It was a homecoming that seemed destined to happen. Former Toronto Argonaut running back Ka’Deem Carey signed as the team’s running back’s coach after one injury-shortened season in Saskatchewan.
After conducting several interviews, new head coach Mike Miller felt that running backs coach Dom Picard would be a better fit coaching the offensive line, a natural move for the longtime CFL center.
It meant that Miller suddenly needed running backs coach. He talked to a couple of people about the role, but there was one name that made the most sense to him.
“I always had Ka’Deem in the back of my mind,” Miller told Argonauts.ca. “He made a great impression on me the year he was here. He was very professional, was a leader in the room, he was a great communicator. He just displayed a great awareness and grasp of not only the position, but our offence. I thought he was a really great leader in the meeting room and on the field.”
Carey’s combination of skill and toughness was missed last year by the Argos. He fled to Saskatchewan as a free agent, hoping to win another Grey Cup ring in his final year as a player. But his season – and playing career – ended in his third game of the season in Vancouver when he suffered a catastrophic knee injury.
“Yeah, it was bad,” Carey told Argonauts.ca. “It the MCL, ACL, meniscus. The crazy thing about it was I had a dream that it might be the last game. I woke up and researched all my career stats from college, the NFL, the CFL, and in my head I said if today was my last game, kind of jinxing myself, then I would be okay calling it a career.
“So, I go out there and play BC in the stadium I won a championship in, and it goes full circle,” continued the Tucson, Arizona native. “I hurt my knee and I kind of smiled when it happened and actually started to laugh on my way to the locker room because they asked for a cart (to get him off the field) and once I saw it, I immediately tried to get up. I wasn’t going to go out on a cart knowing that was going to be my last play.”
Sadly, it was. After becoming the career rushing leader at the University of Arizona in just three seasons, a record he still holds by over 600 yards, after his three seasons with the Chicago Bears, and after his six years in the CFL, Carey would be hanging up his cleats for good.
But he was not done with football.
“I really started thinking about coaching in maybe my second year in Calgary,” Carey recalled. “I really opened my mind about coaching, due to me being a leader in the running backs room and the way I had control of the younger backs and the way I wanted to teach them.”
The rookie coach will be giving his players full access to volumes of the football encyclopedia located between his ears.
Miller has gone over the cutups from last year, analyzing the video both on his own and together with his staff. They don’t want to miss anything that may have led to the problems of the ’25 season.
“I’ve spent a great deal of time evaluating all parts of the offence for problems, weaknesses, things we need to improve,” said Miller, “But also things we did well and how to improve those.”
He says that they’ve identified the problem areas in the running game but didn’t want to elaborate publicly.
The head coach doesn’t want his offence to be one dimensional, like it was last year. He needs to be able to do what the situation dictates, be it throwing more or running more, though he’d like it to be a lot closer to 50/50 pass/run.
That means the running backs will be counted on more. Spencer Brown returns as part of what is currently a six-man RB corps. He’s joined by CFL veteran Peyton Logan, Jyran Mitchell, who was with the Argos early last season, Elijah Young, who was a late cut by the Buffalo Bills last year, 240-pound power back Qualan Jones, and all-purpose back Samuel Hicks.
Miller likes the group’s potential.
“I went through that process with (player personnel director) Jim Barker on the guys we were able to sign. I’m excited, I think each one of them brings their own element to the game. It’s going to be a great competition (in training camp). Jim and his staff have done a great job bringing in some really quality players and I believe we have some real playmakers and some really solid options.”
Carey has also studied video on the Argos six-pack of backs. Like Miller, he’s pumped up about the group he’ll be working with.
“I’m excited,” said the rookie coach. “I’ve got a young bunch, and I know they’re going to come in hungry. I really like what I see; they’re all diverse. And I’m happy we have Spencer (Brown) and him being a veteran this year and leading the younger backs in the group.”
The Argos had been successful at running the ball in the post-Covid era. In 2021 John White and DJ Foster were solid, if unspectacular. In 2022 it was the combination of A.J. Ouellette and Andrew Harris that led them to a Grey Cup. The next season the team posted a 16-2 record with Oullette getting most of the work, with Harris and Dan Adeboboye in relief. In 2024 Carey was the bell cow, leading Deonta McMahon and Adeboboye to another Grey Cup win.
Then came last year.
In 2025 the Argos posted historically low results, literally the worst rushing season in the history of the Canadian Football League. As a team the Argos rushed for just 51.6 yards per game last season, almost three dozen fewer yards per game than the next lowest team’s output.
Brown led the Boatmen with just 314 rushing yards, while somewhat remarkably, quarterback Nick Arbuckle – who will never be confused with speedy Rickey Foggie of early ‘90s fame – finished second on the team, despite only amassing 161 yards on the ground.
It’s set the bar incredibly low to jump over this year, but just barely clearing that mark won’t be acceptable to either Miller or Carey. They both realize how important the running game is to an offence, something that was sorely missing a year ago.
