When last we left the Saskatchewan Roughriders, they were coming off a couple of embarrassing losses, Kevin Glenn couldn't throw straight and people like me were clamouring for the head of head coach/general manager/ defensive co-ordinator Chris Jones.
What a differece a month makes.
After three victories against some pretty good competition, including Edmonton and Winnipeg, the Roughriders appear to have a whole lot of momentum building with a lot of strong performances across the board – Glenn included.
The Labour Day Classic has been the highest point in the last three seasons. Since the last year of the Corey Chamblin era till last weekend, the Roughriders have had a lot of questions around leadership on the field and in the dressing room.
Remember the 2015 team? With an early season-ending injury to Darian Durant the team went with a mishmash of quarterbacks like Blake Sims, Brett Smith, Kevin Glenn (yes, really), Jimmy Beamington and Keith Price. The quarterbacks that season were so anonymous that one of those isn't a real quarterback from the 2015 season and you probably didn't notice.
The team fired Chamblin after an 0-9 start, installed Bob Dyce as interim coach, waited for the Edmonton Eskimos to win the Grey Cup and then poached their coach and gave him the keys to the organization.
The initial results were disastrous. In Jones' search for players, he ended up finding too many to put on a roster and hoarded them all over the place – practice rosters, hidden practice rosters, the attic, wherever it took. If you lived in Regina, you probably had an international linebacker under your deck for a few weeks and you never even realized it. It resulted in fines for the team, a loss of face in the local community and a loss of trust.
So when the 2017 season started and the team flopped a bit at the start, howling started from the fans and myself about how there's a lack of cohesion and this isn't a good team, etc.
Then, a fundamental shift occurred in how the team bonded. A players only meeting (because Jones-only meetings weren't quite getting the message across) was called and suddenly something shifted. Whether it was because the team finally said something like 'let's just do our thing and forget about this guy' is something only the players will know.
But the Roughriders are playing like a team in their shiny new expensive building.
The only warning signs on the horizon may be the same thing that sunk the 2015 team – a lack of a viable backup quarterback. There's arguably a better backup immediately in Former Montreal quarterback Brandon Bridge but whether or not he can get the job done on a permanent level isn't known.
We know turn to the future of the team, which looks considerably brighter than it did a month ago, but let's not fall over ourselves to snatch up Grey Cup tickets yet. The Roughriders are 5-4, one and a half games behind Winnipeg and Edmonton who are tied for second place and three behind the Calgary Stampeders for first place. While it's true the Roughriders would be in first place in the CFL East, they'd have to play their playoff games on the road, at second place (currently Toronto) and then if they win, the following week at first place (Ottawa). Not an ideal situation but if we ever wanted a Calgary-Saskatchewan Grey Cup this might be the only way to do it.
Anyway, as quickly as things can turn around for the positive they can turn around the other way also. Call it a period of cautious optimism. Â
