**Editors note: I already had to rewrite this completely because 4 things happened that rendered the majority of my post irrelevant. Odds are good that will happen again between when I hit post and when you read this. Its not my fault CFL managers don't take my schedule into account when making moves.**
Its tampering season across the CFL as teams frantically make calls to try and woo potential free agents. They are about one step away from Tinder.
The opening hours were not exactly kind to the Riders. As often happens to the champions, other teams came looking to raid our shelves. And raid they did. Edmonton drove a truck of money up to Carney’s doorstep and took Robustelli for good measure. Ottawa took AJ Allen, Baldonado, Reavis and Maier. And Winnipeg took Tommy Nield. And that’s just what happened so far.
On the positive side we did manage took lock up Ouelette and Rose just prior to free agency. On the less positive side we also managed to lock up Fields (because of what I can only assume is a league-imposed handicap to level the competitive landscape).
So the question becomes, with Carney and Allen out of the picture what is O’Day doing with his tampering time? The answer may surprise you… very little. Or at least very little in terms of things most people would find interesting. He might be more active on actual Tinder than CFL Free Agent Tinder. He did most of his work up to now just retaining the core group of last year. Other than Carney and Allen he really managed to maintain all his impact starters… as well as Lokombo and Fields for some reason. We don’t have many major roster holes and more importantly we have no money to fill those holes we do have. We will be relying heavily on drafting and recruiting for the most part.
I do think one think O’Day is doing is keeping in touch with our pending free agents. In particular CJ Avery. People forget that Avery was the starter until he got hurt and Allen stepped in a became a star. If we can keep him it will somewhat soften the sting of Allen and Reavis’ loss.
But tampering with your own players is boring. You probably want the dirt on what other players O’Day is tampering with. I figure he’s looking at the following priority areas:
D-Ends – The one thing O'Day did was address our most glaring need. As much as the current "sign 20 rookie D-ends and hope 1 pans out" strategy is one way to appraoch things, we simply could not enter the season with Korte-Moore being our most experienced D-end. James Vaughters has history with this coaching staff given his time in Calgary so he was an obvious name that was on my radar and obviously O'Day's. Lorenzo Mauldin is a name we could explore. Maybe Shane Ray even sticks around. The market got thin real quick though so it might be Vaughters, Korte-Moore and hope we recruit well.
O-line Depth – Much like last year where we added McEwen and Gagnon (I am not sure the difference between hype of signings and actual impact was that stark since Chris Jones’ free agent class in 2016), you know O’Day is always looking to add OL depth. Names like Landon Rice, a second go round for Ryan Sceviour or even Gagnon and McEwen again are options.
Receiver – With Johnson, Baker and
Emilus plus our solid depth at Canadian WR, we don’t need a veteran receiver.
But with Myers, Bane and Robustelli all going at once we do have room for a value
add. Charleston Rambo, Dominique Rhymes, Luther Hakunavanuh, Steven Dunbar.
Hell I would not even rule us having a conversation with Dalton Shoen (though
given his injury status, a signing would likely be a ways away). The money for receivers
dries up real quick once the top guys sign so there could be some sneaky value for
the patient
Very good comments, Rider.
ReplyDeleteI see us with a problem on the front 7 - hard to replace the production of Carney, for one. Mike Rose re-signed which helps but he's turning 34 - & we haved a lot of veterans who performed well that "hopefully" can give us the same production.
The other issue is what the other clubs in the division are doing - especially, looking at Day 1, the Bombers & Elks.Half the clubs in the CFL finished within 2 wins of each other. The Bombers look to have added some much needed pieces where needed. The Elks, though a bit further back, finished with the lowest pts allowed after that 1-6 start & played 5 newcomers on the starting 12 in that time. They lost 5 of their 11 games by 1-4 pts, with a new Owner, President, GM & Coaching staff. They will be much improved. And BC, though they lost Broxton, look ready - barring what happens with any of the clubs in the next week or so.
I am not as confident as you are because I see a half dozen players who contributed greatly to getting us the trophy. And I'm not at all confident that we can survive if Harris goes down. Hopefully we see a few impactful signings coming up & not have to rely on our scouting system. I repeat what I said before - looks like 2013 to me - again.