The legendary football life of CFL legend John Hufnagel, who joins team from the Calgary Stampeders.<\/p>\n
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Published Dec 17, 2025 \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 Last updated 2\u00a0days ago \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 5 minute read<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n You can save this article by registering for free here<\/a>. Or sign-in<\/a> if you have an account.<\/p>\n John Hufnagel likes to call himself a football vagabond.<\/p>\n Advertisement 2<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY<\/p>\n Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.<\/p>\n Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account.Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on.Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists.Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.<\/p>\n SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES<\/p>\n Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.<\/p>\n Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account.Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on.Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists.Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.<\/p>\n REGISTER \/ SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES<\/p>\n Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.<\/p>\n Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.<\/p>\n THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK.<\/p>\n Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.<\/p>\n Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authors<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n We all should be such vagabonds.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n He coached Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, maybe the two greatest quarterbacks in football history, in their early years in the NFL.<\/p>\n He played for Joe Paterno before the scandal years and had a 26-3 record as the starting quarterback at Penn State.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n And after playing 15 years of quarterback in Calgary, Saskatchewan and Winnipeg, he got the opportunity of a lifetime in the CFL \u2014 learning to coach, to lead, to build from within from the legendary Wally Buono.<\/p>\n We apologize, but this video has failed to load.<\/p>\n Play Video<\/p>\n You could argue Hufnagel has coached with the greatest NFL and CFL coaches that have ever lived, has coached many of the sport\u2019s greatest quarterbacks who ever played \u2014 including Doug Flutie in Calgary and Kurt Warner and Eli Manning in New York \u2014 with his football life being less nomadic, his word, and more encyclopedic and historical than most who have come before him.<\/p>\n Your Midday Sun<\/p>\n Thanks for signing up!<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Advertisement 3<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was Michael,\u201d Hufnagel said.<\/p>\n Most people don\u2019t call Michael, Michael. They call him Pinball. Almost everybody calls him Pinball.<\/p>\n Pinball Clemons was on the phone and throwing long \u2014 would you, he asked Hufnagel, have any interest in working for the Argos?<\/p>\n Why take a job in a CFL outpost?<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n Advertisement 4<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Hufnagel loves his life just outside Calgary. He has loved his time with the Stampeders \u2014 as player, assistant coach, head coach, general manager and executive. And now he\u2019s an Argo working from afar.<\/p>\n Another kid quarterback from Pittsburgh made good. That\u2019s where Johnny Unitas first played and Joe Namath and Joe Montana, Jim Kelly, Dan Marino and, after that, Scott Milanovich.<\/p>\n Hufnagel is 74 years old now. It\u2019s not exactly the time of life football people tend to move franchise to franchise. But Huf sensed he wasn\u2019t really in the Stampeders plans. He didn\u2019t think they wanted him or needed him anymore.<\/p>\n So now he\u2019s an Argo with a title. The Argos needed a voice who commands respect, considering what the past months have been like.<\/p>\n Advertisement 5<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n They tried to hire Mike O\u2019Shea to replace Ryan Dinwiddie as head coach of the team. He said no.<\/p>\n They reached out to former Argo Orlondo Steinauer to return to coaching. He said no.<\/p>\n Instead, the Argos settled on Mike Miller, who was not a candidate to be a head coach anywhere else.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s not your traditional go-out-and-find-players GM. He\u2019s more of a handshake-and-smile GM.<\/p>\n So the Argos reached out to Hufnagel to be titled as special adviser. He won\u2019t live in Toronto. He won\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n Advertisement 6<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Five Grey Cups in Calgary<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n He did the same with slot receivers in the NFL, especially in the three seasons as offensive coordinator of the New York Giants.<\/p>\n \u201cThe way I\u2019ve always looked at it, we don\u2019t get paid to coach football or run football teams, we get paid to win,\u201d Hufnagel said. \u201cIt\u2019s insane, but I still love this game and I still enjoy being part of it.<\/p>\n Advertisement 7<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n \u201cI still get up at 3 in the morning, I\u2019m still ready to go to work the minute I get up. I\u2019ve always been like that. I don\u2019t plan on slowing down now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cListen, Toronto is a very successful football franchise. You don\u2019t win two Grey Cups in the last few years and have as many good years as they\u2019ve had without knowing what they\u2019re doing. They showed a lot of love to me and convinced me I can be part of it. So I say, let\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n Hufnagel will spend the next two months evaluating talent, both signed players and free agents, evaluating the roster, reviewing the playbooks.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I\u2019m very good at understanding talent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Read More<\/p>\n Als vs Ticats to open 2026 CFL season as three Argos ‘home’ games on road<\/p>\n![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1218-john-hufnagel-calgary-stampeders.jpg\")
Former Stampeders team president John Hufnagel speaks at a press conference in 2022. Azin Ghaffari\/Postmedia NetworkArticle content<\/p>\n![\"Toronto](\"https:\/\/dcs-static.gprod.postmedia.digital\/20.2.3\/websites\/images\/identity\/logo-identity-tsun.svg\"){kind=logo}
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