Chick, Dress & Shoes

Before the Christmas holidays 19 players were released from the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Many fans including myself thought that was only the the tip of the iceberg. Yesterday when the news broke of the release of two of the hugest player personalities, Weston Dressler and John Chick, we felt the earth quake of the other Chris Jones shoe dropping.

Dad :)

This week has been busy for me. I saw the signing of Maurice Price and Shawn Lemon but my time has been spent dealing with some personal business. My Dad who is 80 (and a HUGE Rider fan), came to the city for an angiogram. My parents stayed at my house which was completely expected. I would do whatever I could to help my parents out. Dad's test came out wonderfully as he has zero blockages in his heart. As I told him during his recoup, I always knew he had a good heart. Yesterday morning before he headed for home we discussed football and the changes in Riderville. I said “fans will riot if Jones touches guys like Chick or Dressler.”

What did I know?

Nothing apparently because a mere 4 hours later I was climbing into my car to go to work and tuned in to CKOM to hear Jamie Nye break the news.

I was completely shocked. I sat in the car in disbelief. Then something cathartic happened. I drove to work.

By the time I walked in the doors of SAM I had shook it off.

Weird, huh?

Of course I love Dressler and Chick. I mean.....Chick makes me swoon. Seriously. Everyone knows offence wins hearts and we gave Weston all our hearts and sandwiches and blizzards. The bottom line is in order for them to stay with the Riders they had to be willing to take pay cuts. They weren't willing. Period.

Taman and Chamblin were run out of town for not only the losing season but the total mismanagement of the Roughrider team and coaches. They kept players around because the fans liked them. They did lot's of hiding players on injured lists and that's only one thing I know of. The list of 19 released players was a huge relief in terms of money. How bad is it? We don't really know. It must be pretty bad for Chris Jones to need existing players to take severe pay cuts.

The next thing I think of is loyalty. We've been fed the green kool-aid consisting of 'Saskatchewan is the place all players want to be'. Really? Maybe it's only the place to be if the money is right. If the team is paramount and you being on the team to win is what is of the greatest importance...the greater good if you will...wouldn't you be somewhat willing to work it out? Is being a Weston Dressler/John Chick more important than the good of the Roughrider team? No.

NO.

When a player starts thinking of themselves before the rest of their team mates, coaches or winning then it's perhaps time to say goodbye.

Another aspect is that the coach is not there to hold the hands of the players. I've said before – Chris Jones is not your life coach. If your feelings are hurt you suck it up and deal with it. THAT'S FOOTBALL. You don't air it on social media. I don't care who you are. It doesn't sit well with me how the dealing with the Weston Dressler release went down. Tell fans you're sad to go. Tell us you'll miss us. There's no use in saying no one would negotiate. It turns into a he said-he said game and you know what? I for one, am not into that anymore. We've been fed that long enough. In my opinion, the airing of dirty laundry in a goodbye statement is hardly classy no matter what pedestal Ridernation has put you on.

I don't recall but I've been told a similar situation happened in 1989 when Bobby Jurison and Eddie Lowe were released. More recently, 2008 Kerry Joseph was traded to the Toronto Argonauts. Last year, 2015 and Ricky Foley was traded. It happens to the Roughriders and it happens to other teams. This is how the CFL works and this is the progression from one year to another. It has to happen for teams to move forward. I don't want to be stuck in a Groundhog day of the 2015 season. I'm with Chris Jones and for the future. I know that other guys will emerge and our hearts will swell and it will be even better than before. As angry as fans are now, restrain yourself from the manure dumping because we all know you'll be in those seats at Mosaic Stadium to say Farewell.

Since the news came down I've heard lot's of discussion over Darian Durant. Will Coach Jones release Durant too? Maybe even Gainer isn't safe! Of course I hope not, but I hoped that before too. The difference is that I have the gut feeling that Doubles is the kind of guy who would take the pay cut. I have no reason to believe this and my guts have been wrong before but my spidey senses tell me this might be true. We don't know anything for sure. This is the reason we wanted a new Head Coach, remember? Ridernation wanted someone who could make hard and tough decisions. Now you don't like it. I said it then and I hate to say it now.....but be careful what you wish for.

What I do know is that there are probably more shoes to drop. How many pairs of shoes does Chris Jones own? Only time will tell. If he's anything like me there's a whole basket of them in the back of the closet and the house rule is one pair in = one pair out.