Monday Morning Sentimonies: Wishes for 2026

Happy New Year!

I mean, the first Monday after the holiday season is probably no exactly “happy” for you (unless you are happy to get the kids out of the house and back to school). But fear not, the Prophet is back to brighten your Mondays.

As we start a new year it got me thinking about what my hope is for 2026. Now, obviously the only thing any of us want is for the Riders to repeat as Grey Cup champs. This is a franchise that has struggled to win singular championships, so in a world of beggars can’t be chooser repeats are just not something we talk about. But with this coaching staff and the players we have assembled we all think its definitely in the conversation.

But I won’t go as far as saying my wish for 2026 is a repeat. Maybe its decades of emotional damage but I have decidedly lower wishes. What I really want is the chance at a repeat to still be a possibility come October. Here me out… 

The last 2 times we won the Cup the chances of a repeat were dashed before the leaves changed colours. And not just dashed, completely scorched and the ashes pissed on and then they came back and punched us in the junk as we lay there in agony for good measure.

In 2007 the confetti was barely done falling before Kent Austin was on a plane to Ole Miss and reigning MOP Kerry Joseph was shipped off to Toronto. And just in case we thought still had a chance, by the time August rolled around every important player had broken their fibula. And just in case that wasn’t definitive enough, by Labour Day Michael Bishop was starting at QB. We were not even at the halfway point of the season and the chances of a repeat were dead. 

Following the 2013 season things went decidedly better… at first. The Riders started the season 7-2. I know there are no guarantees and there were other good teams that season but you will not convince me that 2014 was not destined to repeat. They were that good. But of course, we know that as Rider fans happiness is just the precursor to devastating heartbreak. In the Banjo Bowl that year, our chances of a repeat were ended on a play that didn’t happen. Durant blew his elbow and once again the dreams of a repeat died. This time Michael Bishop did not arrive to put the final nails in the coffin but Tino Sunseri/Seth Doege played so well that even I thought Bishop would have been an upgrade. 

Two Grey Cup wins, two dreams of a repeat that didn’t even last until the mid-point of September. So when I say what I really want this season is for the dream of a repeat to at least last until October I mean it. At least get me to the playoffs before crushing my hope. I don’t know what the 2026 equivalent of Michael Bishop is (Bethel-Thompson? Streveler?) but don’t do that to me. I know the odds of a repeat are small… but dammit let me have my hope not matter how improbable.

Monday Morning Christmas Sentimonies

This will be my last post in what has been a glorious 2025. A year that saw the Riders win the Grey Cup. We will be celebrating that one for a long time… mainly because history tells us we may need to wait another decade to enjoy this again.

So as you sip on your nog and whatever you choose to covertly spike it with look back fondly on this season:

-        The Alford return TD in the Argo game

-        An actual Nelson Lokombo pick… I think it may have even been on purpose.

-        Winning Labour Day AND the Banjo Bowl

-        Not having a gust of wind ruin our chance of first place

-        Despite all his struggles, Brett Lauther still clearly not being the worst kicker on the Riders

-        The ridiculous series of events that led to the West Final victory including kicking a FG when we should not have, punting when we definitely should not have and a magical pass to Nield to seal it.

-        People getting mad that Corey Mace curses.

What were your notable moments from this season?

From the whole Rider Prophet family we wishing you all a a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Kwazy Kwanza, a tip-top Tet and a solemn, dignified Ramadan.

We will see you in the new year.

Monday Morning Sentimonies: Random Thoughts

Sorry about not posting last week. I hope you have recovered from the emotional damage of my brief absence. I went down to Minnesota last weekend for a T-Wolves and Vikings game.

The trip was great… at least for me as a Vikings fan. They were so inspired by my presence that they won 31-0. My travelling companion who is a big Commanders fan has a very different view of the game. He spent a lot of money to see Jayden Daniels get hurt and not see a solitary point. Learned a few things while I was down there. First the Vikes have a “raffle” not a 50/50. The reason its not called a 50/50 is because it is in fact a 60/40 with the winner getting 40. The way economy is going an actual Hundo/Nundo may occur in my lifetime. 

Also the Timberwolves have an outstanding in-game promo called Bricken’ For Chicken. If an opposing player misses back to back free throws the whole crowd wins a chicken sandwich. Man did that crowd get amped up for those free throws. We actually saw Bricken’ for Chicken hit as a Clipper missed 2 free throws. The building erupted. It got me thinking that the Riders need an equivalent promo. Maybe Missin’ for Mission where missed FGs win you ski passes to Mission Ridge. Or Doinkin’ for Donuts. 

