GCn20

Ellingson is the perfect illustration of why it is stupid to rush players back. Not sure why you are arguing that it is a good idea? Rourke will probably get re-injured, doesn't deserve it, but it is a likely scenario. I don't agree that Rourke deserves to be re-injured, but the LIons rushing him back will likely pay the price for it and deservedly so. At any rate, they don't have much hope of winning in the playoffs with or without Rourke.

Moncrief got torched regularly by OCs around the league in coverage. Demski lit him up for like 5 TDs just by himself.

Our only potential issue on offence next year is if more than one of our OL retires.

Could be that he leaves football completely behind, just have a hunch its in his blood. I would rather move Wilson to MLB than to have Sankey. He limits what his defences can do. Moncrief, imo, had a disastrous year. Just awful.

I think that Bighill will transition to coaching with the Bombers and continue his other career in WInnipeg. I think he has an exit strategy all worked out when it's time. Biggie doesn't seem like the type of guy who will stick around past his prime. He has too many other options. Yea. I just have strong opinions on Sankey because I went back and watched some of his games and the guy literally never leaves the tackle box.

Sankey is a one trick pony. I would rather have a MLBer that can play sideline to sideline. All Sankey is good for is sitting in the middle and tackling running backs after they gained 5 yards. Everyone raves about Sankey, and I don't get it. Calgary let him walk for a reason. He is one dimensional and all the raves are just the media fawning over stats taken out of context. I would rather sign Sankey as an undersized DE than a MLB. Problem is that Sankey presents limitations to our defence. There is a reason that the Sask secondary got torched over the middle this year and how teams were able to just run away from their DL most of the season by rolling out against a slow MLB that couldn't contain.

That is a question for sure. Would like to see us recruit strongly at MLB next year and maybe platoon him a bit.

For sure. We need to let them knock the rust off, take that first hit back and run around a bit at game speed.

True. In the case of MLBs I prefer the eyeball test. Does a team run at you? When they do, do they run for a high average? Everyone in Regina is raving about Sankey being the one great player against Calgary last week. I say what? Calgary literally ran for like 200+ yards between the tackles against them with 3 different running backs and had something like a 7.5 ypc average. I would say that the MLB had a busy day, but definitely not a good one. I would give it to Lemon. I'd rather have Bighill than Sankey....and it ain't even a contest. Dean? Well he would be a nice add depending on Wilson's health. Put Fajardo behind a great OL and he can probably be a decent QB. That could be said about any starter in this league and a lot of the backups.

LOL...oops....well Jermaine is probably just as good. You can say that because he demonstrated it even last year and in 2019.

Normally I would agree with you, however, not this year. Our offence fully stocked may score on every drive. Sounds too good to be true but we've had multiple games this has almost happened. There is no offence in this league that can come remotely close to doing that against our defence. Our defence, although not as dominant as last year or the year before, is still the best in the CFL at keeping teams from scoring. It will take 30+ points to beat our offence. I don't see it happening unless we take the day off. He needs to get his game legs back. We don't necessarily have to heavily target him or anything but getting the legs and game speed back will be important to him.

I like Sankey and think he works hard, but I have to question his impact when teams are rushing for those kind of numbers against him. He is a great tackler, no doubt about it, but his ability to anticipate the play and plug the gap is obviously lacking.

Dean was a much better LBer than Sankey imo. Honestly, if you look at the rush yards the Riders have given up for most of the season there is nothing there telling me that any team is particularly concerned about Sankey's presence in the middle. High tackle numbers for sure, but how many of those tackles are coming after the RB is 7-8 yards downfield. I always felt that tackle numbers for MLB is an over rated stat, sometimes it just shows that teams are willing to run right at you especially when they are running for 150 yds a game. Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating for Chris Jones way to build a lineup. Just saying he filled his locker room with all kinds of bad attitude and his plan was to salvage what he could and cut the others adrift. Craig Dickenson didn't get the memo about releasing the bad apples.

The difference is that Jones is more than willing to just release whoever he needs to no matter where they are playing. If they cost the team by being stupid Jones cuts them and moves on. Not saying that is the best approach either, but it is the reason that Jones is more willing than others to take on head cases and crap attitudes.

