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Riders Bring Fans Into the Circle of Trust

Jun 28, 2016 | 4:51 PM

Riders bring fans into circle of trust as Riders first game of season and final home opener at Taylor Field approaches

As a CFL fan, the first weekend had the welcome sight of the Toronto Argonauts overcoming a lousy Donald Trump- like landlord at the Skydome to open a new page at BMO Field, with Ottawa surprising not just me, but Edmonton by putting up over 500 yards of passing offense to kick the defending champs, BC, overcoming three blocked kicks to score on a punt return to beat Calgary and Montreal and showed Winnipeg that wishing hard enough is not enough to block a pass rush.

Of course my picks sucked, but this is what happens when you have the first week, everyone gets the stuffing kicked out of them.

The Riders had the week off, which should be enough time to find a bank and a place to crash for the night.

They started with a walk through on Sunday and Rider GM and Head Coach, Chris Jones, brought all us fans together to talk about not tweeting anything specific the Riders were doing during practice. He mentioned when he coached elsewhere, he would scour the fan pages for practice notes and use that information in his game planning, if he found anything.

Cory Chamblin, who is being talked about as a defensive coordinator in Winnipeg if you can believe it, tried a similar tactic by closing all practices, but that wasn’t practical. Now it seems one practice a week is closed to allow teams to work on the inside stuff, and that works for me.

What made it interesting was that Jones was not giving the fans heck for being passionate about the team, writing about it, or attending practices. As he noted, in other places no one comes out to watch practice. He wanted the fans to enjoy themselves, but also be responsible.

Now I will be honest, I love going to practice, especially on a brilliant sunny hot day, and watch other people sweat.

Chris Jones wants his players to not just react, but also to think. This means field awareness of knowing what lineup in in, punt, field goal, returns, short yardage, and learning where to go.

On Tuesday, Jones sent the players back into the locker room after being ticked off at the player’s lack of focus when doing drills. When you do a Chris Jones drill, you better know what is going on and what they expect. When he went in after seven minutes to talk to them, they came out more determined than ever.

At this point, it’s pretty well useless to focus on anyone because no is standing around and the numbers keep changing.

This is fair enough because there is nothing you can write about for a walk-through practice to start the week.  What the Riders did do over the weekend was more and in some ways less interesting.

The rumor mills were alive with talk of a trade between the Edmonton Eskimos and Riders for quarterback James Franklin. A little background shows Jones found Franklin in a free agent camp last year while with Edmonton, brought him up, and he performed well enough to enable the Eskimos to trade Matt Nichols to Winnipeg for a case of beer.

Franklin has been somewhat been placed aside in Edmonton as they brought in Thomas DeMarco and still have John Lynch as a third down quarterback. Eskimos Coach Jason Maas had worked with DeMarco in Ottawa when they were both there so this is no surprise. What is interesting is the disposition of Franklin, considering he is going to be a free agent next year.

The trade in theory would have seen the Riders send Joshia St. John, the number one overall draft pick to Edmonton, plus the Riders first round draft pick next year, in exchange for Franklin. The Riders had promised when they started their bye week they would have two quarterbacks in town by Sunday, and the media took the ball and ran with it.

The Riders came out with a denial about talking to Edmonton and a simple fact of human nature explains why such a trade would never be feasible in the first place. Ed Hervey hates Chris Jones for blowing the coop a week after winning the Grey Cup and will do anything to put the screws to Saskatchewan. Two first round draft picks for a guy who hasn’t seen much action is a bit ridiculous.

The Riders shut the trade talk up by bringing in GJ Kinne who I mentioned last week would be coming in, and Bryant Moniz, who was also with Calgary and was a third down quarterback handling short yardage plays last year. I got BJ Daniels wrong, which goes to show in Saskatchewan, one BJ is just fine.

The two picks are the result of the influence of John Murphy, Rider personnel guru and former birddog with the Calgary Stampeders. I am not sure Moniz brings anything but some third down CFL experience but then again, he was playing behind Bo Levi Mitchell and Drew Tate so active playing snaps would be pretty hard to come by.

The Riders also surprised by adding Armanti Edwards, the combination quarterback/receiver who was injured in the preseason minicamp in Florida, then came up and got suspended, mostly to allow his injured knee to heal. Apparently he is doing well and while Jones likes his receiving, he can also throw the ball.

The Riders are obviously not looking to stand pat in any position and as Jones said at the Rider AGM on Thursday, they are thinking outside the box.

The Riders also added to the roster – National offensive lineman Dillon Guy; National defensive back Raye Hartmann; National defensive back Shane Herbert and National defensive lineman ESE Mrabure-Ajufo.

They added to the practice roster – International running back Lache Seastrunk and two territorial juniors to the practice roster. Defensive back Menedum Menegbo and wide receiver Kristopher Calcutt of the Regina Thunder will begin practicing with the team Monday.

They also transferred from the suspended list to the injured list International defensive lineman Sammy Brown. Shortly after originally signing in April, Brown suffered an off-field injury while training and was unable to attend training camp. He has reported to the team in order to continue rehabilitation.

Then they cut defensive lineman Tony Criswell.

