second- quarter field goals, turned a bad snap into a long gain that led to the only touchdown late in the fourth quarter.

Sure he played a long time and was money on kicks but the ability to make something from nothing is what made him the BEST!

That's exactly what I thought when I saw the article: "Wouldn't it be nice if our kicker could do that today!"

[D]

Passaglia, who kept the Lions in the game with three second- quarter field goals, turned a bad snap into a long gain that led to the only touchdown late in the fourth quarter.

Sure he played a long time and was money on kicks but the ability to make something from nothing is what made him the BEST!

You got that right D, remember the GC 1985 when Lou was hemmed deep in our own end by Hamilton in the last half of the third quarter, and with an obvious blocked field looming pulled out his Simon Frasher act to complete a 12 yard pass for a first down and a snatched our bacon fron the fire, making it the turning point of the game and our second GC championship.

Lou, Lou, Lou...

I think your refering to a 20 - 25 yard run off a punt that was looking like it would be blocked

Loooooooo

[Robbie]

Sure he played a long time and was money on kicks but the ability to make something from nothing is what made him the BEST!

You got that right D, remember the GC 1985 when Lou was hemmed deep in our own end by Hamilton in the last half of the third quarter, and with an obvious blocked field looming pulled out his Simon Frasher act to complete a 12 yard pass for a first down and a snatched our bacon fron the fire, making it the turning point of the game and our second GC championship.

Lou, Lou, Lou...

I think your refering to a 20 - 25 yard run off a punt that was looking like it would be blocked

Loooooooo

Actually, it was 13 yard run for a first down by Passaglia late in the second quarter with the score 14-13 for Hamilton. The Lions scored a touchdown via a Dewalt pass to Armour right after that play, and then added another field goal off a Tiger-Cats fumble just before the first half ended to make the score 23-14 for BC at the half.

And by the way, Derek, the final score of the 1985 Grey Cup was BC 37, Hamilton 24 and not 37-17 as you indicated in the history section for 1985:

http://www.lionbackers.com/history/1980s.html#1985

[Hambone]

I think your refering to a 20 - 25 yard run off a punt that was looking like it would be blocked

Loooooooo

Ah the older we get the larger the legend grows and the longer the scamper gets.

From an article written by Tim Burke in the November 25, 1985 edition of the Montreal Gazette and entitled:

FIRST HALF'S FINAL MINUTES SEALED TICATS' FATE

For triumphant Lions coach Don Matthews, the moments of complete football fulfilment transpired yesterday in the final moments of the first half.

The gutsy Hamilton Ticats had roared back from a 13-0 deficit and now led 14-13 and had wrested the momentum from B.C.. Now, the Lions had third and nine from at their 37, punter Lui Passaglia dropped back to punt - only to see Ticat lineman Mitchell Price in his face about one second after Lui had taken the snap. It was time for Passaglia, a superb athlete, to reach down into his deep repertoire of ad libs. So he tucked the ball under his arm, ducked under Price and another defender and scrambled for a 13 yard gain. On the next down, Roy Dewalt unloaded a purrfect bomb to Ned Armour, who covered the rest of the 59 yards for a TD.

Now the B.C. defence, so often overshadowed by the electrifying attackers, go into the act the second play after the kickoff, James Parker, defensive player of the day, jolting the ball right off of Ken Hobart's arm at the Hamilton 22. Re-enter Passaglia for his third of five field goals, and instead of going into the dressing room behind, the Lions were ahead 23-14."

[Toppy Vann]

Dave Cutler was cut sadly in 1985 pre-season and the story the Esks were spreading was that he was having trouble with his non-kicking leg. I got that story straight from an Esks guest coach when I asked him what happened to Dave as it caught me by surprise as I am sure it did him.

He told me that despite being a guest coach that it was a "family" issue and that all he could gather was that it was this plant leg issue.

I then ran into Dave as we shared the platform at an awards presentation and asked how his plant leg was. He immediately just said "Oh, that's what they (the Esks) are telling people!!" Needless to say I didn't divulge my source...lol... but he knew exactly where I heard it and exactly who was spreading it.

Edmonton was always a classy organization and I never understood why they didn't let Dave make the decision by telling him that they were going in a different direction and not have him come to camp and be cut. There are lot of players who will simply choose not to come if they are quietly given the word by the coach.

[Hambone]

Dave Cutler was cut sadly in 1985 pre-season and the story the Esks were spreading was that he was having trouble with his non-kicking leg. I got that story straight from an Esks guest coach when I asked him what happened to Dave as it caught me by surprise as I am sure it did him.

He told me that despite being a guest coach that it was a "family" issue and that all he could gather was that it was this plant leg issue.

I then ran into Dave as we shared the platform at an awards presentation and asked how his plant leg was. He immediately just said "Oh, that's what they (the Esks) are telling people!!" Needless to say I didn't divulge my source...lol... but he knew exactly where I heard it and exactly who was spreading it.

Edmonton was always a classy organization and I never understood why they didn't let Dave make the decision by telling him that they were going in a different direction and not have him come to camp and be cut. There are lot of players who will simply choose not to come if they are quietly given the word by the coach.

Sounds like some things never change. Cutler's "departure" sounds hauntingly familiar to Don Matthews exodus there a few years ago. Seems kinda bush for a supposedly classy organization to have to concoct some sort of nudge-nudge wink-wink injury or illness story so they don't have to look like villains for cutting or firing a legend.