Monday Evening Sentimonies: What Did I Miss?

I am just getting back from 4 days of family vacation. The extent of what I know about the preseason game is what I have read on Twitter and the 50 second highlight clip from TSN. So rather than my usual dissection of the game I am just going to move on to the more important matter of who got cut and who made the active roster. What I did take away from the game is that Durant is still dialed in, the Durant/Taj connection will pick off right where it left off, and we held the Esks to 2 first half points (the first half of course being the one where more guys played who didn't end up cut). All good stuff. Only downside to the game was Kilgore injuring his thumb. You can probably blame me for that. Kilgore becomes the first Rider Prophet Endorsed player to actually make the team. I assume his injury is just the universe's way of trying to correct itself.

As you can imagine I was pretty happy to here that the Jordan Sisco debacle had finally come to an end... roughly 5 years too late. I won't dwell on it because you have all heard my anti-Sisco tirades before but please allow me a moment of vindication. Also there is now an opening atop the Rider Prophet hatred list... its a spot I hope to never fill but always seem to find someone.

As for the other cuts, aside from the fact that we managed to currently have 48 people on our 46 man roster not much was shocking. I'll admit that Richard Sumlin's release was surprising but more so because of how high the team was on him as opposed to how well he was playing. I was also surprised that Ivy was cut loose. He had clearly lost the MLB spot to Kilgore but with Kilgore out at least 6 weeks I assumed he'd stick for depth if nothing else. I also have no clue how we managed to keep all of Riley, Swain, Schillens and Ryan Smith (maybe that has to do with the 48 guys on the roster).

It will be interesting to see who sticks on the practice roster. I assume guys like Mark and Bastien stick but its always tough to guess which imports will be willing to stick around here for practice roster money.

So where does this leave us heading into the regular season? I would say as good as anyone else. We have some areas of real strength: Durant, O-line, secondary, D-end. We also have some areas that I think we will be fine at though the jury is out like: Receiver, RB and OLB. We only have 2 areas that scare me and they combine to make this team's biggest weakness. MLB and DT. We need Hurl to step up and fill in until Kilgore is healthy. If he can't all we have is Shomari (pause for laughter mixed with groaning) and Tristan Black (who like Shomari was tried at starting MLB in Calgary and evidently did not pan out). Honestly we are at the point where asking old man McCullough to unretire may be a viable option. We also need Guyton or Walker to help plug that middle. Our run D is the only weakness I see in our defense so if we can plug that up, look out CFL... if we can't, all our prowess in pass D won't be very useful. It's that simple.

I guess we will see come Sunday when we open the season and defense of our Championship. Stay tuned as Are You Smarter Than A Toddler will be back and launching tomorrow. I will also have my famous Official Predictions.  The 2014 Season is upon us and I for one am jacked!