WINNING CHANGES EVERYTHING
Any bad blood fades fast with success
The Saskatchewan Roughriders have won 10 of their past 45 meaningful games. Talk of a dynasty is premature.
They have an expensive new stadium and a pricey (inhale) head coach, defensive coordinator, general manager and vice-president of football operations (exhale), but generally have difficulty cashing in on the field. Enough of this.
Try winning for a change — a significant chunk of change, in fact.
Give the fans, and the taxpayers, bang for their bucks.
Or start all over again.
The honeymoon is over for Chris Jones, who leads the CFL in job descriptions and controversial coaching/personnel moves.
He has had one full season in which to tear apart and restock a team that finished with a leagueworst 3-15 record in 2015.
He is employed by a team that has seemingly infinite financial resources, but even modest success on the gridiron would be an improvement.
Jones is coming off a 5-13 season as the Roughriders’ vicepresident of everything. The dismal record actually flattered the Green and White, which was 1-10 before posting four victories that did not influence the playoff picture.
So much more should be expected — no, demanded — in Year 2 of the Jones regime.
The mantra, after all, is “sustained success.”
After 2 ½ years of “football” that has often bordered on the unwatchable, the Roughriders are poised to launch their 2017 season — their first at the $278-million Mosaic Stadium (which replaces what is now the $2.78 Mosaic Stadium).
On Thursday against the host Montreal Alouettes, whose quarterback is somebody named Darian Durant, the Roughriders will take their first shot at atoning for a somniferous stretch that dates back to mid-September of 2014.
The looming matchup with Montreal will serve as an early barometer as to whether Jones acted prudently by opting against re-signing Durant and instead trading him.
Jones cannot afford to swing and miss with this one. Sans Durant, the Roughriders must receive playoff-calibre quarterbacking.
If not, the Roughriders will almost certainly experience another difficult season, and the buzzards will be circling around Jones.
In today’s CFL, with the prevalence of one-year contracts, reality hardly allows for a lengthy rebuilding process. Two years is an eternity — more than enough time in which to field a contender.
As a classic example, consider the Ottawa Redblacks.
In their maiden season of 2014, the Redblacks posted a 2-16 record.
The next year, Ottawa advanced to the Grey Cup before losing a nail-biter to the Jones coached Eskimos.
Ottawa took the next step last November, registering a 39-33 overtime victory over the favoured Calgary Stampeders to capture Earl Grey’s grail.
The Redblacks are ideally positioned to enjoy sustained success — to borrow the mantra of Roughriders president-CEO Craig Reynolds.
Reynolds raided the Eskimos shortly after the 2015 Grey Cup, making Jones the highest-paid employee in team history.
The Roughriders then plucked reputed personnel-player savant John Murphy away from Calgary, enriching him to the tune of six figures.
A single-digit victory total ensued.
Larger totals related to dollars relinquished in league-issued fines and squandered on signing bonuses (see: Shawn Lemon and the well-named Maurice Price).
Price retired shortly after being acquired from Ottawa. Lemon went on to enjoy an allstar season — with the Toronto Argonauts.
The East Division’s other all-star defensive end was the Hamilton Tiger-Cats’ John Chick, whom Jones had released in January of 2016.
Concurrently, Jones dumped popular slotback Weston Dressler. Chick and Dressler were released for financial reasons, we were told, by a management team that proceeded to pay receiver Shamawd Chambers a reported $170,000 to be virtually invisible. Dressler, meanwhile, enjoyed his sixth 1,000-yard season, and his first as a member of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
Dressler and Chick demonstrated that they had plenty left in the tank. The Roughriders, for their part, tanked in Year 1 of the new regime, under which the losing got old.
As the Roughriders’ secondyear football-operations supremo, Jones has engendered precious little goodwill.
Keep in mind, though, that Saskatchewan fans are a forgiving lot. All the Riders have to do is win. And wouldn’t that be novel?