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Please Santa, Don’t Let the Riders Screw This One Up!

Dec 1, 2015 | 5:33 PM

You may have noticed a Grey Cup was played last weekend, but if you were like me, you were watching the Edmonton Eskimo sideline and wondering about whether the rumors about Chris Jones being a head coach/GM of the Saskatchewan Roughriders were going to be true.

To no one’s surprise the Grey Cup proved to be rumor central and while Brock Sunderland and John Murphy emerged as GM candidates along with Jeremy O’Day, it also worked out that John Hufnagel took his name out of the running leaving Jones as the assumed rock star in the running.

Other interesting developments had Toronto Argonaut coach Scott Milanovich looking at the coaching job at his old alma mater at the University of Maryland, which makes the Jim Barker looking west to Regina rumors more credible. Paul La Police is apparently in the running for the offensive coordinator position in Winnipeg, which is interesting considering Winnipeg fired him as head coach, but Winnipeg is laying off because La Police is under consideration as a head coach here.

Now the odds of us landing Chris Jones strike me as perhaps a bit long because he is under contract to Edmonton and they would have to give permission for him to talk to the Riders. Usually teams give permission when the job is a promotion, like an assistant coach to head coach, or coach to general manager.

However the optics of Edmonton losing their Grey Cup winning coach to the Riders just after winning the Cup would not look good except for a few things. Jones rubs Edmonton GM Ed Hervey the wrong way and Jones is a mercenary who would want the power to assemble the roster he wants and he would get it in Saskatchewan. Apparently if Jones leaves Edmonton, then Jason Maas, the offensive coordinator of the Ottawa Red blacks and former Eskimo quarterback, would be in the running for head coach.

Jones apparently makes $310,000 and would in a joint job make about $600,000 a year. If Edmonton doesn’t want to lose Jones, they would have to give him a substantial raise and if Jones gets that, and perhaps a few more perks out of Edmonton, he would be inclined to probably stay.

However, when Milanovich took over as head coach of the Argos, he brought Jones to Toronto out of Calgary in a move that ticked Calgary off to no end and Toronto had to add an assistant GM position to make the move palatable and paid the Stampeders money as well. So a move like this is not out of the question for Jones.

I kind of admire the Riders spirit for attempting to land Jones, assuming they even get past permission to talk to him from the Eskimos. At the same time, a part of me suspects that the Riders will fail to land Jones, then perhaps go to O’Day saying we’ve groomed him all these years and O’Day hires a coach, who might not be La Police. And the Riders would satisfy their old boy’s network of former players who understandably want one of their own to make it to management, but that would leave a huge hole in what the public could expect.

I would not have a problem with O’Day if I had an idea of what his plan was for the club, how he plans to improve it, what he wants from a coaching standpoint, and how the Riders would get back into contention. So far nothing, which the Old Boys would argue means that O’Day is not tipping his hand to his competitors but then again, the games are decided by the players and everyone who saw the expert tackling in the Grey Cup versus some of the ridiculous tackling attempted by the Riders this past season would think that saying coaching fundamentals would not be a surprise to anyone else in the CFL.

The chase for Jones is entertaining for the moment, but in the end I don’t think the Riders can clinch the deal. It will look like they will go for Plan C, or the plan that makes them more comfortable, and they can say to fans that hey, we tried – but the question I had is while it was a gutsy call, was it a realistic call to chase Jones when your mind was already set on O’Day?

That sounds to me like political spin and much like the Province of Saskatchewan has now slipped into recession, the Riders are trying to sell the image to season ticket holders that they are doing all they can to build a winner. The problem with the Riders is the plan is rather hazy and asking people to part with their money to renew season tickets on faith or good seats in a new stadium without knowing how their team will be rebuilt is taking an leap of faith that is asking a lot.

Now it appears that Rich Stubler is leaving Calgary for Toronto as their defensive coordinator, which leads me to think DeVone Claybrooks gets boosted from defensive line coach to defensive coordinator. The move definitely helps the Toronto Argonauts and potentially weakens the Calgary Stampeders, but perhaps should light a fire under the Riders to get things done to nail down some coaches.

Speaking of departures, Jon Cornish is likely to announce his retirement from the CFL. Most people will say it is because of concussion concerns, Cornish on the Riderfans website says it is not, but he is leaving the game. Cornish and the Riders have come close to the love the Riders have for Henry Burris, but anytime a player has to retire due to injuries, it is a sad occasion. The Stampeders do have a perfectly good replacement in Jerome Messam.

The Riders will be adding Darian Durant to the Canadian family as he announced at Riderville at Grey Cup 103 that he will be getting his Canadian citizenship in two years. This seems to indicate he is following Henry Burris in settling in Canada and hopefully this starts a trend of former players making their homes in Saskatchewan after their playing days are over.

I was less than impressed with CFL commission Jeffrey Orridge and the new CFL logo at Grey Cup. Orridge seemed out of his depth in answering questions and did not inspire a lot of confidence. Hopefully he either improves or the CFL is strong enough to withstand him.

I wonder why the NFL and NHL can go for decades without changing their logo, while the CFL changes every 10 years. A lot of this seems to be due to Adidas coming on as the equipment supplier and with their three stripe logo, redesigning not just the CFL logo but also team’s uniforms. I read an interesting comment in the Sports Illustrated website that the NFL no longer wears uniforms, they wear costumes and with the changing of the uniforms in the CFL every five years, it seems the CFL is down that track of a cash grab from patrons.

Maybe Christmas and the Rider Locker Room sale will cheer me up.