Riders operating on chicken wings and prayers heading into free agency

Leonard was due for a bonus payment, but considering his performance last year, the Riders were better positioned to release Leonard before the bonus and free up the money for say, Kian Schaefer Baker or Ben Sankey or hey, what about Trevor Harris?

When the Rider equipment sale started (this is how they call what was once known as the locker room sale) last week, I was going through the racks of $300 game worn jerseys of back up players or $500 in used football helmets and talking about the Riders when the name of Dane Evans came up.

Evans was the starter in Hamilton until Bo Levi Mitchell showed up and since he is still under contract to Hamilton, Hamilton has the option to hang onto him until training camp or trade him and get something back for him instead of just cutting him.

I can’t see the Riders, and again, this is a 6-12 team with no cohesive offensive line and a defense that faded into the night like a 64 Chevy with a 396 engine and fuelie heads on the floor, making a trade. The Riders may have people Hamilton is interested in, but would it be worth stripping the team of whatever few viable assets they have in exchange for Evans?

Hamilton can carry Evans until the end of training camp and then his salary counts against the salary cap. Hamilton may not have the cap room to carry two quarterbacks making those salaries, but then again, Mitchell is coming off two seasons of shoulder problems so shouldn’t you have a viable back up if you are hosting the Grey Cup and you are a team not the Saskatchewan Roughriders?

The Riders are looking at their early bird season ticket deadline and are probably already seeing a drop in ticket sales. The Riders need some big news to stir fans and $300 back up player jerseys is not going to do that.

The Riders are hinting at some sort of big news coming out, perhaps even of a coaching nature. The only thing there I can think of is the Riders hiring a quarterback coach.

This would work if the Riders are going with basically inexperienced players or if they are going to bring Cody Fajardo back and they want to work on his throwing mechanics and his psychological make up.

The big signing off the current Rider roster would be Darnell Sankey, the middle linebacker who set a Rider tackling record last year. Kian Schaefer Baker is said to be about to return for a three-year contract, but if you can’t get him the ball, you might as well have a service dog running routes.

I am pretty sure Bo Levi was trolling Rider fans, whose emotional stability has always gone from one extreme to another, when he said he would have signed in Saskatchewan if the Riders had made changes.

I would presume that meant signing Marc Mueller as the offensive coordinator. Mueller, the former U of R quarterback and Ron Lancaster’s grandson, has come up through the ranks in Calgary and will now take on more offensive coordinator responsibility and I would not be surprised to see him as a future Stampeder head coach.

Mueller did not come to Saskatchewan probably because the Riders have no vision other than trying to salvage a season better than 6-12 to allow GM Jeremy O’Day and head coach Craig Dickenson to extend their Rider careers past this season.

The Riders may luck out if Brent Jones does not get into medical school this year. Jones, an engineering graduate from the University of Regina has applied to enter the U of S medical school. Jones has spent six or seven years in the NFL, did very well, and with his wife being a schoolteacher, he is looking to stay in Saskatchewan either as a medical intern or with the Riders.

Jones coming to the Riders would lift that line from abysmal to perhaps mediocre, but that shift could be enough to spare whatever quarterback comes to Saskatchewan from permanent lifelong disability. That would still leave four other spots up for discussion, but Jones, who was a centre in Calgary, would be the ideal leader and mentor for whoever shows up.

Jones won’t find out until say May whether he made it into medical school. He has academic and an interview process to go through before he finds out whether he can get into medical school and that may help walk up tickets, but not necessarily season ticket packages at this point.

The other interesting thing would be a trade between the Riders and Montreal. Montreal would send Trevor Harris and Eugene Lewis, both impending free agents, to the Riders for Cody Fajardo and Duke Williams, who are also impending free agents.

That might help, but such a move smacks of a team trying to hit it out of the park rather than perhaps concentrate on basics. It is a philosophy you see with the equipment sale where the Riders put out their used jerseys and helmets, jack up the prices and expect them to move.

Once upon a time, say 10 years ago, the Riders had the best off – field organization in the CFL. I would regale fans in other CFL centers about what the Riders were doing and how they should get their teams thinking about marketing or selling in a similar fashion.

The Riders led the CFL and maybe still do in merchandise sales but consider this.

On the BC Lion website, I can get a replica jersey for $175 or a blank jersey for $125. On the Edmonton Elks website you can get a blank jersey for $125, apparently no customized.

On the Calgary Stampeder site you can get a a blank jersey for $125, a customized one for $225 and a customized third jersey for $235. On the Winnipeg site you can get a blank jersey for $119 and a customized one for $229

Hamilton brought in a third jersey so a blank regular jersey is $129, a blank 3^rd jersey is $139, a customized regular jersey is $209 and a customized third jersey is $244. On the Toronto site you can get a blank jersey for $93.74 and you can buy game worn jersey, home or away, for $250 or get a practice jersey for $150.

In Ottawa you can get a heat pressed jersey for $194, pay $224 for a pro stitch jersey, or $124 for a blank jersey. You can get a blank team issued jersey for $150 or even game worn pants for $59. On the Montreal site you can buy a game worn for $159 which is what you would pay for a personalized jersey or $119 for a blank jersey.

Compare that to the Riders asking $300 for a game worn jersey, $229 for a customized jersey or $139 for a blank jersey. Rider fans are being asked to pay amongst the highest prices for jerseys in the CFL.

Just because one is being asked to pay a high price does not necessarily mean you are getting quality for the money you are shelling out. The Rider vision now is squeezing as much money out of fans as possible, while not necessarily giving the fans what they want, which is a winning or competitive team, or in my case, practice jerseys or pants put out for sale.

This vision, if it spills over onto on field activities, does not fill me with confidence for this season. The Riders may feel the need to make a bit of a splash but if their signings follow the trend set with the equipment sale, 6-12 might be seen as a dream season.

I am not sure if Brent Jones would be the magic key to bringing this team back to credibility. The way the Riders went through last season, plus how they have handled the off-season, makes me question whether or not the team has the smarts to figure out a way out of the minefield it laid for itself.

The Riders painted themselves into a corner with their quarterbacks, and it is difficult to say which way to go would be the right one. A lot depends on how they fix the offensive line. If adding Jones and a year of experience makes the offensive line better, then fair play to the Riders.

A better offensive line, focusing on the running game to begin with, would make the life of whoever is quarterback much easier. I remember the 1981 season when the Riders had Joe Barnes starting and John Hufnagel finishing games so the Rider quarterback tandem was known as JJ Barnagel. A tandem worked in Ottawa when Conredge Holloway and Tom Clements came up after their NCAA careers. Let’s not forget when Kent Austin and Tom Burgess won a Grey Cup here in 1989.

So having two potential starters share the job does not worry me. If the Riders combined Fajardo with whoever, that might make the situation more competitive than last year. If say Harris comes here, then a more mobile option at backup would help make it harder for opposing defenses to game plan.

If I was going to compare situations, I would say 2023 may be like 1978. The Riders went to the Grey Cup in 1976, lost, kept the same lineup who got old fast and then came apart in 1978 before opting to blow things up and putting Ron Lancaster in as coach.

The Riders had success two years ago before folding against Winnipeg and last year just repeatedly shot themselves in both feet repeatedly. At best, this season may see a rebound, but I suspect the Riders are now in a rebuild mode which means paying more for jerseys and merchandise compared to other CFL fans and figuring out if picking up a case of beer and watching from home is cheaper than going to the game and paying $10 a beer.

by Greg Urbanoski

Riders operating on chicken wings and prayers heading into free agency

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