On to Rider news…

In what was the least surprising occurrence since the Command Centre getting a call wrong, Trevor Harris is coming back for one more. It was pretty clear in the days following the Grey Cup that he was not done playing. Coming off a season where he stayed mostly healthy and had a great year both statistically and in terms of accomplishment why not? We were in some trouble at QB if he didn’t come back so this is great news. As an added bonus Tommy Time is coming back as well. We know he is a stud is short yardage. I will be curious to see if he gets a legit chance to compete for #2. Question will be if Maier also comes back. He owes it to himself to see what else is out there in free agency but honestly with no starting jobs open he may opt to stay in a pretty good situation here backing up an old man. 

With QB secured the question becomes, what’s next? Championship teams have 2 key elements: they are strong in the trenches and have great Canadian depth. So that makes OL, DL and Canadians like Emilus and, Campbell Allen priorities. 

On the O-line we are currently sitting pretty good. With Hardrick back we have both starting tackles and our Centre locked up. We also have Fry and Johnson as well as our draft pick from last season who was just the top lineman in U-Sports.  

D-line will be interesting. Individually I love all our original starters (Carney, Micah, Rose, Ray) but they are all old. And the risk with “running it back” is getting old. Colonel Sanders is a big one for me. Him and Saad can be a strong interior if we want to go younger. 

Dhonte Myers has had 3 NFL workouts so far (Minnesota, Chicago, Denver). As much as I don’t want him to go, it would not be the worst thing for him to go down to an NFL camp and come back in September. Less of a hit to sign him for half a season than now. 

That’s it for today. Your homework is to  make suggestions for our Bricken’ for Chicken equivalent.

17th Annual Rider Prophet Awards

As we do every season, we end the year by presenting the infamous Rider Prophet Awards. Recognizing all that is hilarious, awful and otherwise noteworthy in the CFL. Longtime readers will note some changes to the awards. I have sun-setted a few of the old awards and brought in some new ones. It’s an overt attempt to try and freshen things up akin to a sitcom adding a new character. 

This year’s award winners will receive a congratulatory pat on the back... I blew all the prize budget in Vegas. 

Let’s get to the awards. 

Defensive Player of the Year

This new award will actually jointly honour a pair of players. Collectively these 2 did more to boost defensive statistics and big plays in the CFL than all defensive coordinators combined. I am talking of course about Zach Collaros and Chris Streveler.

These two threw a combined 27 interceptions and at one point during the season, somehow managed to rank #1 and #2 in the league in interceptions. For their perseverance and hard work, Collaros and Streveler as your inaugural Rider Prophet Defensive Players of the Year. 

Offensive Player of the Year

In a year where pretty much every story coming out of Riderville was positive, one player stood alone. Kosi Oneyka. 

Details have been hard to come by but somehow he did something so offensive to the team that he was released outright. Do you know how bad it has to be for a Canadian player to be released from a team that at the time was dealing with a rash of injuries to Canadians and desperate for anyone with the right passport? Whatever Kosi did… I hope it was worth it, because he picked a bad year to get kicked off the Riders. 

Quote of the Year

Following a loss in June Argo Coach Ryan Dinwiddie gave a press conference for the ages. You can rewatch it in all its glory below. The best part of it was when a reporter served up a softball question about the Argo defense making an interception to put them on the one yard line. Dinwiddie instead chose violence and responded “I thought new got beat up front. We got one of our guards at 280 pounds, I don’t know what he did all offseason”

Previous Winners: Ben Major, Craig Dickenson x2, Tom Velessi, Cody Fajardo, Dave Dickenson, Kavis Reed/Jacques Chapdelaine, Greg Quick, Solomon Elimimian, Ed Hervey, Joe Mack, Henry Burris, Eddie Johnson, Jason Clermont, Mike Abou-Mechrek x2

Play of the Year

I watch a lot of football so its rare when I see something that completely surprises me, or I haven’t seen before. In week 17 Trevor Harris accomplished such a feat. While Harris has received awards for his great play, I will be awarding him for a for more dubious reason. He gets my play of the year for managing to throw 2 interceptions in the same drive. That is not a typo. On his third pass of the game he threw a pick. The defender ended up fumbling to ball back to us. Two plays later Harris gave it right back. 

Never seen that before.

 Most Insulted Sports Figure

Nelson Lokomobo was trending to win this award for a second year in a row until he got hurt. For the first time in ages, my most insulted sports figure was not a Rider... just a former Rider.

