The voice on the other end has been there before.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s lifted the Grey Cup. He\u2019s carried a province. He knows what comes next. So, when Darian Durant hears Trevor Harris talk about turning the page, about putting the Grey Cup on the shelf and diving straight into film on the rest of the West Division, there\u2019s no hesitation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the way,\u201d Durant says, almost instantly. “Not just the right way, the only way. Because the moment you win, the clock resets.”<\/p>\n
Harris made it clear in his SportsCage appearance that his off-season wasn\u2019t about reliving the 2025 championship run. He watched the Grey Cup once, then it was on to breaking down opponents, building notes, searching for the next edge. Durant hears that and smiles.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially when you\u2019re getting to that stage of your career, you\u2019ve got to take a mature approach,” he says.\u00a0“You\u2019ve got to be ahead mentally.\u201d<\/p>\n
At 39 years old, Harris isn\u2019t chasing anymore, he\u2019s defending.\u00a0In the CFL, that\u2019s a completely different fight. Durant doesn\u2019t sugarcoat it: the Riders are the target now.<\/p>\n
Everyone else in the West Division is digging through last season\u2019s film, searching for cracks. A missed rotation. A tendency. A moment where something almost worked. Durant knows exactly how those conversations go in opposing meeting rooms.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re looking at Saskatchewan like, \u2018If we did this differently, maybe we beat them,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cSo now Trevor\u2019s got to be a step ahead of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where the real work lives, not in the highlights, but in the details no one sees. Durant leans into it, the conversation shifting from philosophy to the craft itself. Watching film isn\u2019t passive,\u00a0it\u2019s intentional, almost surgical. You don\u2019t just watch a game, you watch one piece of it at a time.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne day, you\u2019re just\u00a0watching the DBs,\u201d Durant explains. \u201cNext day, just the front. Same game, different focus.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s repetition with purpose. Controlled tunnel vision. A way to trick your brain into seeing something new in something familiar. Because in a league with only nine teams, there are only so many secrets. So you go hunting for the smallest ones. A foot slightly forward. A linebacker leaning. A defensive back giving away leverage without realizing it.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody has something,\u201d Durant says. \u201cSomething small that can tell you what they\u2019re about to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
And if you find it? That\u2019s where careers change.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how you earn a big contract,\u201d he adds with a laugh. \u201cOne little thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just about schemes. Those rarely change dramatically. It\u2019s about people. Habits. Human nature under pressure. Durant compares it to poker, tells, tendencies, and subtle giveaways. And he admits, he had his own. Back in his playing days, defensive mastermind Chris Jones had cracked the code. Run or pass, Durant was tipping it somehow. He didn\u2019t even know it at first.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d come to the line and hear, \u2018Rabbit, rabbit\u00a0or parrot, parrot,\u2019\u201d Durant recalls. \u201cI couldn\u2019t figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Until he did. And once he did, everything flipped. Now, the tells became tools. What once gave him away became a weapon to deceive.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could make it look like a run, and it\u2019s a pass, and then you hit a big play.\u201d<\/p>\n
That evolution, from unaware to intentional, is what separates quarterbacks who last from those who don\u2019t. Which brings it all back to Harris. Durant sees a quarterback who understands where he is in his career. Who takes care of his body.\u00a0Who prepares with purpose. Who isn\u2019t clinging to what just happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to let the Grey Cup go,\u201d Durant says.<\/p>\n
Don’t dismiss it. Don’t forget it. Don\u2019t live in it. Because in the CFL, what you did last year doesn\u2019t win you anything this year. And if Durant\u2019s right and history suggests he usually is, Harris is already doing the hardest part \u2014 starting over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The voice on the other end has been there before. He\u2019s lifted the Grey Cup. He\u2019s carried a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[3878,49,48,521,522,520,3290,4398,27684,27683,1893,4401,27682,4400,4399,82],"class_list":["post-571386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-agriculture","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-contests","tag-country-music","tag-gx94","tag-manitoba-news","tag-radio","tag-rider-radio","tag-saskatchewan-news","tag-saskatchewan-roughriders","tag-saskatchewan-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571386","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=571386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}