Monday Morning Sentimonies: Random Quasi Coherent Thoughts

Oh how I long of the days when January was a quiet time in the world. We were all on our post-Christmas hangovers (physical, mental and financial) and the sporting world was quiet with the exception of switching between over emphasizing Canadian hockey dominance or calling for a hockey summit based on the results of the most recent World Juniors.

But in today’s topsy turvy world we have a raging pandemic, attempted democratic coups and only 354 days left of this crazy year left to endure.

We also have the weird phenomenon of more CFL signings in the past 2 months than in the past 5 Januarys combined. The good news is that gives us something to talk about to distract from the crumbling of our world as we know it.

The big news was obviously the Fajardo extension. A move that likely simultaneously extended the Fajardons of many Rider fans. This isn’t all that surprising… O’Day wants him, he likes it here and this is about the worst time in the history of the CFL to be looking for alternate employment. But it is reassuring to have QB certainty for the next 2 years. If Fajardo’s agent was smart he would have negotiated a $5 bonus on every Saskatchewan born kid named Cody over the next 2 years.

 We have also slowly been chipping away at our potential free agent list. Shaq Evans was a big signing (particularly given that Kyran Moore is getting some NFL looks and Williams-Lambert remains unsigned). Jake Harty was a pleasant surprise. He was a highly touted signing back in 2018 but injuries led to him never playing a single snap. I (like many) just assumed he was never going to don the green and white again but he is back. If he’s healthy we get an impact Canadian WR who has underrated skills on special teams. With McInnis, Lenius and Picton it would also solidify our Cdn depth there. No guarantees he can still play at his old level but definitely worth the risk. Nick Marshall is back (an important piece in our secondary). Blace Brown is back (I really like his potential as a DB). And we added Freddie Bishop (11 sacks in 2015 with Calgary, 6 last season in Toronto, an NFL stint in between). He’s potentially an impact addition to our DL rotation.

 

As much progress as O’Day has made on our roster there are still a number of fairly significant holes still left to address. We need another WR to complement Evans. Moore, Williams-Lambert… maybe Ellingson? Shepley is gone and Terran Vaughn remains unsigned so we are still missing half a line. I imagine the guard spot gets filled through a combination of the draft and last year’s draft pick Mattland Riley. We have no starting LBs… like none. Much like our OL we are also missing half a secondary with McCray and Gainey left unsigned. We also have no kickers… but that one doesn’t really concern me much. We’ll fill those easily.

 

One last comment to leave you with. I know I’m super late to this but the whole Chris Streveler thing bugged me. It didn’t bug me that Boomer Esiason slighted the league of seemed to know nothing about it. There are likely endless American’s who know nothing about the CFL. Just because they cover the NFL doesn’t mean they are obligated to learn about the CFL. It’s more so on the CFL to promote itself better. But I digress… My real issue is that thousands of American’s now think that Chris Streveler the best QB the CFL could produce. He might be one of the worst (and I have personally watched Michael Bishop, Nealon Greene and Brandon Bridge). He just happens to be a very skilled runner who can lob up the occasionally hail mary on the run (and Arizona inexplicably refused to run him).