A day after Toronto Argonauts wide receiver Arland Bruce III ripped head coach Bart Andrus and quarterback Kerry Joseph in the Globe and Mail, Andrus suggested that Bruce might not be able to function in professional football.
The first year Argonauts coach spoke to the Fan590 in Toronto on Thursday morning and expressed his disappointment with the six-year veteran, who has reportedly been fined four times already this season and was told to stay home for the club's Week 4 game against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
"It's unfortunate in my opinion that Arland has decided to take this to the media – to the public. I usually choose to handle these things privately and in-house with the guys," Andrus told the radio station. "From week to week during the season, some guys get fined for various things. It's usually nothing we go public with and talk about."
Bruce, who is the Argonauts leading wideout with 14 receptions for 199 yards and one touchdown this season, told the Globe that he felt that Andrus was trying to make an example out of him, which is something the coach denied.
"Like I said before, I didn't do anything with Arland that I wouldn't have done with any other player," Andrus told the FAN590. "I'm not trying to make an example out of him, I'm just doing what I would normally do should it have been one of our offensive lineman, one of our defensive backs, running backs or quarterbacks.
"If a guy chooses to not conform and do the things that we're asking him to do as a professional football player then I have to take action."
While Bruce told the Globe and Mail that he wanted to remain with the Argonauts, Andrus, who said that no decision had been made about any other discipline following Bruce's comments, made it seem that Bruce might not be with the Boatmen going forward.
"I'm willing to give guys chances, I think that he has chosen by doing what he's done, what he's said, that it looks like he's in a position that he wants to move on," Andrus stated. "I don't think that he can probably do what we want him to do as a professional. I don't think that he'll find it any easier any other place."
Andrus also took issue with Bruce's comments that the coach should also have been getting on Joseph instead.
"I try to teach [players] whenever something comes up, the best place to start is with the guy you look at in the mirror. I think that would be really good advice for Arland at this point," Andrus said. "He has not been a good teammate and he has not been a team player and I think that he needs to take a good look at himself and see if he's going to be able to function in pro football.”
In discussing the matter on Thursday's CFL on TSN pre-game show, the panel was in agreement that Bruce's days in Toronto are likely numbered.
"Arland Bruce is employed by the Toronto Argonauts to perform but he is also employed to conform, to be part of a football team," said CFL on TSN analyst Chris Schultz. "It doesn't seem to me that he wants to be part of a football team."