{"id":774538,"date":"2026-07-02T02:19:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T02:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/774538\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T02:19:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T02:19:15","slug":"hogan-kongbo-living-up-to-expectations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/774538\/","title":{"rendered":"Hogan: Kongbo Living Up to Expectations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Free agency<\/a> can be a funny thing.<\/p>\n

While fans and media focus on the higher profile players on the market, some of whom have passed their best-before date, organizations will mine the list of available talent, digging for a valuable nugget amid a mound of fool\u2019s gold.<\/p>\n

Enter Jonathan Kongbo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The defensive end has been a player whose production has never matched his talent. Fast and physical, the fifth-year CFLer \u2013 sandwiched around NFL stops in Denver and San Francisco \u2013 had his most productive season last year with Edmonton, registering a team-high four sacks. A decent season to be sure, but it still left people who recognize his potential wanting more.<\/p>\n

Enter the Toronto Argonauts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When Argonauts.ca spoke with director of player personnel Jim Barker on the eve of the league\u2019s negotiation window, he surrendered a list of five names that composed the team\u2019s top targets. Surprisingly, Kongbo\u2019s name was the first one out of the veteran talent evaluator\u2019s mouth.<\/p>\n

He was a player the team desperately wanted. When the window opened, the organization\u2019s first calls were to Kongbo; the first to the player was from head coach Mike Miller, the second from general manager Michael Clemons, the third from Barker to Kongbo\u2019s agent.<\/p>\n

Within a couple of hours, the primary target had agreed to terms. Four months it looks like its mining expedition hit paydirt. Kongbo has two sacks in his first three games and has added a physical presence that has made him an important acquisition.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first pro team that has believed in my ability and my talent to the fullest,\u201d he told Argonauts.ca. \u201cThey\u2019re allowing me to play free football and trust what I see out there. To me, that means a lot. That\u2019s why I feel like I owe this organization everything that I\u2019ve got, because of the belief they\u2019ve given me that no other team has.\u201d<\/p>\n

His biggest fan is defensive line coach Demetrious Maxie. He and Kongbo were in Edmonton last year and the coach saw the potential in the player; he was good last year but there was still a lot more there. When Maxie returned to Toronto and saw the defensive philosophy new defensive coordinator Greg Quick was going to employ, he pounded the table for Kongbo, imploring the organization to reunite the pair.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kongbo\u2019s strengths as a player are what Quick and Maxie want from their defensive linemen, players who have the ability to get into the backfield and disrupt the play. But that\u2019s not the only thing Maxie sees in Kongbo, he likes what he brings to the group\u2019s dynamic.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of his energy and his approach to the position,\u201d Maxie told Argonauts.ca. \u201cI thought that\u2019s what we needed, especially for the younger players, a veteran player that was shunned a number of times. When I met him in the spot we were last season, I thought he would be a great asset for what we needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

He has been, though Maxie\u2019s desire to make him a leader of the group may take some of Kongbo\u2019s earlier teams by surprise. He was traded by his BC Lions just two weeks after signing with them, with reports at the time saying he wasn\u2019t happy with his role there.<\/p>\n

But Kongbo has shown leadership qualities in a group that also features Ralph Holley, who possesses a more outgoing personality than perhaps anyone on the team not named Damonte Coxie.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a role Kongbo is more than comfortable with.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be honest, I\u2019ve always felt like that throughout my career,\u201d the University of Tennessee product explained. \u201cI\u2019ve always been a guy who leads by example. I try not to be too vocal per se, but just doing the right things; showing up, doing what I\u2019ve got to do as a pro. I think guys tend to gravitate toward that. It\u2019s definitely been amplified on this team.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s played well, and after last week\u2019s win in Regina he was presented with the defensive game ball, which allowed him the opportunity to emotionally speak to the team about how grateful he is to be where he is on his football journey.<\/p>\n

Kongbo, who grew up in Surrey, B.C., has come a long way from the city in which he lived for the first five years of his life, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, a city best known in sporting circles for being the site of \u201cThe Rumble in the Jungle,\u201d the legendary 1974 fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a perfect hometown for a player who has become a heavyweight on the Argos defensive line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Free agency can be a funny thing. While fans and media focus on the higher profile players on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":774539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-774538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774538","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=774538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}