Zach Collaros received a Gray Cup ring in his first CFL season. He additionally watched that recreation from the press field because the Toronto Argonauts’ third-string quarterback.
Issues have modified an awesome deal within the 11 years since.
Collaros will likely be below centre for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers once they face the Montreal Alouettes in Sunday’s Gray Cup. It’s Winnipeg’s fourth consecutive look within the CFL championship recreation, and Collaros will likely be going for his fourth ring, together with the one he earned with out strapping on the pads again in 2012.
The American quarterback stated he can keep in mind each element of his first Gray Cup week.
“Not figuring out something in regards to the Gray Cup, however being in Toronto and going round loads of completely different eating places and the completely different events in the course of the week and determining that it is a celebration of the nation,” Collaros recalled Thursday. “The longer I’ve been within the CF, I’ve understood how necessary it’s to the material of the nation.
“I believe yearly it’s grown, however 2012 was actually an eye-opening scene.”
Collaros has thrown 184 touchdowns and 28,599 passing yards on 2,222 completions over 11 CFL seasons with Toronto, Winnipeg, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Saskatchewan Roughriders. The 35-year-old additionally has 1,155 dashing yards and 10 TDs on the bottom.
He’s virtually change into Mr. Gray Cup since being dealt to the Blue Bombers on the 2019 commerce deadline.
Collaros led Winnipeg to a championship that 12 months, and has helped convey the Blue Bombers again to the Gray Cup in 2021, 2022 and now 2023, with one other title received in 2021. He additionally earned back-to-back nods because the CFL’s most excellent participant in 2021 and 2022.
These accolades apart, Collaros feels he’s nonetheless studying the sport.
“There’s performs that you just at all times need again, win or lose in these video games,” he stated. “You study from these the day after, after which that lengthy stretch in between.
“You are taking that stuff to work out within the low season and then you definitely transfer ahead.”
Winnipeg head coach Mike O’Shea stated Collaros got here into the CFL prepared to steer any locker room.
“We return to after we had been lucky sufficient to get him in a commerce,” stated O’Shea. “(He has the) capacity to step within the locker room and make all people snug and lead in his personal approach and win.
“I imagine he’s actually the one man that would have finished that.”
O’Shea stated that as a lot as he appreciates the intangibles Collaros brings to Winnipeg off the sector, there are actual presents he brings on it.
“He’s robust. He’s obtained distinctive lower-body energy, he’s athletic, he strikes round extraordinarily effectively,” stated O’Shea. “He could make each throw on the board. He’s obtained good anticipation and good imaginative and prescient.
“I believe he has all of the attributes that will put you on the high in that place.”
Collaros, who might have change into a free agent again in February, inked a three-year extension with the Blue Bombers in October 2022. Receiver Nic Demski stated the Collaros extension led to him re-signing with the group.
“We’ve loads of nice teammates,” Demski stated after apply at Tim Hortons Discipline. “However when Zach signed that three-year deal, I used to be like, ‘I need to be right here for 3 years, too.’”
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