Naylor’s Kickoff: Could Trestman and Carter co-exist? TSN Football Insider Dave Naylor gets you ready for Week 11 by looking at Duron Carter’s possible fit in Toronto, Winnipeg fans giving Matt Nichols a rough ride and the emergence of Matt Elam in Saskatchewan.

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It’s a fascinating dynamic to consider. Marc Trestman and Duron Carter: The professor and the kid who sits at the back of the room.

The man who bristles at social media and the player who up until recently had the Canadian Football League’s most active Twitter account.

A coach who speaks in measured, logical thoughts and a player who never shies away from sharing his opinions.

Is it possibly just crazy enough to work?

We may find out as Carter surfaced this week in Toronto where it’s believed he met with Trestman and members of his staff to try and get a handle on whether he’s the right fit.

The Argos could certainly use him on the field. The team never really replaced the deep threat they had a year ago in DeVier Posey, and its depth at receiver doesn’t measure up to the best units in the league.

The question is whether a coach who demands precision and a player known for being imprecise in how he goes about his job can ever fit together.

Conventional wisdom says no. But let’s try and make the case.

Carter already has friends on the Argonauts in Bear Woods and S.J. Green, both of whom are veterans that could be counted on to help keep him in line – especially Green who plays the same position.

General manager Jim Popp was in charge when Carter came to the CFL in 2013 with Montreal, so he knows what he’s getting.

And Trestman just might be exactly what Carter needs: a no-nonsense leader who will make the boundaries and expectations as clear as possible and won’t tolerate anything less.

Trestman also prides himself on accepting the challenge of trying to reach players at more than just what they do on the field, seeing his role as helping young men come to maturation at the same time they are excelling in football.

So what if Duron Carter doesn’t scare him off as much as people might think?

The Argos have been quiet when it comes to Carter but Popp said last week that if they were legitimately interested the first thing they’d do is bring him to Toronto for a meeting with Trestman.

Presumably, that meeting has already taken place.

If the Argos decide to make Carter an Argonaut, it won’t happen before they face the Alouettes Friday night.

And if it does, Carter’s margin for error with Trestman will be small. But just the notion that Trestman might be able to mould Carter into something different is tantalizing.

It certainly wouldn’t be bad off the field for a franchise still very much in need of names that resonate with the general sports audience.

Boos in Winnipeg

If you don’t understand how unforgiving a game football can be, well, ask Matt Nichols.

Actually, don’t. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers starting quarterback would rather this put the episode of being booed when he returned to the field late in the fourth quarter of last week’s loss to Ottawa behind him.

This is the same Matt Nichols who has led his team to consecutive 11- and 12-win seasons, ending a four-year playoff drought for the Blue Bombers. He delivered their first home postseason date at Investors Group Field and helped bring the Bombers back to respectability – assuredly saving a few jobs along the way.

The same Matt Nichols whose success followed the struggles of Buck Pierce, Joey Elliott, Alex Brink, Max Hall, Justin Goltz, Drew Willy, Brian Brohm, Robert Marve and Dominique Davis – all of whom started games for the Blue Bombers between 2012 and when Nichols took over the starting role for good midway through the 2016 season.

The same Matt Nichols who set a franchise record for completions in a single season one year ago while throwing just eight interceptions.

And the same Matt Nichols who entered last Friday’s game against Ottawa with a 4-1 record as a starter this season. He completed 23 of 35 passes for a season-high 291 yards against the Redblacks, throwing two touchdowns and being picked-off once.

That, however, didn’t stop the boo-birds in Winnipeg from showering Nichols when he came back onto the field late in the fourth quarter with his team trailing 44-21 in what was undoubtedly the Blue Bombers most disappointing performance of the year. (Bomber fans have argued on Twitter they were booing the decision to put Nichols back in the game at such a late stage of a lopsided game, which is certainly a fair complaint. But a stadium raining down boos on a quarterback as he jogs onto the field is hard to misinterpret.)

Quarterbacks will always get more than their share of praise and criticism, and hanging wins and losses on them ignores the fact that while they touch the ball on every offensive play, they are never present on defence.

Winnipeg’s defence was actually its Bombers Achilles heel against, Ottawa, not quarterback play.

