The legendary life of newest Toronto Argo, John Hufnagel

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The legendary football life of CFL legend John Hufnagel, who joins team from the Calgary Stampeders.

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Published Dec 17, 2025 • Last updated 2 days ago • 5 minute read

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Former Stampeders team president John Hufnagel speaks at a press conference in 2022. Azin Ghaffari/Postmedia NetworkArticle content

John Hufnagel likes to call himself a football vagabond.

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We all should be such vagabonds.

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He coached Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, maybe the two greatest quarterbacks in football history, in their early years in the NFL.

He played for Joe Paterno before the scandal years and had a 26-3 record as the starting quarterback at Penn State.

He won a Super Bowl with Bill Belichick in New England, coached with Tom Coughlin in both Jacksonville and New York, and was with Jim Mora in Indianapolis in the season of the famous Mora Meltdown.

And after playing 15 years of quarterback in Calgary, Saskatchewan and Winnipeg, he got the opportunity of a lifetime in the CFL — learning to coach, to lead, to build from within from the legendary Wally Buono.

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You could argue Hufnagel has coached with the greatest NFL and CFL coaches that have ever lived, has coached many of the sport’s greatest quarterbacks who ever played — including Doug Flutie in Calgary and Kurt Warner and Eli Manning in New York — with his football life being less nomadic, his word, and more encyclopedic and historical than most who have come before him.

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And now a move he never saw coming, we never saw coming. He has been in the West Division his entire 35-year-career as a player and coach in the Canadian Football League. And then just a few weeks ago his telephone rang in Alberta and he recognized the voice on the line.

“It was Michael,” Hufnagel said.

Most people don’t call Michael, Michael. They call him Pinball. Almost everybody calls him Pinball.

Pinball Clemons was on the phone and throwing long — would you, he asked Hufnagel, have any interest in working for the Argos?

Why take a job in a CFL outpost?

It wasn’t something Hufnagel ever had thought about before. Toronto is an outpost of sorts in the CFL. Hufnagel has coached and managed in Calgary, played with the Stampeders, Blue Bombers and Roughriders. The Argos are rather in the nether regions of Canadian football.

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Hufnagel loves his life just outside Calgary. He has loved his time with the Stampeders — as player, assistant coach, head coach, general manager and executive. And now he’s an Argo working from afar.

Another kid quarterback from Pittsburgh made good. That’s where Johnny Unitas first played and Joe Namath and Joe Montana, Jim Kelly, Dan Marino and, after that, Scott Milanovich.

Hufnagel is 74 years old now. It’s not exactly the time of life football people tend to move franchise to franchise. But Huf sensed he wasn’t really in the Stampeders plans. He didn’t think they wanted him or needed him anymore.

So now he’s an Argo with a title. The Argos needed a voice who commands respect, considering what the past months have been like.

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They tried to hire Mike O’Shea to replace Ryan Dinwiddie as head coach of the team. He said no.

They reached out to former Argo Orlondo Steinauer to return to coaching. He said no.

Instead, the Argos settled on Mike Miller, who was not a candidate to be a head coach anywhere else.

The Argos decided to go old and experienced though to fill out their front office. They hired Hufnagel, essentially to oversee their personnel and to mentor Miller in his first head-coaching season.

They brought in 69-year-old Jim Barker for the 4,000th time to take over personnel and recruiting. Pinball is the general manager in title, but he’s not your traditional go-out-and-find-players GM. He’s more of a handshake-and-smile GM.

So the Argos reached out to Hufnagel to be titled as special adviser. He won’t live in Toronto. He won’t be at practice daily. But, as he points out, as everybody learned during COVID, you can work from just about anywhere and get the job done.

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Five Grey Cups in Calgary

He got the job done in all his Calgary years, winning five Grey Cups. He probably should have won more, having had Jeff Garcia, Flutie, Henry Burris and Bo Levi Mitchell among his quarterbacks, being offensively original and in some ways changing the way football is played on both sides of the border.

He was the first to regularly use the six-pack of receivers in the CFL which led to some of the great passing seasons in Canadian history.

He did the same with slot receivers in the NFL, especially in the three seasons as offensive coordinator of the New York Giants.

“The way I’ve always looked at it, we don’t get paid to coach football or run football teams, we get paid to win,” Hufnagel said. “It’s insane, but I still love this game and I still enjoy being part of it.

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“I still get up at 3 in the morning, I’m still ready to go to work the minute I get up. I’ve always been like that. I don’t plan on slowing down now.”

“Listen, Toronto is a very successful football franchise. You don’t win two Grey Cups in the last few years and have as many good years as they’ve had without knowing what they’re doing. They showed a lot of love to me and convinced me I can be part of it. So I say, let’s go.”

Hufnagel will spend the next two months evaluating talent, both signed players and free agents, evaluating the roster, reviewing the playbooks.

“I think I’m very good at understanding talent,” he said.

Als vs Ticats to open 2026 CFL season as three Argos ‘home’ games on road

Jim Barker back with Argos, this time as director of player personnel

Among his first quarterbacks in the NFL, Hufnagel coached Brady and Manning.

“It was a thrill to be able to work with both of them,” Hufnagel said. “You can say this about my time with them: I didn’t screw them up.”

That’s Hufnagel. He won’t take credit for much, is self-deprecating about what he has done and where he has been.

And now it’s Chad Kelly time. That’s among his first of many challenges.

“He’s a very gifted quarterback. I look forward to working with him,” Hufnagel said.

The Argos look forward to working with Hufnagel himself.

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The legendary life of newest Toronto Argo, John Hufnagel

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