Kelly questions loom over season

So many Chad Kelly questions, so little time.

- DAMIEN COX

TONIGHT

Lions at Argonauts 7 p.m. (TSN4)

When will he be eligible to return to play for the Toronto Argonauts? Why is he still part of the team at all? Will the club activate him as soon as possible? When he does return, will he be the star quarterback who won CFL Outstanding Player honours in 2023, or the nervous, error-prone signal-caller who played disastrously in last year’s East final in which the Argos were demolished by the Montreal Alouettes?

It was after that dreadful, four-interception performance last November — before the largest BMO Field crowd in recent memory — that Kelly uttered a quote that proved rather prophetic.

“This off-season will be long,” he said after Toronto’s ugly Remembrance Day pratfall, the team’s only loss at home last season.

He didn’t know, of course, just how long it would be.

It was in February that a former Argos strength and conditioning coach, dismissed from the job several weeks earlier, accused Kelly of repeatedly harassing her. Ultimately, CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie saw enough merit in the allegations to suspend Kelly for the first nine games of this season for violating the league’s gender-based violence policy.