The last time I saw Danny McManus up close, he was wearing a ball cap and work boots and pants that exposed too much of his backside.

He looked more repairman than quarterback, just round enough and old enough and short enough and bald enough to be many things: Football star just didn't seem one of them.

Greg Marshall never judged a man by the size of his waistline. He didn't care that his quarterback didn't look the part. When Marshall first interviewed for the unlikely job of coaching the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, he was asked whom he wanted to be his quarterback.

He didn't lie and answer Peyton Manning.

"I'll stay with McManus," Marshall said.

In most cases, his candidacy would have ended right there on the grounds of insanity. "But I believed it," said Marshall, the rookie coach. "And the other thing was, it's not like we had a whole lot of alternatives."

There was that, too. And so here we are, three weeks into the Canadian Football League season and a quarterback written off for dead -- or lost in Hamilton, which is basically the same thing -- is suddenly doing the Russ Jackson dance. Minus the running. Bing. A touchdown pass here. Bang. A touchdown pass there.

If you didn't know better, you would think McManus had sold his soul for one last season and any minute now the cast is about to break into song. But this ain't no musical and Danny McManus, forever doubted, is putting up numbers that belong in the museum of the hard to believe.

Three games, three wins. Three games, 11 touchdown passes. Three games, 1,359 yards passing. He could call it a season right now and be happy.

DAMON WHO?

For the record, McManus has thrown for 781 more yards and nine more touchdowns -- yes in just three games -- than the even more ancient Damon Allen has in what was supposed to be a renaissance season for the Argonauts.

And if the truth be told, many who are now applauding him wanted his rather wide backside booted out of Hamilton in the winter.

"Even some people on the inside didn't want him," general manager Ron Lancaster said.

"A lot of people complained (about McManus returning). They said they weren't going to renew their tickets. They said a lot of things. You can't listen to them. You have to decide for yourself."

So Marshall watched film. Lots of film. He saw a quarterback playing on a bad knee. He saw passes dropped. He saw routes improperly run. He saw an offensive line that needed work. Horror films from a 1-17 season.

"I was looking at him throwing the ball and I didn't see anything wrong," Marshall said.

"I saw he could have completed at least six more passes a game. That would have taken him from 250 yards passing to 350. He still had the touch on the deep ball, only we couldn't get deep."

Marshall solidified his decision when he began to meet with his Ticats players. Marshall would ask about the quarterbacking position and one by one they supported the 39-year-old McManus. "Then, he made it clear to me in our meeting. He said 'Coach, I'll do whatever you want. If you want me to be the guy coming off the bench, I'll be the guy. I'll do whatever it takes to win.' "

Whatever it took meant joining an indoor flag football league during the off-season to work on his arm and his timing. He found his confidence again playing against some of the disgruntled season-ticket holders.

"Danny McManus doesn't care about proving people wrong," said Lancaster, who knows a little about quarterbacking himself. "That's not who he is. He knows he's coming to the end. He knows it's soon. He wanted to prove to one person he could still do it. That's all. He wanted to prove it to himself."