CFL-NFL: You Scratch My Back, and I'll Scratch Yours

Ricky Williams once said of his Canadian Football League (CFL) experience that "People accepted me more, people didn't think I was weird, people thought I was actually normal while I was playing football and that's something that I never really experienced before." Will somebody please get Michael Vick on the line. Sure, Williams was rather subpar during his short stint with the Toronto Argonauts while under suspension for drug abuse in the National Football League (NFL), but the experiment cannot be labelled as a failure by any means. Williams's star presence provided the Argos marketing with a golden opportunity to sell more tickets and memorabilia than ever before. On the flip side, the Miami Dolphins, the NFL team which Williams had been under contract with, benefited from the situation as well, as they got back an active, seemingly clean football player in 2008 as oppose to what he may have become had he not signed in Toronto. How quickly things change. Former CFL commissioner Tom ... (link)