Tuesday Afternoon Sentimonies: Because I Don’t Work Stats

Hope everyone had an enjoyable long weekend. When it comes to made up holidays, Saskatchewan Day ranks right up there with Family in terms of my favourites. Not that I have anything against made up holidays, in fact we could do with a few more. If I were running this province (and I assume it’s only a matter of time), I would be selling off naming rights to our next stat holiday. Then everybody wins. People are happy because they get another day off and the provincial coffers get a boost without raising taxes. We could end up with Conexus Day or we could end up with Source Adult Video Day… that’s just the chances you take on the open market.

But enough about that, let’s get down to some football talk:

The Riders resumed practice this week and the biggest news by far was the presence of one Sandro DeAngelis among the participants.  Now I will admit that I am extremely conflicted on how to react to this news. From a pure football standpoint this is of course the right move. Currently the only people kicking worse than Milo are the fans they get for that chip shot contest at Rider home games and when part of your team is struggling the proper thing to do is to bring in competition to either push your starter to improve or take their place if they are an upgrade. And Canadian kicker is just not one of those positions where there is a long line of capable guys just waiting for a phone call. If you are a kicker with a Canadian passport and not currently employed odds are you aren’t very good. Had we not gone with DeAngelis the next best options would have included Warren Keane, Rob Pikula or seeing what that kid from Biggar is up to.  

Also just to be clear, Milo is punting extremely well and is in no danger of losing that role or his spot on the roster. Its just his placekicking duties that are in question.

So as I said, from a purely football standpoint, this is a good move. But this blog just wouldn’t be any fun if I stuck to the purely football stuff. As much as I get the logic of this move, I can’t get over the fact that I can’t stand Sandro DeAngelis. If all he did was kick then he would probably be fine I mean the guy is an amazing 82.8% in terms of his career kicking accuracy. Problem is along with his kicking we have to endure his stupid celebration dances, his ridiculous excuses for sucking (remember the infamous house renovations that were to blame for his struggles in Hamilton?) and his tendency to run his mouth so much that his own teammates feel the need to beat the crap out of him. I’d like to hope that losing the starters spot (and eventually his job) in Montreal would humble the guy a bit but I’m not holding my breath. He spent most of his time in Montreal spouting off about how he was the most accurate kicker in league history and how it was travesty the coaches were not playing him.

I’ve resigned myself to having to accept DeAngelis given this team’s need for someone who can kick on FG on a reasonably consistent basis but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. The good news is our next game is against Edmonton and I’m sure if we all chip in a few bucks we can convince Sandro’s old teammate Burke Dales to knock him around once more for old time sake.