Quote Originally Posted by paulwoods13 View Post
If by "winning changes everything," you mean a lot of fans are willing to accept or at least overlook bad behaviour by athletes on their chosen teams, that's obviously true. But not all fans are in this category. Someone recently wrote to me on Twitter: "But he is just part of the franchise. People have to stop putting one player as the be all end all. The team is a unit and when there are shortcomings n such you help each other no matter what to become great again …" My response: "I can go along with supporting each other, but 'no matter what' is a bridge too far for me. It does matter what, IMO." Similarly, one of the mods of an Argo fan Facebook group recently wrote, "Our job as Argos Fans is to step up and support (loud and strong!) whomever is wearing the QB cleats every game, regardless ... " Aside from the fact that I don't consider being a fan a job, I could not disagree more with this. I don't think anyone should be expected to suspend their own beliefs and principles in support of everyone who pulls on the jersey of their favourite team.

As for Chris Rainey and other previous players . . . Of all the Argonauts who have been accused (or in some cases convicted) of doing bad things, only one was the "face of the franchise," and only one was reportedly paid $100k on top of his football salary to promote the team.
One of the key aspects of the Chad Kelly situation is that what happened occurred in the workplace. Another employee of the team was affected negatively. I don't think this can be washed away so easily because it says a lot about the climate of the organization.

I will also add that the only CFL team Chad Kelly had an interest in playing for was the Argos; Edmonton previously held his rights and he didn't want to go there. Maybe he would be desperate enough to go there now but I wouldn't count on that.