By Joel Gasson

VIDEO: Little time for Brendan Taman to enjoy Grey Cup win

Dec 8, 2013 | 7:53 AM

There's been no time for Riders General Manager Brendan Taman to rest since winning the Grey Cup.

The demands placed on a football executive have never been more apparent for Taman than they have this year. Just a couple of weeks ago he won his first Grey Cup, but there's been little to no time off for the man who built the Riders' championship roster.

That's because this off-season is one like no other in the last 10 years. Not only do teams have to deal with the usual things like free agency and the Canadian draft, but there's also an expansion draft coming up for the Ottawa RedBlacks. Taman has been kept busy trying to figure out which six Canadians and 10 imports his team will protect.

“We'll sit down and go over the last details of it and figure out what the list is going to be,” said Taman.

There's a lot of different things the team has to take into consideration when figuring out who they'll protect and who they won't, but Taman actually insists the process isn't as hard as one might think.

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“Pretty straight-forward: you take your best guys and keep them protected as best you can,” he said. “From there, see what happens.”

Taman has been working on the list mostly with Head Coach Corey Chamblin, but he has been taking some input from Assistant General Manager Jeremy O'Day along with the rest of the coaching staff.

Some of the things that Taman and the rest of the team have to consider when it comes to protecting certain players over others include their contract status, how much money they actually make, their injury history, and so on. All of that may be important but Taman suggests that first and foremost it's a players ability that they're most concerned with.

That suggests that some players who are free agents may be protected just in case, even though it's been suggested Ottawa may not pick a player who is a free agent. That's because there's still the chance that player could choose not to sign with the team and leave on Feb. 15th.

There's also been some discussion about the protected lists themselves and if they should be made public or not. Taman's thoughts on the idea are pretty clear.

“I'm not a fan of that. We have a relationship we have to maintains with our guys,” said Taman. “People can think what they want; there's a lot of ego in this business. You got a lot of work to do salvage that relationship with us.”

So the only way anyone, including the players, will know for sure who is protected and who isn't is based on who gets picked. Otherwise, we'll never know.

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On Twitter: @princealbertnow