Never a dull moment in Riderville.

Greg Marshall was named last week as Rider head coach, and a newspaper column by Doug Brown, the standout defensive lineman of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers endorsing Marshall was favorably received here in the city that rhymes with fun.

Brown and others noted Marshall gets his players to play for him, and he is respected for turning around teams and improving them. Marshall is known for his character and for not attempting to curry favor with anyone in particular. It’s the character thing that caught the eye of Ken Miller, VP of football operations, and certainly makes it interesting to see what kind of staff Marshall will assemble.

Sportsnet reported Richie Hall has been hired by the Riders as defensive coordinator. Which means Gary Etcheverry may well go to either Hamilton or Winnipeg. But then again, the Riders aren’t saying anything, so the situation reminds me of sitting at a Tisdale bingo hall on a Friday night where you hear all kinds of crazy things. If the Hall reports pan out, then expect the Riders to go with four down linemen, get bigger at linebacker and reassign the tweeners to positions they will do better at, like cornerback.

Marshall is not expected to micromanage the defense, but the message going out to whoever the Rider defensive coordinator will be to cut down on the Riders being dominated at the line of scrimmage and not be so easy a team to run on. If Marshall can temper Hall’s no-prevent prevent defense, then things will be interesting on the defensive line.

Doug Berry has another year on his contract as offensive coordinator and while he may be miffed at missing the cut for offensive coordinator, he should be back. Darian Durant has gone through a number of offensive coordinators and a bit of consistency would help Durant continue to develop and hopefully reduce his touchdown to interception ratio.

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The new offensive line coach may well be Blake MacDermott, a former Eskimo player and coach who has also coached at the university and/or junior level and has a pretty good reputation. There is talk that the new quarterback coach for the Riders will be the Throwin’ Samoan – Joe Paopao, which is kind of interesting but also kind of disheartening as well. Perhaps Paopao is a better coordinator than a head coach, although the situation he found himself in Ottawa was just nightmarish enough you couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. I would hope Paopao would help Durant improve his mechanics, but again, hard to say until something is confirmed.

Another scenario being bandied about town is perhaps Gene Makowsky stepping down prior to the season opening. Wayne Smith, who has suffered two season ending injuries, is expected to return, and the 2011 Canadian Football League draft is exceptionally deep in offensive linemen. I can see the Riders, who I believe have picked in every round, picking an offensive lineman first in the draft, then perhaps kicker/punter Hugh O’Neill from the University of Alberta, in case Luca Congi does not come back from his season ending leg injury.

Speaking of special teams, maybe this is wishful thinking, but Alex Smith, the current linebacker coach who used to coach special teams, is being tapped to move back to cover special teams again. That would help. Still no word on the fate of Jim Daley, whose did not have a good year as special teams coach, but was not entirely to blame.

Andy Fantuz and Jerrell Freeman are still making their rounds of NFL camps, but the more I read about the lockout of NFL players, the more I think these guys will opt to return for next season and then try their luck again. Some of these have families to feed, and a sure paycheque is better than none at all, or working at some hardware store.

An interesting situation that may develop is what happens to John Chick. With the Indianapolis Colts season over, Chick spent the entire year on the roster, and may decide to come back to the CFL instead of further drawing down on his NFL signing bonus. If Chick, Fantuz and Freeman come back, the Riders just took a big step toward making it a third consecutive Grey Cup appearance.

And you know what? This time it would be nice to win it.