Dennis back with Stamps after year in Regina
Derek Dennis doesn’t necessarily regret the year he spent with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, but he’s definitely thrilled to be back in Calgary.
The offensive lineman signed with the Stampeders on Friday afternoon, returning to the team with which he won the CFL’s Most Outstanding Offensive Lineman award in 2016.
The move came only a couple days after he was released by the Roughriders, who signed him to a big-money deal last season. Dennis admitted that, in retrospect, he might have done things differently when he became a free agent in 2017 and decided to make the move to Regina.
“If I had to do it over, I would have done it a little differently,” Dennis said. “I would have done a little more homework and approached the whole process a little differently.
“It was my first time being a big-name free agent that a lot of people wanted, so it was a learning experience. I’ll take the year as a learning experience where I got to be around a different organization and a different city and saw how things ran, and it just didn’t work out the way I planned it. That’s fine, that’s the game and it’s part of the business of football.
“Now, it’s time to get back to my comfort zone and get back to where I was before I left.”
Before he left, Dennis was as effective as anyone in the league. The 2016 season saw the now 29-yearold named as both an all-star and the league’s top offensive lineman while playing a big role in helping the Stamps reach the Grey Cup game, where they lost to the Ottawa Redblacks.
Things didn’t go quite as well for Dennis last year with the Riders. Although he did play in 15 games, Dennis came under scrutiny for some of his performances and was deemed expendable by the Roughriders staff this off-season.
Dennis, though, believes he can get back to his 2016-level and that there’s just something about the Stampeders’ system that brings out the best in him.
“It’s just the environment,” Dennis said. “I felt like the best thing for me was to be around a coaching staff that was really invested in me and cared to put me in a position to be successful.
“I know I’ve got that in Calgary, so it was an easy decision to come back.”
Dennis will likely slide right back into the left tackle position that was filled by a platoon of players last season including Justin Renfrow and Randy Richards. The Stampeders may have to juggle their ratio a little bit if American Ucambre Williams continues to serve as the team’s centre.
That will work itself out in training camp, though, and for now the Stampeders got a familiar player who they believe can return to the best-in-league level that helped them get so close to a championship two years ago.
“Derek established himself as one of the top tackles in the CFL during his first stint with the Stampeders and I’m looking forward to seeing him play at that high level for us again in 2018,” president/ GM John Hufnagel said in a release on Friday.