I dolled out a lot of insults at the expense of Zach Collaros, almost as many insults as he dolled out INTs (but try as I may, I could not keep pace). I actually like Collaros and respect his accomplishments but the super petty part of me is happy to see Winnipeg finally get a dose of the Collaros that the Riders had.

 

Previous Winners: Nelson Lokombo, Craig Dickenson, Riders O-line, Riders Offensive Tackles, John Ryan, Brandon Bridge, Steve McAdoo, The Riders Secondary, Any Rider QB not named Durant, Pat Neufeld, Chris Getzlaf, Ryan Dinwiddie, Jim Daley, Michael Bishop x 2, Marcel Bellefeuille

Botched Call of the Year

I can’t even narrow this down to one play so I will just give this to everything related to the Command Centre (making them back to back award winners in this category). This is by far the worst aspect of CFL football today. There is no rhyme or reason for when they do or do not intervene. There is less than a 50% chance that if they do intervene they will get it right. It’s a sham and a mockery… a shamockery if you will.

Fans’ Choice Douchebag of the Year

This seems like the perfect segue from the previous award. You the fans have spoken once again and with once of the narrowest margins we have had in a while, the CFL Command Centre is your Fans’ Choice Douchebag of the Year. They received 37% of the votes. A clear sign that you hate them as a much as me. A rare case of democracy actually working.

I would like to acknowledge that we had a record high number of write in votes this year with the likes of: Stewart Johnson, Shawn Lemon, the Blue Bombers (for signing Demario Houston), Bob Dyce, and “the guy four rows down from us that was inebriated and shoving nearby fans, then refused to leave when security was called and had to be frogmarched out of the stadium by the police”

Previous Winners: Chad Kelly, Craig Reynolds/Jeremy O’Day/Craig Dickenson Garett Marino, Andrew Harris, Simoni Lawrence, Jason Maas x2, Cory Chamblin, Chris Jones, Jon Cornish x2, Henry Burris, Dwight Anderson, Mike Kelly, Jason Jimenez, Rob Murphy

Fans’ Choice Douchebag of the Year 2025

Next week we will award the 17^th Annual Rider Prophet Awards. The cornerstone of those awards is the Fans’ Choice Douchebag of the Year. The annual opportunity for you the fans to cast your vote and recognize outstanding achievements in the field of Douchebaggery.

Cast your vote on Twitter @RiderProphet. I also accept write in votes in the Comments below:

Here are this year’s nominees:

Chad Kelly – I feel the defending champion should have the chance to repeat… and its not like missing the entire season due to injury stopped Kelly from being a douche. There was his claim that he is a top 32 QB in the NFL and his social media post gloriously foreshadowing his triumphant return… that ever happened.

CFL Command Centre – Another repeat nominee from last year. From there insistence on inserting themselves in calls that no one wanted them to, to their complete lack of anything resembling a coherent logic for when to intervene and whether or not to get the call right. Not much unites Canadians these days but our universal hatred of the Command Centre certainly does.

Micah Awe – The dirtiest player in the CFL and its not even close. I can only assume he has embarrassing photos of top league execs because he continues to deliver illegal hits with impunity knowing the worst we will get is his 20^th consecutive fine. I think we owes the league some money for his hit in the WSF that was once again glossed over.

Shawn Oakman – When the words “threated”, “sexually explicit material” and “child” all make it into the one sentence outlining the wrongdoings that more than enough to warrant a nomination. 

Other – Leave your comments below or on Twitter

Monday Morning Sentimonies: Elation in Rider Nation

It has now been over a week since the Riders won the Grey Cup and this province (myself included) still remain firmly entranced in the championship glow.

Look, Grey Cups in Saskatchewan are a big freakin’ deal! The only other award we tend to get is for being the murder capital of Canada. So you’ll have to forgive us if the party drags on for a while. We have gone decades between them so we got a lot of celebrating to get in in case it needs to tide us over.

One group who is not taking this particularly well is Bomber fans. I get it. Watching your most hated rival win a Cup on your home turf while your team has been out of it for 2 weeks is painful. Had the Bombers won here in 2022 no amount of whiskey would have drown my sorrows (though I damn sure would have tried). But just shut up and take your lumps rather than drawing further attention to how butt hurt you are by trying to hurl terrible unsolicited insults. Topping the list is “You only have 5 championships ever”. This is true but we have the same number of Cups as you since 1990 and more since 2000. No one really cares that you were good in the 40s and 50s. Another popular retort is that “there is no shame in getting to a lot of Cups and losing”. There most certainly is. No one looks on the Buffalo Bills of the 90s as anything but an abject failure. Second place is just the first loser and boy do you know how to lose Cups (more than anyone in history). But if you really want to see a Bomber fan’s logic fail apart and start frantically trying to move the goal posts on the argument tell them “Ok if losing a Grey Cup isn’t a big deal then really the Bomber should be mocked more for 2009 than the Riders because we at least made the finals right?”  

