Monday Morning Sentimonies: Welcome to 2013

Well since we are a full week into the New Year I guess I should probably end my Christmas break and resume posting on this blog. I hope you all had a good Christmas. Other than the fact that Santa failed to get me what I ask for for Christmas (the return of Michael Bishop to the CFL), it was a great holiday season in the Prophet household.

CFL news certainly didn’t take much of a break, it has been coming fast a furious. I’ll do my best to get you caught up.

The big news of course was Craig Dickenson resigning and then signing in Winnipeg pretty much at the same moment as Taman was feeding the press a story about Dickenson leaving for personal reasons. Near as I can tell this whole situation boils down to this: Chamblin wanted all his coaches back to work earlier this year than normal, Dickenson would/could not do that, Chamblin wouldn’t back down, neither would Dickenson so he quit. Winnipeg was not quite so demanding of their coaches (which may be one of the reasons they are such an awful team) so Dickenson went their… also Winnipeg tends to start their offseason earlier than the Riders so Dickenson can maximize his offseason time.

I think it’s a ballsy move to let one of the best ST Coordinators in the league walk. Honestly how much time did Dickenson need to figure out that this year his plan would be to kick FGs through the uprights? We are forgetting that before him we had Jim Dailey in that role… a man who was so bad at his job the team probably would have encouraged him to take more time off from his job. It’s also concerning that only 12 months removed from handpicking his staff, Chamblin has already parted ways with 4 of his coaches. Oddly one of the few he kept was Richie Hall, who he didn’t even want in the first place.

Walker was not a loss. If we get Wylie back, Sweet will also not be a huge loss. But Smith and Dickenson are massive loses, both of which I would chalk up to the pride of a young HC. Hopefully this doesn’t bite us in the ass. As for now, it hurts having Dickenson dump us for Winnipeg. As I tweeted earlier, it’s like being dumped in favour of an uglier, more inbred girl with less teeth and an STD.

Rumours are that Mike McCullough has signed a new deal with the Riders expect an announcement soon. By the way, given that the Riders announced no contract extensions prior to Christmas take that as a sign that we were extremely close to the salary cap this year and had no extra money.

NFL Watch

DL – Odell Willis – We have apparently got him some workouts with some unnamed teams (I still don’t get why we are helping him, that’s like helping your girlfriend find a new man)

Marc Trestman – Will be interviewed by Chicago Bears (highly doubt he’ll jump right into an HC job but wouldn’t surprise me to see him land on OC job)

Jim Popp – Will be interview by Carolina Panthers for GM (long shot but you never know)

LB Solomon Elimimian – signed with Cleveland Browns (it’s apparently not official yet but it happened)

WR Emmanuel Acreneaux – signed with NY Jets

RB Chad Kackert – worked out for NY Jets (Grey Cup MVP and now an NFL workout this is like a perfect storm of leverage for a pending FA in negotiations)

DL Jason Vega – Worked out New England Patriots
WR Shawn Gore - worked for NY Jets and New England Patriots

QB Mike Reilly – Worked out for Jacksonville Jaguars

DB Rod Williams - Worked out for Jacksonville Jaguars, Minnesota Vikings and Carolina Panthers

WR Phillip Livas - Worked out for Jacksonville Jaguars (he was on the Riders practice roster this year)

DL Lee Robinson – Worked out for Miami Dolphins

OL Brian Simmons – Worked out for Miami Dolphins

WR Spencer Watt – Worked out for Miami Dolphins (shocking given that this guy is barely good enough to play in the CFL… then again I guess if Sisco can get an NFL tryout the bar is not set that high)

DL Armond Armstead – He was released by the Argos so we can safely assume he’s drawn some NFL interest

CFL Ins and Outs

Winnipeg

In: DB Johnny Sears, K Justin Palardy, OL Chris Greaves, WR Cory Watson (contract extension)

Hamilton

In: Orlando Steinauer (hired as DC)