History will be kind to Cortez
Memories are short — much like a typical Saskatchewan Roughriders offensive possession in 2014 — with respect to George Cortez.
Cortez, for the uninitiated, was the Roughriders’ offensive co-ordinator during the past two CFL seasons.
The 2013 season was a spectacular success for the Green and White.
The 2014 season? Not so much.
Last season was so excruciating, in fact, that the Roughriders could hardly wait to dissolve ties with Cortez when the ordeal of 2014 mercifully concluded.
Remember, though, that the team was just as eager to hire him in January of 2013.
“George is like a walking offence,” Roughriders head coach Corey Chamblin said at the time. “If you’re in Walmart and you get next to him, you might score a touchdown. He’s full of offence.”
The excitement was shared by quarterback Darian Durant, who tweeted that he was “looking forward to working with someone who has coached legends.”
See: Doug Flutie, Aaron Rodgers, Jeff Garcia, Dave Dickenson, Henry Burris.
Cortez lived up to his glittering resume in 2013, extracting a legendary — or LegenDarian, as one fan noted on Twitter — performance from his No. 1 quarterback.
Durant threw a careerhigh 31 touchdown passes during the regular season before ascending to an even higher level in the 2013 playoffs. He threw eight touchdown passes, with nary an interception, in three postseason games — the last of which was a 45-23 Grey Cup victory over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. It was the first home-field championshipgame victory in franchise history.
The 2013 Roughriders set a precedent in another respect, boasting four 1,000yard producers.
Kory Sheets, the 2013 Grey Cup MVP, rushed for 1,598 yards during the regular season. Weston Dressler, Chris Getzlaf and Taj Smith all surpassed the four-figure mark in receiving yardage.
Then came the eyesore of 2014, when “walking offence” could have been amended to “sleepwalking offence.”
Sheets was gone, having signed with the NFL’s Oakland Raiders. The allure of four-down football also meant that Dressler missed Saskatchewan’s first eight regular-season games while trying out for the Kansas City Chiefs. Getzlaf battled an injury-plagued season, as did Smith.
Worst of all, Durant suffered a season-ending elbow injury Sept. 7.
Sans Sheets, there was a revolving door at the tailback position. In Durant’s absence, the quarterback carousel spun wildly out of control, with Tino Sunseri, Seth Doege and Kerry Joseph all seeing starting duty.
Not surprisingly, the offence was tougher to watch than Unfriended.
Much of the criticism was levelled at Cortez, who was routinely excoriated by fans and media vultures.
Durant weighed in just the other day, responding to a fan’s question at the Estevan Bruins Sportsman Dinner by opining that the Cortezled offence “could have been more creative.”
Durant later added that the offence was “a little bit predictable” in 2014.
Actually, Durant was being generous. The offence was more predictable than the income-tax deadline.
Yes, Cortez was handcuffed by a lack of weapons, but the players who were at his disposal were not optimally deployed.
Dressler, for example, was ignored all too often. Even without a Grey Cup-winning quarterback such as Durant, the Roughriders could have (and should have) found ways to feed the football to their most dynamic playmaker.
The impulsive decisions regarding the quarterbacks (post-Sept. 7) and the seasonlong chaos at tailback were also avoidable.
Suffice to say it was not a banner year for Cortez, who has since resurfaced with the B.C. Lions.
But let’s not forget what he accomplished during that magical 2013 season — one that will be fondly remembered long after people have forgotten the names of all 765 people who played tailback for the Roughriders of 2014.
Cortez had the advantage of a veteran-laden offence in 2013, but the inverse is also applicable. The Roughriders’ established playmakers also derived immense benefits from the ingenious manner in which the offence was choreographed by Cortez.
He was brought to Regina at a time when the Roughriders were pulling out all the stops to ensure that they fielded a championship-calibre team in 2013.
And, by George, they did it.