Riders may have to throw stupid money around this offseason like BC did and go with a cheap QB to make it work.

I think you take a lot of their players out of that toxicity and show them a character built dressing room you might see a difference in their character with the exception of some guys that have been there too long to salvage. I can't imagine guys like Nick Marshall, Duke Williams, etc ever really getting the whole FIFO concept.

7 games. That is the number of times that the Riders faced the other team's starting QB in 2019. I would imagine that most teams would have a pretty impressive record if they had the same kind of luck with the opposition roster. Now I can hear everyone in Riderland saying but Fajardo was our backup...nope, not the same thing...he took over the reigns a half minute into game 1 and took every offensive first team rep after that. In those 7 games, 3 of them were against the 2 worst teams in the league. The RIders record in those 7 games....4-3. Smoke and mirrors.

Yes, your coaching leaves a lot to be desired for sure. I can agree that Ferland has an upside of being serviceable. Yes, the RIders went 6-2 from LD onward, but it was an ugly, wart filled 6-2. Only 2 of those wins came against teams fielding their starting QB. Fajardo did manage to outduel CFL legends like Chad Kilgore, Jermaine Franklin, and Danny O'Brien but I don't suppose that is saying much. In fact, looking back over the entire season of 2019, the Riders only had 4 victories that came against teams starting their starting QB. Lots of lipstick on the pig that season.

If they end the season on PR they are free agents anyway, so not sure what difference that would make.

Ferland is the best of a bad lot. It's not saying much though. If you must pick the best smelling turd I guess he might be the one. He doesn't start on any other CFL team and really has a low rent upside as a starter imo. Johnson got turnstiled a ton more than Ferland but Ferland had his hold my beer moments when you though the Rider OL couldn't get more incompetent. For some reason though you guys are all giving him a free pass. Must be his birth certificate. Also, the cracks were there in 2019 as well. The OL was already inconsistent and began trending downwards in a big way in the 2nd half of the year. The RIders and Cody Fajardo looked like world beaters in the first half of the year but really were average in the 2nd half and winning very ugly, when they did win. Fajardo was very pedestrian in the 2nd half of the season. Smoke and mirrors. We've been saying it over here for two and a half years now. I know that fan bases often have the blinders on when it comes to chinks in the armor of their own team, but we were talking about many of the same issues you saw get downright ugly this season, in the 2nd half of 2019. History has proven us right in that regard.

Honestly, they ran it back week after week with the 3 matadors in the middle and two IMP OL that were just brutal as well. Ferland, Bandy, and Johnson are not CFL calibre starters, may not even be CFL calibre players period. Every week they trotted out their trio and then looked befuddled when every single team turnstiled them. Game 9 before they finally cut ties with Rodgers who was getting beat just about every play, and they never did move on from the local trio of awful in the middle....just sign a damn IMP OL to stick in the middle to help.

That's because Jones filled your locker room with crap attitude players, because Jones is pretty skilled at handling those type of players and can generally keep them in line. If not, Jones has no issues with roster churn if it doesn't work out. However, guys like Gainey, Marshall, Purifoy, Duke, AC Leonard, Marino and the list goes on....poisoned that locker room to the point that the Riders might as well release everyone and start from scratch. Then your management picks Mr. Ferley, probably one of the wishy washiest HC choices ever, to try and handle an insane asylum. Made no sense then, makes no sense now....but I guess JOD was clearly over his head as well because EVERYONE outside the big rectangle knew that your OL was an absolute disaster before this season even started, hell it was a disaster last year and wasn't particularly good in the past few years....but hey let's keep drafting receivers and dbs in the 1st round and hope that scrubs like Bandy, Johnson, and Ferland are ready for primetime because they come from the big rectangle. Makes no sense. You guys don't honestly have a single OL good enough to make our PR.

Blows my mind that for most of the season they started more NATs than necessary, but never even once gave a thought to dressing 3 IMPs on the OL. Just terrible coaching and management.

Probably not. However, if we develop him and he goes on to start elsewhere it's still good for us. Anytime a good starter is added in this league everyone benefits as it allows for crap QBs to be turfed/demoted.

I am deeply saddened to hear that the Riders are moving on from Fajardo.