{"id":364066,"date":"2025-12-23T15:52:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T15:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/364066\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T15:52:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T15:52:10","slug":"jim-barker-thrilled-to-be-with-toronto-argonauts-after-fearing-cfl-career-was-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/364066\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Barker thrilled to be with Toronto Argonauts after fearing CFL career was over"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo: Michael Scraper\/3DownNation. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

Jim Barker has worked in football for nearly 50 years, with half that time spent in the Canadian Football League. Though he\u2019s now back as the director of player personnel with the Toronto Argonauts, he spent a good part of the last year fearing it was all over.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou always worry about it because I did want to keep going. I\u2019m not ready to retire, and I just don\u2019t feel whatever my age says I am,\u201d Barker told 3DownNation. \u201cI\u2019ve stayed real close with the personnel (even when not working for a CFL team) as a hobby, I just love following it and players and where they\u2019re coming from and what they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barker\u2019s most notable CFL stints came with the Calgary Stampeders in the 2000s and Toronto Argonauts during the 2010s, serving as the head coach and general manager of both organizations. When he was fired as Toronto\u2019s general manager following the 2016 season, however, the demand for his services dwindled.<\/p>\n

The 69-year-old served as a football operations consultant with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 2019 and a senior advisor for the Argonauts in 2022. Things went well both seasons \u2014 the Tiger-Cats went 15-3 with Barker aboard, while Toronto went on a surprise Grey Cup run \u2014 though he didn\u2019t love consultant work, saying it\u2019s like being \u201can intern with grey hair.\u201d He missed being a more integral part of the staff.<\/p>\n

Barker has consistently worked as a panellist for TSN while between CFL jobs, but that opportunity disappeared shortly before the 2025 season began. There was a shake-up at the network that resulted in multiple changes to the programming, including new graphics, music, special guest panellists, and the removal of some longtime analysts.<\/p>\n

\u201c(TSN producers) Chris Edwards and Arden (Tosun) came in, and they didn\u2019t think I was what the station needed,\u201d said Barker. \u201cIt was a difficult year for me, but that\u2019s that business, and I didn\u2019t know that business. I\u2019m glad I\u2019m back in a business that I understand. (In football), know if you\u2019re losing games, you are gonna get canned \u2014 you need to make sure you find ways to win games. In the media, you don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

The native of Pasadena, Calif., enjoyed his time with TSN, though he has always enjoyed working in football more than television.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m doing now, for me, is way more fun. Television was great; I worked with fantastic people. It\u2019s one of those things that\u2019s so different. When you\u2019re doing TV, I always looked at it as it\u2019s about entertainment, and the key is to keep people interested and watching, give them things that they can\u2019t get from anybody. I thought I brought a little different perspective in terms of having been an assistant coach, a head coach, a general manager, and I\u2019ve done all those things, and so my perspective on different things on why teams do this or do that, I thought I could bring something special to the broadcast,\u201d said Barker.<\/p>\n

\u201cMedia was great, it was outstanding \u2014 great people, everything was fantastic. I wasn\u2019t really excited with how the whole thing came down in the end, but it\u2019s their business, and it\u2019s the way that that happens, and I know now that that\u2019s the way it is there.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Barker\u2019s teams have had success on the field \u2014 he\u2019s won five Grey Cups and one Coach of the Year award \u2014 but he\u2019s also made an impact off the field. He gave many longtime CFL people their first coaching or personnel jobs, including Orlondo Steinauer, Mike O\u2019Shea, and Ted Goveia, though he\u2019s also helped people make it to the NFL.<\/p>\n

Four young professionals who worked under Barker in Toronto have gone on to take jobs down south and stuck. Vince Magri is a pro scout for the Buffalo Bills, Chris Rossetti is the director of pro scouting for the New York Giants, Curtis Rukavina is the co-director of pro scouting with the Bills, and Matt Yustin is a scouting intern for the New York Jets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019ve gotten the most joy out of is watching young Canadian guys grow in this business. There are four of them that came to work for us here in Toronto and are now in the NFL,\u201d said Barker. \u201cI\u2019m proud of that, and that\u2019s something I\u2019ve always felt, that we need to have those opportunities for youngsters to grow. It\u2019s a very difficult business to break into.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI love taking the young guys and growing them. I\u2019m gonna do the same thing here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barker has two first-time CFL scouts tabbed to join the staff for 2026, though he declined to identify them for now. He indicated they\u2019ll travel with him to many of the collegiate all-star games down in the United States over the coming months, where he plans to help them get a leg up on the business.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to be able to have these young guys and be able to teach them how you scout a game, scout a practice because you\u2019ve got so many players you\u2019re trying to track,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to that \u2014 taking these youngsters and growing them into top-notch people that 10 years from now are going to be the GMs in the CFL, I would hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Toronto\u2019s roster, Barker clearly wants to improve the offensive line. The Argonauts allowed a league-worst 56 sacks in 2025 and averaged 3.9 yards per rush \u2014 almost a full yard less than every other team. It doesn\u2019t appear he liked the team\u2019s decision to trade away Dejon Allen last offseason, nor the choice to move Ryan Hunter from guard to tackle.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnybody who watched the team play saw major struggles along the offensive line,\u201d said Barker. \u201cThey had a ton of injury issues, which I think was a problem for them. I think you build the team from the inside out, and you better be good on the offensive line, and you better be good on the defensive line.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barker has made his year-round home in Toronto since 2010, making the Argonauts a perfect fit for this return to a full-time personnel job in the CFL. His excitement for the role is palpable, and with some heavy lifting ahead of him \u2014 the team went 5-13 last season and now has a rookie head coach<\/a> \u2014 Barker couldn\u2019t be more delighted to get going.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2018m older now, and I was worried (I wouldn\u2019t get another job). I didn\u2019t know what was going to happen, but for me, everything worked out exactly as it should,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I can do this for the rest of my living days, I\u2019ll be the happiest man on the planet.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Michael Scraper\/3DownNation. All rights reserved. Jim Barker has worked in football for nearly 50 years, with half…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-364066","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-canadianfootballleague","12":"tag-cfl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}