The Toronto Argonauts are tasked with turning around a 5-13 finish a year ago, and earlier this week named Mike Miller as the head coach to lead the team in that task.

Miller takes over as head coach after a wide search that included current Winnipeg Blue Bombers skipper Mike O’Shea, among many other candidates.

Miller joined First Up on TSN1050 Thursday morning to discuss the status of the offence, the goals for the defence and how the team can return to relevance after the disappointing campaign last season.

“I’m very grateful and excited for this opportunity, and a lot can change in a month, huh? I’m going to hit the ground running,” Miller said.

Miller, 55, has coached in various roles since 1997, but this is his first chance to serve as head coach. His extensive career includes stops in NCAA, NFL and CFL, along with chances in NFL Europe with the Berlin Thunder and the XFL with the New York Guardians.

That wealth of experience has helped mould his expectations and hopes for the team, but it will all start with the single player on the roster he is likely most familiar with: quarterback Chad Kelly.

Kelly missed all of this past season recovering from a horrific leg injury suffered in the 2024 East Final against the Montreal Alouettes.

“That injury was unfortunate, but no one has battled back harder,” Miller said. “He just puts so much time in and he’s just a real pro.

“For Chad and I, and I said this the other day, I’m just going to always be me, be right down the middle, and Chad’s that way as well. So, I think from the very first meeting in training camp that we had in 2022 it kind of started from there, maybe even in our Zoom meetings that we do at different points in the off-season just to talk,” said Miller.

Work ethic and passion for the game are two areas Miller has been especially focused on since he was named head coach. As a wide receivers coach with the Arizona Cardinals, Miller oversaw a remarkable season in which three wide receivers exceeded 1,000 receiving yards in the same year, only the fifth time that feat was accomplished in NFL history.

“Those [were] guys (Larry Fitzgerald, Anquan Boldin, Steve Breaston) that came to work every day, as good as they were, they pushed every day and they wanted me to push them to be better. And that’s every detail from our techniques and our fundamentals to the understanding of the gameplan, and that’s what we’re always trying to find, you want to find those special people,” Miller said.

He sees some of the same traits in Kelly, and is expecting big things this season from the veteran QB who took home Most Outstanding Player honours in 2023.

“[Kelly] pushes everyone around him, he wants to be better every day, he pushes to be better,” Miller said. “He’s just got great vision, a great mind for the game, works incredibly hard, I think he’s a great teammate and I love coaching him. Any time you get a talent like that and is an outstanding pro, it makes for something special.”

The bigger problem for the Argonauts last year was their defence. In allowing 32.4 points per game, the Argonauts were worst in the CFL by a wide margin – no other defence allowed more than 30 per game.

“It’s my job to make sure everybody understands and has a clear vision of what we’re trying to accomplish and make sure that standard is always held accountable,” Miller said.

A core part of what the Argonauts are trying to accomplish on defence is physicality and playing with an attacking style, Miller said. He owes that train of thought to his one-time mentor, NFL Hall of Famer Bill Cowher, who he coached under with the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1999-2003.

“We want a defence that’s always going to be attacking, and we want to dictate to the offence the flow of the game,” Miller said. “That’s kind of the philosophy that I’m going to look for, it’s something that I learned early under Bill Cowher and my days in Pittsburgh, and that’s the type of attacking defence that we want to employ here moving forward.

After assembling the coaching staff and identifying the style of play Miller expects, the final step for him will be the communication and relationship with players on the roster.

He has a strong familiarity with the quarterbacks and offensive players owed to his time spent on the staff over the past four seasons, but he is looking forward to working on it with the defensive side of the roster too.

“I think for me, I’ve always been about relationships – this is a relationship business, and that’s really what’s most important,” Miller said. “I’ve taken some time, I’ve gotten to know some of these guys – maybe not as well as I can for some of the guys on defence – but they talk to me, I talk to them, I like to have a good time but I think we all understand the work has to get done.

“I would just continue to be myself and handle each relationship, each challenge that comes individually … That’s something I always do, and I feel like that’s just a natural step – especially when you’re taking this chair.”

The Argonauts are coming off a five-win season, their fewest since the 2019 campaign. On the other hand, the franchise has two Grey Cup titles over the past four seasons.

There’s a belief from Miller that the team can rebound quickly from a difficult season. Now the focus turns to making it a reality.

“It means a lot to me – coming here in 2022 and getting an opportunity to work with these quarterbacks was something that’s very special, and I think we’ve been able to create something special with them and with the offence with some of the things we’ve been able to achieve,” Miller said. “So now we’re going to push that through to the entire team and go after this 2026 Grey Cup.”