His last appearance in a Toronto Argonaut uniform could not have been any more dramatic.
Lirim Hajrullahu planted his left foot on the snowy surface of TD Place Stadium in Ottawa. When he swung his right leg, he connected with the football, held by backup quarterback Cody Fajardo at Calgary’s 32-yard line.
After becoming airborne, the ball seemed to hang in the air forever, spinning end over end through a picturesque late November snowfall, then splitting the uprights for the 2017 Grey Cup’s game-winning points, coming with a mere 49 seconds left on the clock.
Seven years later the championship game hero is back with the Boatmen.
“It seems like it happened yesterday, that thing that never leaves my mind,” the placekicker said to Argonauts.ca, reminiscing about a game no CFL fan will soon forget. “It’s one of those things that says everything you’ve worked for was worth it. When you lift that trophy, all the extra hours, all the extra time that you’ve put in was worth the sacrifice to be able to be a part of Canadian football history.”
Instead of closing the book on his career in Double Blue, it instead simply turned out to be the end of a glorious chapter, with several more plot twists to come in a story that has found the former Western Mustang back in Toronto.
In 2018 Hajrullahu signed a free-agent deal with Hamilton following the championship heroics. He’d spend two seasons in black and gold, failing to win a second ring after the team advanced to the 2019 Grey Cup final.
After that he’d head south, with NFL stops with the LA Rams, Carolina, Dallas, Washington, Carolina again, and Dallas again. He suited up last year with the XFL’s Philadelphia Stars. It was an overall frustrating experience for him as he excelled whenever given an opportunity, only to see a higher profile kicker assume the role Hajrullahu thought he had earned.
“It’s a tough business, the best player doesn’t always get the job,” he said of his NFL experience. “I always had this notion that if I’m the best and I prove that, then I’d get the opportunity I deserved. Of course I wanted to have 10 years in the NFL and be a 10-time Pro Bowler and win 10 Super Bowls, but that’s not going to happen. I was fortunate to play and get that experience, but that’s life and that’s business and that’s football. It’s not always how you want it to go.”
There were a couple of reasons Hajrullahu opted to return to Toronto. One was his relationship with Argos special teams coordinator Mickey Donovan, who was a coach at Western University when Hajrullahu was on his way to setting the all-time Canadian university scoring record.
“Toronto, Hamilton, and multiple other teams always stayed connected while I was down in the NFL. Mickey has always been in contact, even when he was in Montreal before he went to Toronto. He said, ‘Once you’re ready, you let me know if you’re thinking of coming back.’”
One of his other former teams was doing the same thing.
Hajrullahu was also hearing from the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, the team with which he played for two seasons, reaching the Grey Cup final in 2019. He asked for his release after that season to pursue his NFL dream and in return he said he’d talk to the Ticats first if he returned to the CFL, which he did before signing in Toronto.
“Things have changed a little bit. I’m working in downtown Toronto, so I tried to make both situations work for me, my football and post-football careers. From the get-go the Argos said, ‘Let us know what we can do for you to be successful, and we’ll make it happen.’ For me, it made a lot more sense to play for the Argos because they were being so understanding of my post-football career. It made the decision a lot easier.”
With John Haggerty coming back to punt for the Argos, the reduced responsibilities for Hajrullahu also came into play. The Boatmen were able to give him more flexibility in terms of practicing, while the Ticats were not as willing to be adhere to his requests to allow him to pursue his other career.
The 33-year-old with the Hon. BA, MA, and MBA is working in the wealth management field with Richter, an operation that’s on the verge of celebrating its 100th anniversary. He spent four years prior to that working with KPMG while he was chasing his NFL dream and is now fully entrenched in the GTA commuter grind, able to drive to work with his wife, Deniza Januzi, from their home in Oakville.
Life seems to be good right now for Lirim Hajrullahu. He seems to have all of life’s challenges answered, except for one burning question. When he played in Canada, he kicked off a kicking block, while for the last half dozen years in the States he didn’t.
So Argonauts.ca asked him what we thought was a pretty simple question; will he go back to the block? To a layman it doesn’t sound like a difficult query, but to a kicker who has success in both situations there’s not an easy answer.
He took some time off after the season and determined he’d try the block again once he started training to see how it went. All it did was confuse the issue a little more.
“It’s like golf, the way your club angle hits the ball is a little bit different if you hit it off a tee,” he explained. “One day working off a tee I missed a couple and said, ‘That’s not supposed to happen.’ Then I decided to go off the ground. I struggled for about two weeks whether to go off the ground, then one day I decided to go off the ground for an hour, the second hour I’d go off the tee. Whichever one I missed the most kicks, I’d choose the other one. I missed one for both (laughs). I’m saying you’ve got to be kidding me.”
What did he finally decide?
“I decided to go off a tee, just for longevity. When you go off the ground you scrape the ground a little bit, so from an injury prevention standpoint the tee definitely helps and I want to play for a while. Also, once it gets colder and since we play on grass it makes more sense to go off a tee.”
Just like he did on a cold night in Ottawa in 2017.