From NFL safety to Grey Cup winning quarterback, Kerry Joseph looks back on football career

Coming to the CFL didn’t just represent a step in Kerry Joseph’s football career – it represented a chance to get his life back on the road he wanted to be on.

“I had that desire to play and when the call came and I had the opportunity to go back and play the quarterback position – I was 29, I was going through a divorce at the time – I wasn’t in a good place mentally but football gave me that opportunity to get back to where I wanted to go,” Joseph said.

While the former Saskatchewan Roughriders quarterback would reach the peak with a Grey Cup championship in 2007, it was a long road with twists and turns.

Born in New Iberia, Louisiana, Joseph was the middle of three boys and all of them were involved in sports from an early age.

Joseph began playing football at nine years old but only started to really focus on it during his sophomore year of high school after an elbow issue meant he wouldn’t be able to continue his baseball career much longer.

Joseph played his college football at McNeese State.

Joseph won 41 games and three Southland Conference championships as a starter for the Cowboys including leading the program to its first-ever playoff victory (1992) and first national semifinal appearance (1995).

But despite all that success, Joseph wasn’t drafted by the NFL in 1996 and not many teams had him in their quarterback plans.

Joseph’s career took him to the Cincinnati Bengals of the NFL, the London Monarchs of NFL Europe and then back to the NFL with the Washington Redskins where the team wanted him to play running back.

In 1997, the New Orleans Saints had him tryout at quarterback, running back and safety all in one day and told him if he wanted to have a professional career, he needed to switch to the defensive side of the ball.

Joseph played a season and won a World Championship with the Rhein Fire at safety before signing with the Seattle Seahawks.

He spent four seasons in Seattle but found himself out of football in 2002.

But then he got the call from then Ottawa Renegades general manager Eric Tillman.

“I didn’t know all the ins and outs of it but I did know about the CFL. I just didn’t know how cold it got up there.”

Joseph spent three seasons with the Renegades before the team folded in 2006. By that point, Tillman was in Saskatchewan and made Joseph the first overall pick in the dispersal draft.

In 2006, the Roughriders saw their season ended by the B.C. Lions 45-18 in the West Final. That loss ended up being the inspiration and catalyst for a magical 2007 season that saw Joseph get named the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player.

“I told (defensive end) Fred Perry after that game, I said, ‘Man, we’re going to come back to this place and we’re going win this Grey Cup.’ “

The Roughriders went 12-6 with new head coach Kent Austin, who was also on the coaching staff in Ottawa when Joseph first arrived in the CFL.

The season had two games that really stood out in Joseph’s mind.

The first was a 39-32 win over the Edmonton Eskimos in August, a game where the power at Mosaic Stadium went out in the fourth quarter.

“I thought that was tremendous to see the fan support that stayed in that stadium in the midst of the storm and when the lights came back on, the momentum changed and we were able to come back and win that football game,” Joseph said.

And of course, there was the 31-26 Labour Day Classic win over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers that saw Joseph run into the end zone on a quarterback draw to score the game winning touchdown with 11 seconds left.

The Roughriders once again found themselves in the West Final against the Lions but this time the team had a different mindset heading into it.

“I don’t know if in 2006 that we went in knowing we could win that football game, we kind of went in hoping. In 2007, we knew we had been through the wars, we had been through battles, that we were going to come out victorious in that one.”

The Riders got their revenge, winning the game 26-17.

The team then defeated the Blue Bombers 23-19 in Toronto to claim the franchise’s third Grey Cup victory, and a chance to hoist the coveted trophy.

“It was a great feeling to raise it but it was an even better feeling to see (offensive lineman) Gene Makowski raise it. A guy that had been battling for so long and had never gotten a chance to win the Grey Cup.”

And it meant a lot to Joseph as well.

You look at it and you see tears – those were tears of joy, tears of pain of everything I had to endure to get to that point. I had to play three, four positions at the professional level to get to where I needed to get to,” Joseph said. “I felt the hard work and dedication that I had to put in over time, the perseverance finally paid off. You never know how your career is going to end, you have so many people that play the game and don’t finish with a championship, whether it’s a Grey Cup or a Super Bowl, it doesn’t matter. To get one, because they’re hard to get, you can look back and say, ‘You know what? I feel better now. I feel that I have accomplished something.’ “

But the feelings of elation wouldn’t last long for Joseph and the Riders.

After taking a pay cut in 2007 and being told he would get that money back somehow, talks broke down and Joseph knew his days in green and white were over.

“I didn’t want to be the highest-paid but I just wanted the money that I gave up and I wanted the money back and I wanted it as a signing bonus because as a U.S. guy, you get a signing bonus, you get a tax break.”

Joseph got traded to the Toronto Argonauts on March 5, 2008.

“I felt like we were really building something special and if I could have stayed in Saskatchewan, I felt like we could’ve ran and maybe went back-to-back at least for another year or two because we were still talented. That’s when I really started with how things went down,” Joseph said.

He said the toughest part about going to Toronto was the fact their quarterback, Michael Bishop, had a successful season in 2007. He said both of them felt like they were the starter and that caused a divide in the locker room.

“My first year there, I felt I didn’t have the trust of a lot of my teammates. Myself and (slotback) Arland Bruce got into it a couple times because he was a Michael Bishop guy so we didn’t see eye-to-eye. So it was tough.”

Joseph spent 2008 and 2009 with Toronto before signing with Edmonton where he stayed from 2010-13.

He retired in January, 2014, but was signed by the Roughriders in October, playing his final games in the CFL and retire the way he wanted to — in green and white.

Joseph was inducted into the Roughriders’ Plaza of Honour in 2019.

Now the running back and passing game coordinator for Southeastern Louisiana University, Joseph looks back on his career with a smile.

“I don’t complain one bit about the path I had to take. I’m truly blessed and thankful for just everything that transpired throughout my career and the things I was able to learn, the friendships, the relationships I was able to build. If someone would’ve told me I was going to play five years in the NFL and 12 years in the CFL, I would’ve looked at them like they were crazy. I have no regrets, I have no regrets about everything I was able to accomplish.”