Nye: Who will be returning to Riderville?
The locker room is empty, the moving trucks will back in soon but it’ll be a question of which Roughriders will be moving to the new stadium in 2017.
‘F’
That was the grade head coach Chris Jones gave the team after a 5-13 season and a second-straight November watching the playoffs for an organization that was getting quite comfortable with annual trips to the playoffs.
Jones’ blunt assessment of himself and his team leads one to believe it’ll be another off-season of turnover. It won’t be the coaching staff. They’re staying together.
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The Riders need for offensive linemen, defensive lineman and who will be the quarterback are the three biggest questions facing this team going into the off-season.
First we need to answer this question: What went wrong with the Roughriders?
Many say the same thing. Far too many new faces, far too many injuries and just not enough consistency in the roster to build a foundation fast enough to recover from a complete overhaul following the 2015 disaster.
The team did start to turn in the later half of the season, finishing their final eight games after a 1-9 start with a 4-4 record.
The consistency in the roster was a big part of that. The consistency allowed the team, especially on the defensive side of the ball, to gel and allowed for communication and execution to pick up.
“Having that now, if we can build upon that next year, I think we’ll be a lot better off,” said veteran linebacker Greg Jones as he put his final pieces of personal items in his bag.
Offensively it was an up and down season. Early on the team was putting up the points but as the offensive line continued to get beat up with injuries to long time guards Brendon LaBatte and Chris Best as well as pass blocking running back Curtis Steele, the pressure on the quarterback mounted and the scoring decreased.
O-line is a position the team has already earmarked as a must improvement for next season.
“That’s an area we may address in free agency,” admitted the head coach, who went on to say that it’s a possibility they may have to play three internationals on the offensive line to shore things up.
First overall pick Josiah St. John improved this season but needs to work on a lot of things this off-season before the team believes he’s ready to fill a starting spot.
Chris Best is due for more surgery and more rehab and while he wants to be ready for 2017, the team isn’t going to ink him in after he missed the entire season with double sports hernia surgery.
Brendon LaBatte has signed a contract extension but struggled to return with a neck/concussion injury.
So now what?
Will the Riders sign Jeff Knox Jr. to another contract this off-season? (Johany Jutras/CFL.ca)
It’s an off-season that will be met soon with reality for a bunch of players who are going to get some bad news. Chris Jones admitted he’ll make sure the players under contract that they’ve already deemed as expendable will find out quickly that they need to look elsewhere for work.
Jones is immediately going to work to find the other gaps in the roster, including defensive tackles and defensive backs.
His usually busy schedule of free agent camps will include seven before Christmas all around the United States. It’s where they found linebacker Sam Eguavoen, who was set for rookie of the year consideration before a knee injury and Ricky Collins Jr., who was close to setting a 1,000-yard pace at receiver.
They also have a few free agents to lock up, with linebacker Jeff Knox Jr. high on the priority list and Darian Durant.
Oh, yes. Darian Durant.
The quarterback’s contract negotiation is the biggest story in Saskatchewan which will dominate discussion on the Roughriders off-season.
The team still wants him and Durant is definitely still committed to being the Roughriders quarterback. He has unfinished business, wanting to lead this team to another championship.
However, they are currently far apart on his worth in terms of dollars and cents.
Shoring up all those other areas of need are definitely important, but if they don’t have a quarterback who can win as consistently as Durant has been able to when he is healthy, it could be another season of despair for Rider Nation.
By the time the official move happens in the spring, we should know if Durant’s name plate is added to a locker in the new Mosaic Stadium.
In terms of the team’s success on that new field, whoever is sitting in the starting quarterback’s locker come June will allow us to better answer the final question.
Will the Riders actually be better next year?
