The calendar had just flipped to 2026 when recently appointed Toronto Argonauts head coach Mike Miller announced his staff.
There were few major surprises; a couple of holdovers, some former players getting a first opportunity in the CFL, and Chris Miller.
Hang on, Chris Miller? That Chris Miller?
It was the only name that truly caught your humble typist off guard. Why was the former NFL Pro Bowl quarterback heading to Canada at the age of 60 to coach the Argo QBs?
“Mike Miller (no relation) and I worked together with the Arizona Cardinals from 2008-12,” he told Argonauts.ca to begin what would be an intriguing twenty-minute conversation. “We talked before we interviewed, he then reached out after we interviewed and said it went really well.”
It wasn’t an easy decision for him to leave a comfortable lifestyle in Eugene, Oregon, where he had once starred at Sheldon High School.
“My mom is 87, I have two brand new grandsons, I have a dog that’s four-and-a-half, so it was really hard. It was a tough decision, but at age 60 it still gives me a sense of purpose. I really didn’t plan on coaching any more teams; I train quarterbacks and coach football camps, so I get my fill of football, but I have so much respect for Mike. He’s very thorough, very detailed, very professional; he really taught me how to dig in and work really hard, and I thought it was a great opportunity to go and work for him.”
Chris Miller was “that guy” in high school, the athlete that played every sport exceptionally well. His favourite sport was basketball, but a football knee injury in his senior season scared away some of the hoops recruiters. He also played shortstop in baseball, and in 1983 was drafted in the 17th round by the Toronto Blue Jays, then two years later in the 5th round by the Seattle Mariners. He played in the Rookie League for the Ms and found it was tough to hit a nasty breaking pitch.
Forty-three years after being drafted by the Jays he’s finally made it to the 6ix, though it’s been anything but a direct route.
He stayed at home in Eugene to play quarterback for the University of Oregon and was named First Team All-Pac 10 in his junior and senior seasons, setting the stage for the 1987 NFL Draft, where the Atlanta Falcons drafted him in the first round, 13th overall.
It was an awful team. They hadn’t won a playoff game in a decade and weren’t very good in Miller’s first four seasons as a Falcon, going 15-37. But a coach, best known for dressing in all black, changing the Falcons jerseys from red to black, and leaving tickets at each game for Elvis Presley, started to turn things around.
His name was Jerry Glanville. He’d eventually lead the Falcons to a playoff win over their archrival New Orleans Saints in 1991, before losing the next week to the eventual Super Bowl champions from Washington.
“I didn’t think he was nuts,” Miller said of the coach with the gigantic personality. “He was out there, but he was entertaining. He made it fun for us and had a bunch of good quotes and a bunch of good sayings. He’s in his mid-80s now and is still like a 40-year-old kid, he’s just a fun-loving guy.”
And he could coach. A defensive and special teams specialist, he helped turn things around with the help of a couple of former Argo players. Former Boatman quarterback June Jones was the offensive coordinator, and at receiver was a member of the 2004 Grey Cup champs, Andre “Bad Moon” Rison.
“The thing about Andre Rison I respected the most was that when the lights came on, he was extremely good,” said the QB of his primary target. “He was the fastest player I’ve ever seen off the ball, in-and-out of a speed cut, getting out of a cut. He was so explosive. He lived life fast, he was pretty crazy, lived life fast, but a lot of us did back then. On game day he was something else, he was special.”
After Miller’s second season, the Falcons used their first-round pick on a player who arguably became the best cover corner in football history but entered the league with a personality as big as his talent.
What did the laid back, west coast QB think of Deion Sanders?
“The fastest guy I’ve ever seen,” he said without hesitation. “He was as fast as he needed to be. In practice he’d bait you a lot and he had an extra gear. I lockered right next to Deion for three years and I keep in touch with him now. He came in and he was ‘Prime Time’, he had all the gold and the jewelry and the Mr. T starter kit (laughs). He really marketed himself well.”
It was life in the ultra-fast lane for Sanders, until a Falcon teammate, a fellow Florida State alumni named Bobby Butler had a serious conversation with him.
“Bobby took him under his wing and said ‘If you continue down this path you may kill yourself.’ We had three teammates die in 17 months when we were in Atlanta from off-field stuff; drug related stuff (David Croudip), there were accidents (Brad Beckman and Ralph Norwood), so it was sad for a while, it was tough.”
Using that sobering image as a springboard to the serious side of the sport, Argonauts.ca asked Miller about his health. His career was injury plagued, with his main nemesis being concussions, something that tormented him throughout his career.
He says he has no major pains and is relatively fine physically after having six post-Covid surgeries – both hips, and a couple of elbow and knee operations – to correct some of the lingering effects of playing a vulnerable position in a violent sport.
But it’s not the joint injuries that Miller became known for. He essentially became the poster boy for concussions in an era where the head-shot phrase “He’s okay, he just got his bell rung” was the norm.
After signing a free-agent deal with the Rams in ’94, he had five concussions in 14 months. Then after finding a doctor who would give him clearance, he attempted a comeback three years later with the Denver Broncos. He’d suffer one final concussion in a Monday night game in 1999.
It was a severe one, and it ended his career for good.
“The last one I had, I felt crappy for five or six months, I felt really bad. It was concerning. If I was walking down the sidewalk I felt like I was serpentining a little bit. When I showered, I would have to put a hand on the wall to shampoo my hair, or I’d lose my balance and fall into the shower door.”
He also admitted to feeling foggy during conversations and not having great equilibrium at times, but the scariest moment came when he was trying to drive home but couldn’t remember where he lived.
“I knew how to get home, but I was rocked enough where I wasn’t processing, I was just driving on the freeway wondering ‘Where am I?”
Miller says he’s fine in terms of post-concussion symptoms. His days of beer drinking are behind him in an attempt to remain clear headed, and he keeps his mind active by doing Sudoku puzzles and taking ginkgo biloba (an antioxidant).
He’s thrilled that the sport has attempted to clean itself up and that treatment of head injuries is light years ahead of where it was when he was playing.
“I think the return to play procedures and protocols are so good now. (Players) are being advised intelligently and our trainers are awesome, they’re great.”
Miller has a lot to offer. He experienced a lot in his 10 seasons in the NFL, both on and off the field. It’s those lessons he’ll teach Argo quarterbacks, hoping to add a Grey Cup championship to his already impressive resume.
ARGO NOTES: Neither the offence nor defence dominated either skelly (no linemen) or scrimmage sessions on Thursday. Tarvarus McFadden had an interception and a nice knockdown during skelly, while L-P Gauthier, Brian Harelimana, and Andrew Chatfield all had nice knockdowns, the latter two coming in the first scrimmage period…James Ceasar also had a nice breakup, then later stayed stride for stride with Janarion Grant on a deep ball…Kevin Mital had touchdowns on back-to-back plays; the first a 20-yard pass from Tucker Horn, the next a juggling catch at the goal line on a pass from Chad Kelly…Perhaps the play that received the most response from teammates was a quick hitter from Kelly to Solomon Davis. After the catch Davis showed off his blazing speed, blowing past everyone in the secondary for a 65-yard touchdown…Dave Ungerer III also turned a short pass into a long gain over the middle…Rookie Nolan Ulm had a TD catch in both skelly and scrimmage sessions…Wednesday’s story on Argonauts.ca featured receivers Dimitri Stanley and Tyler Kahmann, each of whom found the end zone again…The Argos U SPORTS intern quarterback, Tristan Aboud from the Guelph Gryphons, took some reps and hit Janarion Grant for a touchdown.