Former Chief Printers looking for redemption in Canada

Casey Printers was once the highest-paid player in the Canadian Football League. Then he became a Kansas City Chief, which essentially killed all that that unbridled success stuff.

Now Printers is trying to rebuild his career back on home-soil as quarterback for the British Columbia Lions, Canadian newspaper the Ottawa Citizen reports.

Here’s an excerpt:

Before departing for Kansas City of the National Football League, Printers turned down a three-year contract offer worth $1.2 million from the Lions. If he had accepted, he might have reclaimed the starting job from concussion-plagued Dave Dickenson in a matter of months.

Instead, three years later he’ll draw practice-roster money, $600 a week or thereabouts, waiting for a Buck Pierce slump or a longer-than-expected Jarious Jackson absence to open the door a crack.

“One thing that is constant about football: There’s always going to be someone who plays bad, and there’s always going to be someone who gets hurt,” Printers said Monday from Houston, where he held a conference call with reporters before climbing on a plane to Vancouver.

Printers’ Chiefs career wasn’t much. He struggled in the 2006 preseason, and was bumped from the regular line-up to the practice roster twice before he was released in September 2007. Then there was the humiliation of being sacked on-camera on HBO’s Hard Knocks: Training Camp With the Chiefs series.

I love a good redemption story, so hopefully he gets his chance to prove himself. If he does get it back, he’s learned to stay away from KC. 

Here’s highlights from Printers’ stint with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.