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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.
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
