JONES ERA BEGINS FOR ROUGHRIDERS
The Roughriders organization, including head coach Chris Jones, is ready to kick off the 2016 season — the last one at Taylor Field — tonight against the visiting Toronto Argonauts.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders’ opener could provide some closure.
After enduring the unrelenting horror of 2015 — a season in which the Roughriders lost 15 games in addition to their marquee quarterback — fans of the local CFL team are looking for burning questions to be resolved and for verification that there has indeed been progress.
For the past season and a half, save for the first two quarters of last year’s opening game, injuries to star signal-caller Darian Durant have hung over the franchise.
The consequences of Durant’s absence for most of 2015 were exacerbated by the Roughriders’ tendency toward matador defence.
But that was last year — a lost year — and it is best consigned to the past.
For the page to finally be turned, the Roughriders must establish that everything will be different — beginning on Thursday, when their regular season begins at home against the Toronto Argonauts.
The football-operations side of the organization has been overhauled, with Chris Jones now employed as the Roughriders’ (inhale) head coach, defensive co-ordinator, general manager and vice-president of football operations (exhale).
Jones initiated sweeping changes to the roster, at times controversially. Popular players such as slotback Weston Dressler, defensive end John Chick and safety Tyron Brackenridge are now ex-Roughriders.
In fact, 31 of the 44 players who dressed for Saskatchewan’s 2015 regular-season opener are no longer with the team. That game is most memorable for a seasonending injury to Durant, who suffered a ruptured left Achilles tendon shortly before halftime against the visiting Winnipeg Blue Bombers, who went on to win 30-26.
Durant had performed superbly before being felled, completing 13 of 18 passes for 165 yards and two touchdowns after missing the final nine games of the 2014 campaign due to a torn tendon in his right elbow.
Once again, there are questions about whether Durant can remain healthy. That is merely one of the storylines surrounding the looming opener, which is compelling from several perspectives.
Jones coached the Edmonton Eskimos to the 2015 Grey Cup championship, only to be introduced in Saskatchewan eight days later. Most of the Eskimos’ coaching staff followed him to the Roughriders, along with notable players such as receiver/tailback/ returner Kendial Lawrence, receiver Shamawd Chambers and linebacker Otha Foster.
Widely renowned as a defensive guru, Jones should have an immediate impact on a unit that was painfully porous in 2015.
Jones, the proud owner of four Grey Cup rings, wins everywhere he goes. He was hired, at considerable expense, by Roughriders president-CEO Craig Reynolds — whose favoured phrase is “sustained success.”
Reynolds has made it clear that he expects the Roughriders to make the playoffs, despite the three-win eyesore of 2015. A post-season berth should be attainable, given the presence of Jones, the significant upgrades to the coaching staff as a whole, the return of Durant and the seeming lack of a dominant team in a weakened West Division.
With all of that taken into consideration, there are myriad reasons to be intensely interested in Thursday’s contest.
Moreover, it is the first meaningful game in the Roughriders’ much-hyped farewell season at the original Mosaic Stadium.
But, more than anything, the Roughriders are hoping to bid a not-so-fond farewell to any lingering reminders of 2015.
Reynolds has made it clear that he expects the Roughriders to make the playoffs, despite the three-win eyesore of 2015.