For football fans in Canada, the Grey Cup is the biggest annual party in country.
For football fans in the United States, the Grey Cup is a sidebar that will take a back seat to Sunday’s NFL games and then will get some love of SportsCenter and from Chris Berman on his Fastest Three Minutes segment of game-by-game highlights.
And we know Joe Burrow will be watching. He showed up for the Bengals’ game against Houston recently wearing the jersey his father, Jim Burrow, wore for the Montreal Alouettes in the 1977 Grey Cup. After a cup of coffee as a DB with the Green Bay Packers, Jim Burrow went to Canada and played for the Alouettes. On top of winning the Grey Cup, he was also a CFL East All-Star in 1978 and 1979. This year’s 110th Grey Cup had Joe Burrow’s favorite CFL team, the Alouettes, facing the Winnipeg Blue Bombers for the first time in history.
For the hobby, however, the Grey Cup conjures up memories of one of the most intriguing football card ever printed.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the 1983 Warren Moon Jogo CFL rookie card. It is one of the most significant football cards ever printed.
The story of Jogo is even more interesting than the Warren Moon card that put it on the map. Two civil servants from Ottawa, John Bradley and Barry Goodman, started the company in the early 1980s. They were CFL collectors, and there had not been CFL cards produced since O-Pee-Chee’s 1972 set. They started with some regional and special issue postcard-sized cards, and in 1983 produced what is considered their first full set.
There were only 600 sets of 1983 Jogo CFL released for sale, and some other sets were produced for the players. Bradley said in an interview in the 1990s that the complete press run of the Warren Moon card is 900. PSA has graded 72 of them. There are no 10s and only 18 9s. The majority of the cards – 48 of the 72 – are graded as PSA 8s.
The first Moon cards with the Edmonton Eskimos (now the Edmonton Elks) were actually issued in 1981. Jogo released a black and white postcard-sixed set (3.5” be 5”).
There was also a regional set that Moon was included in that year. Red Rooster, a grocery chain, released a sheet of cards that was a giveaway to customers. The cards were perforated on a sheet. Today, only a few are usually found on eBay at any given time.
No Interest From NFL Teams
Like many Black quarterbacks in the 1970s, Moon ended up in the CFL. Even after a record-setting career at West Los Angeles College, only a handful of four-year college programs showed interest in him. The University of Washington Huskies in Seattle liked Moon enough to offer him a scholarship and build their team around his athleticism and rocket arm. Moon capped off a successful career with the Huskies by earning MVP honors in a thrilling Rose Bowl victory over the Michigan Wolverines.
Moon was not the first great NCAA player to find a home in the CFL when the NFL doors wouldn’t open. Jimmy Jones had a legendary career at USC, graduating with practically every single season and career Trojans passing record.
After sitting out the 1972 season as no NFL teams were interested in signing him as a quarterback, Jones joined Nebraska’s Johnny Rodgers with the Montreal Alouettes to become the most feared offensive duo in the CFL and win the 1974 Grey Cup.
Condredge Holloway, who starred in football and baseball at Tennessee, led the Vols to three Bowl games and threw only 12 interceptions in 407 career passing attempts. As a baseball player, Holloway was a shortstop who was drafted fourth overall by the Montreal Expos. He was drafted ahead of George Brett, Mike Schmidt, Jim Rice, Keith Hernandez and a number of future MLB stars. After his outstanding career, he was drafted as a DB, a position he had never played, by the New England Patriots in the 12th round.
He signed with the Ottawa Rough Riders and won Grey Cups in 1976 and 1983. In 1982, he was named the CFL Most Outstanding Player ahead of Moon.
Chuck Ealey may have been even better than Moon. After leading his high school to a state championship in Ohio in 1967, he was barely recruited. Toledo gave him the opportunity to play quarterback. In his three years as a starter, Toledo went 35-0 and Ealey led the Rockets to three straight Tangerine Bowl victories, winning MVP honors in each game. Despite this, Ealey was overlooked in the NFL Draft.
He signed with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 1972, and won CFL Rookie of the Year honors and became the first Black starting quarterback to win the Grey Cup. He was MVP in Hamilton’s 13-10 win.
The quarterback opposite Moon in the 1981 Grey Cup was JC Watts. The Oklahoma Sooners quarterback was drafted 213th overall by the New York Jets, but wanted Watts to play any position he could but quarterback. He signed with the Ottawa Rough Riders, and led them to the Grey Cup as a rookie where they lost to Moon’s heavily-favored Eskimos 26-23 on a last-minute field goal in one of the greatest games in Grey Cup history.
While the NFL turned its back on so many great Black quarterbacks, it was Moon who shattered the barrier when he signed with the Houston Oilers in 1984.
Moon played his sixth and final season in the CFL in 1983, breaking his record from the previous year by passing for 5,648 yards and winning the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player Award. Although the experts and scouts once believed he was not capable of playing the position of quarterback in the NFL, he was suddenly a hot commodity. He had an opportunity to go to the NFL and play for his former CFL coach, Hugh Campbell, with the Houston Oilers.
Moon had a record-setting career with the Oilers, and would move on to have stints in Minnesota, Seattle and Kansas City. He was named to nine Pro Bowls. Between the NFL and CFL, he passed for a total of 70,553 yards and 435 touchdowns.
More importantly than the mind-numbing stats were the barriers broken by Warren Moon. His success opened the doors for other Black quarterbacks to be respected by scouts, coaches and NFL management. After Moon, players like Randall Cunningham, Rodney Peete, Steve McNair, Donovan McNabb, Michael Vick were all given the opportunity to succeed in the NFL. Today, football has become more or less color blind when it comes to the quarterback position. Warren Moon is the man who made that possible, shattering any myths that prevented football personnel from giving Black quarterbacks a chance to play.
Because it is a Canadian Football League card, the 1983 Jogo Moon rookie card has always been given an XRC designation. His 1985 Topps NFL is considered his “official” rookie card.
But regardless of its designation, the small print run and the significance of Warren Moon makes his 1983 Jogo card one worth celebrating on its 40th anniversary.
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