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.
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
tomake suggestions for our Bricken’ for
Chicken equivalent.
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
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