That some players are willing to play in the CFL while some cling to their NFL dreams. For example, it didn't take Dominique Dorsey long to make his return to the Argos, while Sam Giguere would rather sit in an apartment in Indianapolis waiting for his phone to ring.
Even Jesse Lumsden and Mike O'Shea were sharp enough to realize that after taking their NFL shot, hey were better off coming back to Canada and getting on with their careers.
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Because some players aren’t in it for the football, they’re in it for the kind of bench warming money in the NFL a star player would rarely make here. Hard to attract them with $500 a week to sit on the practice roster or 60-150k to start when you could make 450k-750k sitting on the bench in the NFL.
Also, some players may have other things to do with their lives, and career opportunities that may pay as well or better than CFL salaries, and have much longer term potential.
In addition, for many American players, they're weighing coming to a foreign country-- away from family and friends-- to play in a smaller league before smaller crowds and with a much smaller pay cheque; for many this simply isn't enough of an attraction to forgo other career choices closer to home.
Who knows he may have a part time job there or maybe a girlfriend.
The vast difference in compensation between NFL and CFL is obvious. However, the difference between a regular paycheque and nothing is significant too. My question is why would Giguere, who will have spent two seasons without playing a meaninful game, sit around Indy (where he has been cut twice) rather than sign in Hamilton and start what could be a decent career? Why would Dorsey come back to the CFL rather than wait around for his agent to try and hook him up elsewhere in the NFL? These are just two examples so I'm not picking on them, but it seems some players want to play and some (Corey Mace?) are content to be practise dummies.
Because football is not a fun sport to play, anyone who thinks it is never played lol.
There's especially nothing fun about being a running back and take the beating they take, believe it or not there's a ton of players who are happier than anything if their team doesnt make the playoffs.
I guess the CFL vs NFL equation works out differently for different people. It's a complicated decision, with more to it than just the choice of being a "practice dummy" versus having a "decent career". Everyone has his own priorities and no two people will approach it in the same way.