So here is the latest roster going into the Toronto game –  QB- Darian Durant, BJ Coleman, G.J. Kinne, Bryant Moniz; RB- Curtis Steele, Kendial Lawrence, Matt Walter;  FB- Spencer Moore, Levi Steinhauer;  WR- John Chiles;  SB- Namman Roosevelt,  SB- Ricky Collins, Armanti Edwards;  SB- Rob Bagg, Nic Demski;  WR- Shamawd Chambers;  LT- Xavier Fulton;  LG- Brendan Labatte, Dillon Guy;  OC- Dan Clark;  RG- Chris Best, Andrew Jones;  RT- Thaddeus Coleman;  DE- Shawn Lemon, Johnathan Newsome;  DT- Jonathan Williams, Ese Mrabure-Ajufo;  DT- Corvey Irvin;  DE- Justin Capicciotti, A.C. Leonard, Kalonji Kashama, Jordan Reaves;  LB- Jeff Knox, Samuel Eguavoen;  MLB- Greg Jones;  LB- Otha Foster, Matt Webster, Korey Jones;  CB- Justin Cox;  HB- Derrius Brooks, Tevaughn Campbell; S- Kevin Francis, Shane Hebert, Raye Hartmann;  HB- Ed Gainey;  CB- Brandon McDonald, Graig Newman;  K- Tyler Crapinga, Quinn Van Gylswyk;  P- Josh Bartell;  LS- Jorgen Hus;  KR/PR- Kendial Lawrence, Nick Demski.

There’s a couple of things to mention starting with the number of defensive linemen.  The Riders are carrying nine defensive linemen, which even if you accept that Jones will blitz 86 per cent of the time, is probably a few too many. I get the feeling maybe the Riders will want to do some sort of trade involving a defensive lineman or considering the team has three kickers on the roster, someone has to go and hopefully we get someone back.

So let’s see what we have this week.

On Thursday Ottawa is going to Montreal, and while some thought Montreal beating Winnipeg was a surprise, I wasn’t.

While the Bomber fans were planning their Grey Cup parade route after the preseason, the Bombers forgot to upgrade their offensive line. Montreal took full advantage, although their defensive secondary is a work in progress. It’s hard to argue with over 500 yards passing, but it’s the lack of running game that may spell problems for Ottawa.

It’s only June, but it will be fascinating to see if Ottawa can continue to light it up in October and November. Kevin Glenn is not a stupid quarterback, mostly, and I see a very tight game and just giving it to Montreal because it’s a home game 30-29 because Montreal has a more balanced offense and their defense knows how to sack people.

Then the other game is Toronto at Saskatchewan. Toronto has a great stadium and the TSN production was great, although it will be interesting if it continues. Since I have decided to tape all games and review them while doing my elliptical, I am flabbergasted Toronto gave up six sacks, four turnovers and just had one yard rushing.

One could argue that Ricky Ray was just Rusty Ray and Scott Milanovich should be sautéed for not playing him more in the exhibition, but it is Toronto’s offensive line that looks like the weak spot here. The Riders got rid of Cory Watman because he never took advantage of his opportunity to nab a starting centre or guard position and on the Simoni Lawrence pick six, the interception was made possible by John Chick turning Cory Watman into his chick jumping up and tipping the ball for Lawrence.

Now here is the other interesting thing where Scott Milanovich had Chris Jones as a defensive coordinator and the two would match wits to the point where Jones said Milanovich was the best offensive mind he had encountered. I’m not sure if the Argos can solve their offensive line problems, but look for the Riders to blitz about 87 per cent of the time.

Putting that kind of pressure will either see Rusty Ray hit some hot patterns or turf, depending on how the offensive line handles it. I’ve watched a couple of Rider practices and while I am forbidden by Chris Jones to go into details, I will say the defense will play the role of stopping the offense and turning it over and the offense will take some time to gel. The scary thing for Toronto is I think the Riders defensive line is better than Hamilton’s current one.

The Riders win a home opener.

On Canada Day we have BC going to Hamilton and you have to wonder how connected Wally Buono is in the football underworld. How does BC survive three blocked kicks to beat Calgary on a punt return? The difference was coaching as Dave Dickenson got too clever for his own good on the goal line and BC muscle beat Calgary finesse. Now BC brings their show to Hamilton and I have to admit to being impressed by Lawrence and the Hamilton defense.

What I said about Chris Jones applies to Kent Austin. Until Zach Collaros comes back from his ACL, Hamilton’s defense will be called upon to stop the other team and get turnovers to make a small field for their offense. So while Wally got the hometown discount against Calgary, this is first time since the 2007 western final he and Kent Austin have matched wits and Kent is not a new kid on the block. Fresh from stomping all over the Argos home opening in BMO, Zoey the Magnificent Himalayan says don’t bet against Kent Austin and see the Cats go 2-0.

We wrap up Canada Day with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers going into Calgary to seek redemption. The game against Montreal showed the weakness in the Bomber 2006 edition. It will be hard for Drew Willy who provided Rod Black with one of the great lines – Drew Willy, maybe six inches short…to keep vertical. Weston Dressler went out with a probable concussion, the result of trying hard to prove he can still make a difference and may still be out for this one.

As for Ryan Smith, hardly a pass was thrown in his immediate vicinity. Andrew Harris?

Yeah, about what I thought, but if Winnipeg is going to do anything this year, they need to keep Willy vertical, if not, he will get PTSD from all the sacks from opposing defenses.

Calgary on the other hand is wondering what the hell is going on following their loss in BC. They were too clever for their own good by failing to punch the ball in from the BC one and sustaining their drives was a problem. This week Dave Dickenson should stick to the basics and unleash his defense against Drew Willy. Until Winnipeg can prove they can block, blitz them into 26 years and counting since their last cup. Calgary wins and the streets of Winnipeg run wet with salty tears.