Coming off the loss, Winnipeg still has the highest-scoring offence in the CFL, has scored the most touchdowns and, despite being run-heavy, ranks third in passing touchdowns, behind only Calgary and Edmonton.

So what’s the issue?

Well, for one, Nichols doesn’t have the gaudy statistics of some CFL quarterbacks. He’s still looking for his first 300-yard game of the season and is completing just 62.4 per cent of his passes this season.

And then there’s the fact that Nichols doesn’t have an energetic presence or swagger, qualities that are much more present in his backup, rookie Chris Streveler.

There will certainly be those who would argue Nichols should have ignored the home crowd reaction but his comments were real, even though he expressed this week that the booing may have upset his teammates and fiends around the league more than it bothered him.

“I was over it 10 minutes after the game was over,” Nichols said. “I hope everyone else can get over it.”

It will be interesting is what kind of reaction Nichols gets when he next steps onto the field in Winnipeg on Sept. 8.

Hamilton hungry for wins

It’s been a disappointing season thus far for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats who expected to be better than 3-5 coming out of their most recent bye week.

But break down the Ticats statistically and it’s hard to believe this is a team two games below .500, especially when comparing them to teams with similar records.

Consider:

- Hamilton has scored 28 more points than they’ve surrendered. By comparison, Toronto, also 3-5, has surrendered 82 more than they’ve given up, while the 3-5 B.C. Lions have surrendered 32 more than they’ve scored.

- Hamilton ranks second in net offence and it is one of just two teams averaging more than 400 yards per game.

- The Ticats have good balance on offence, ranking third in both rushing and passing yards per game.

- Hamilton is tied for first in average yards per play.

- On defence, the Ticats have allowed the second fewest points in the CFL, the second fewest touchdowns, the third fewest yards per game and the fewest passing first downs.

It’s also worth noting that in three of their losses the Ticats had the ball and trailed by less than a score late in the fourth quarter but came up short.

That, plus ranking last in the league at creating turnovers while taking the third most penalty yards, is why they’ve got an uphill battle to the top of the East Division the rest of the way.

Hamilton has a tough matchup at home against Edmonton this week and then back-to-back games against Toronto, which could go a long way to determining the direction of their season.

Awe returns, NFL window in-hand

It seems appropriate that B.C. linebacker Micah Awe returned to his old team on Aug. 21, the first day on which signing a CFL contract provides a player with an NFL window, meaning a chance to land in the NFL during the off-season without having to be first released from his CFL contract.

Interestingly, it was B.C.’s decision to let Awe out of his contract last off-season through a side deal when there was no NFL window that started to ball rolling for change in the CFL.

The Lions were fined and commissioner Randy Ambrosie warned teams he was shutting down the side-deal practice altogether, unhappy that the league had been come a patchwork of teams that provided early exits for NFL deals to certain players and those that did not.

Last month, however, the league voted to reinstate the NFL window on all CFL contracts signed after Aug. 20.

Matt Elam emerges

Among the elements of Saskatchewan’s defence that delivered havoc against the Calgary Stampeders was the play of defensive back Matt Elam, a 2013 first-round pick of the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens, who had a pair of sacks on quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell.

The Florida product, who played 41 NFL games for Baltimore, demonstrated he has a chance to be a force for Saskatchewan by repeatedly winning matchups with running backs assigned to block him in the Stampeders backfield.

A combination of legal troubles and injuries paved his way out of the NFL, but at just 26 years of age Elam appears to have a lot of good football left in him.

Pipkin prepares to start

Antonio Pipkin’s performance against Edmonton on Saturday ranks very high on the short list of pleasant surprises so far this season for the Montreal Alouettes.

Pipkin became the Alouettes fifth starting quarterback of the season – and fifth in six weeks – after being signed on Aug. 6, roughly six weeks after he was released by Montreal at the start of the season.

He undoubtedly benefited from having spent the end of last season and this year’s training camp with the Alouettes. However, given that most of the practice reps since he rejoined the team had gone to Johnny Manziel, his performance – going 14-of-25 for 217 yards with a touchdown and an interception – was impressive.

Manziel, meanwhile, has gone two full weeks without practising while being in the league’s concussion protocol.