Toronto Argonauts establishing core after recent signings

The Toronto Argonauts continue to set their sights on the 2020 season and beyond after signing Bear Woods and Chandler Worthy.

When the Toronto Argonauts cleaned out their locker rooms and gave their end of season scrums, most of the players didn’t know what lied next for them going into next season.

Not too long after the CFL released their free-agent list the Argos started to make some moves announcing that they signed both Chandler Worthy and Bear Woods to multi-year deals. What these deals signify is that management is identifying a group of players they want to proceed with as a part of their core.

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Woods has been seen as a valuable member of the defence not only for his contributions on the field but the leadership he provides in the locker room which the players enjoyed having when he was signed late in July.

"“When you see Bear Woods you see leadership personified,” general manager Michael Clemons told Mike Hogan of Argonauts.ca. “Not only is he a grappler on the field, he is a guy that the young guys can come to and ask questions. He leads by example. He does everything you want a player to do. The only thing I wish Bear could do was have a twin, ‘cause I’d sign him too (laughs).”"

It is rare to see Toronto give both Woods and Worthy more than a year considering the team hasn’t shown a large investment in players the past few seasons. Pinball made it clear when he became GM that he wanted to make sure players were around longer than one or two years.

While this might be just the start of what management is trying to accomplish this off-season, there is still a lot of work to be done especially on the offensive side of the ball.

A report on Friday from TSN’s Farhan Lalji suggested that the Argos were not going to bring back offensive coordinator Jacques Chapdelaine which shouldn’t be a massive surprise considering how much the offence struggled this season. You wonder if the team is going to prioritize getting a new coordinator in place before they make some bigger decisions like who they want to target at the quarterback position in free agency.

What do you think about the recent moves made by the Argos? How much more do you expect them to do before free agency? Let me know in the comments below.