I know there were many idiot Rider fans in the 2 years that Winnipeg won the cup who could not take their butt-hurtedness with any form of dignity but we won this year so we get to celebrate and make fun of you. If you would just quietly skulk in the corner, we’d leave you alone and thank you for hosting a great Grey Cup. But when you attempt to wade into things are start trying to bring us down you just come across as desperate.

We get a few more weeks to enjoy this before reality hits us… everyone but like 5 people on this team are pending free agents. O’Day has a ton of work to do if we are to have even a chance at the first ever repeat in franchise history. But now is not the time to panic. The fact that no one is signed also means that we have a ton of money to sign people with. There is going to be some really tough negotiations and decisions coming up. Myers, KeeSean, Baldonado and Colonel Sanders are coming off rookie deals and have definitely established themselves of players worth more than league minimums. Emilus and AJ Allen deserve to be paid like the top end Canadians they are. Championships, a great coach and a winning culture help attract people here but players aren’t charities.

Expect a few small time Canadians to sign in the coming days. Also Expect Harris to re-sign before Christmas (its so a done deal). Everything else will need to wait until the Salary Cap year resets Jan 1.

As always, the Rider Prophet is here to help get you through the long offseason. We are starting our offseason coverage with the notorious Rider Prophet Awards headlined by the Fans’ Choice Douchebag of the Year Award. Voting starts tomorrow. So be sure to let you voice be heard.

Tuesday Morning Sentimonies: Grey Cup Champion Edition

You’ll have to forgive me not posting on Monday morning. While I certainly didn’t go as hard as the players, I did have a bottle of 2013 Grey Cup Whiskey and a visit to the green mile to keep me from getting to bed at a reasonable hour. 

We did it!!! 12 longs year we waited for this moment and man oh man was it sweet. When the clock hit zero (with a brief pause to make sure Bradbury didn’t rain on our parade from the command centre) me and the whole province erupted. 

As expected it was the defense that lead the way. Four turnovers, none bigger than the goal line forced fumble by Campbell that Sayles recovered. They held Montreal under 20 points. Other than a bust in coverage in the secondary (cough, Fields, cough) they really did not allow much. Marcus Sayles had a monster game. It’s amazing how good he his when his lower body is not held together by duct tape and horse tranquilizers. Remember that he is a Rider because BC didn’t think he was talented enough and cut him in training camp. Thank you BC. Baldonado is growing into an impact pass rusher in front of our eyes. A fitting way to end the season for a defense that has been so good all year. 

The big difference is that offense didn’t leave them high and dry. They scored early and kept scoring and against a stingy D. O-line kept Harris so clean he didn’t even need to wash his jersey. No turnovers. They made mistakes, we didn’t. I was fully expecting a struggling Harris game. And yes he certainly tried to throw a pick 6. But he didn’t. And other than that he was really dialed in. Nice to see us Myers involved (good things happens when he touches the ball) and Emilus is just a flat out stud. 

Also credit to the coaching staff. Called a great game, particularly on O. Made great in-game decisions like that challenge of pass interference. Last year we saw a lot of potential but a lot of mistakes from Mace and his crew. This year, they looked like seasoned vets. They also drink beer like seasoned vets, another plus in my books. 

This was a really weird year. All season you had the feeling that they were building something special. All season they remained atop the league. But at no point were they dominant or did they feel like they were certifiably the best. 

Standing amid hundreds of fellow Rider fans at Albert and Vic singing song after song in unison is when it really hit me. We won! Nothing brings this province together more than the Riders winning and Grey Cup wins here are so special because they are so rare. It’s refreshing to end a season just feeling content. Not angry. Not disappointed. Not hopeless. But happy. Drink it in Rider Nation. The Cup came home and we could not be prouder of the team that put in the work to make it happen.

I would like to point out that in the 96 years this team existed before the Rider Prophet came onto the scene we had just 2 total cups. Since my arrival we have won 3, more than the entirety of before. I know correlation is not causality… but times are certainly better during the age of the Prophet.