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So, at the height of our abilities, we find ourselves unemployed. In any other industry this makes no sense, but in football this is what we are asked to simply accept.

Take 31-year-old linebacker Juwan Simpson, who was recently released by the Calgary Stampeders. He has already solidified himself as one of the greatest defenders of his era, and if given the opportunity he will be one of the CFL’s best linebackers in 2016.

However, he’s without a job.

I have little doubt that Simpson will find employment in the CFL in 2016, almost as surely as I thought I would find employment for an 11th CFL season back in 2009. At the time, I was coming off a two-season stint with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, and had celebrated a Grey Cup championship with them in 2007.

I was 33 years old and I could see the writing on the wall, so I restarted my financial planning practice with Investors Group, but surely I had one or two more good years on the gridiron left in me.

I was eating and training as if I were getting ready for the upcoming season, as I had done for the past 10 years as a pro and the 10 years before that as an amateur. It was all I knew.

This was my fifth round of free agency with super-agent Gil Scott, and in 2009 he warned me that it might take a few weeks for rosters to settle before we had an offer on the table.

The weeks turned into months. I was arguably in the best condition of my life, and could dissect a defensive front before they even broke the huddle. But there was no job as training camps came and went.