Monday Morning Sentimonies: Let The Cuts Begin

Sunday marked the start of the easiest part of any coach’s job… the cuts. Teams had to be down to 65 players (plus non-counters) on Sunday which meant the first round of cuts had to be handed down.

Here is the list of cuts with a brief commentary from yours truly:

DB Dominic Noel – No surprise. He was out of his league.

DB TJ Rushing – I liked his first name… but that was about it.

RB Demetrius Crawford – Given the quality of the other RBs in camp, as a smaller shifty back, Crawford needed to be off the charts good to earn a roster spot. Realistically I thought he may have a shot at the practice roster at best. 

WR Jason Chery – Fresh off me finally learning how to spell his last name, Chery gets cut early (so much wasted effort). Many are surprised by the move after Chery’s impressive TD grab in the preseason game but he ends up being a victim of the numbers game. With only a few import reviver spots on the roster somebody had to go and with the likes of Harper, Hill, Baker (assuming he ever heels up enough to practice), Moss, Sanders and Smith in the mix Chery was the odd man out. Personally I would have cut Smith ahead of Chery but obviously the coaches saw it differently.

RB Nathan Riva – He was a CIS RB who we auditioned at receiver in an effort in increase competition at that spot. Quite frankly if he would have made the team it would have been an extremely poor reflection of the quality of our Canadian receivers no named Bagg or Getzalf.

DL Renaldo Sagesse – This was Taman’s lone piss poor attempt at building depth behind Shologan. I didn’t like this signing to begin with. Thank god Zach Evans appears to be developing into something serviceable.

DL Curtis Gatewood – I’ll assume the fact that I know nothing about Gatewood means that this was a logical decision.

DL Boo Robinson – Like Gabe Nyenhuis and Ikenna Ike before him, Boo Robinson was an unfortunate victim of a Rider Prophet endorsement. My apologies. You’d think by now I would have started using my powers for good and not evil (I sense an official Jordan Sisco endorsement coming on). It’s sad though… I was really looking forward to being able to yell Booooooooooooo Robinson

LB Chris Graham – The highest profile of all the cuts. After Barrin Simpson’s retirement he was virtually handed the starting MLB spot for this year… at leats until Chamblain decided to go Canadian there at which point Graham’s stock plummeted. Graham is a decent LB: good run stopper, talented pass rusher but his fatal flaw is that his pass coverage skills are not very good. The only place you can really hide a LB who can’t pass cover in the CFL is at MLB and with that spot being dedicated to a Canadian, we really had no use for Graham anymore.

The Riders also signed a big DT named Jay Alford who was a part of the 2007 Super Bowl Champion NY Giants. Instinctively I am weary of a guy whose name contains “Al Ford”.