The Toronto Argonauts may enter the 2018 season with a target on their back after winning last year’s Grey Cup, but don’t call them the defending champions.

“I don’t look at it like we’re the defending Grey Cup champions. We’re the 2018 Toronto Argonauts; that’s the way we approach it,” Argos head coach Marc Trestman said Tuesday. “We can’t defend our championship because we’re not the same team that we were a year ago. Our team can’t go back-to-back, it’s impossible. Our organization can, but our team can’t.”

While the Argos will undoubtedly have a number of new faces on this year’s edition of the team, a number of key players are returning as well.

Led by veteran quarterback and East Division Most Outstanding Player Ricky Ray, 21 of the team’s Grey Cup starters are on the roster heading into training camp. Still, Trestman said it’s a fresh start this weekend.

“We just look at it as a completely separate entity. We’ll start over the weekend and go day to day and try to be the best team we can be on a daily basis. We’re not going to try to overly complicate it with any other frame of reference.

“We understand that the media is going to say that we’re defending Grey Cup champions, but we’re not. And that’s our approach starting next week.”

General manager Jim Popp agreed with Trestman’s approach, but admitted it’s easier to go into the season with a strong nucleus in place.

“We’re in a great position to build off what we did last season,” Popp said. “We were able to maintain a good core of our players that started for us a year ago.”

Along with Ray, CFL Rookie of the Year James Wilder, CFL All-Star S.J. Green, and the entire offensive line returns on offence. On defence, the entire front seven, save perhaps Victor Butler, returns as does East Division All-Star Cassius Vaughn in the secondary.

Popp added that being in a stable system this year will benefit the players as well. The two were brought in late in the winter last year after previous head coach Scott Milanovich’s surprise resignation, and Trestman used last season’s training camp to instill his playbook and expectations.

“They’ve been in coach Trestman’s system for a year now,” Popp said. “They understand it and know it better. They understand the culture; they understand what they’re to do.”

But Popp agreed that resting on last year’s laurels won’t help the Argos moving forward. The last franchise to win back-to-back Grey Cups was the Popp-Trestman led Montreal Alouettes in 2009 and 2010. And like those teams, Popp said, this year’s Argos cannot stay dormant.

“It’s a new year every year. We have huge challenges … it’s just a matter of staying healthy and going out there and executing the game plan.”

“As soon as we start to take what happened in 2017 for granted … I think we’re doing our team a disservice,” Trestman echoed. “The dynamic has changed. There will be new chemistry and that’s what makes the new season exciting.”

The Argos open camp Saturday at York University. They officially begin their defence of the Grey Cup – or just their 2018 season as Trestman would have it – June 15 in Regina against the Saskatchewan Roughriders.