Monday Morning Sentimonies: What To Make Of Chris Jones

Last week Chris Jones became the most polarizing man in Saskatchewan. By this point you either hate his guts (I don't envision many elementary school appearances in his future due to the mixture of tears and spit balls that would ensue)... or you have faith that he is making the hard decisions necessary to build a winning football program (possibly still mixed with mild resentment over ditching Dressler... I mean now who will appear on our chips?). There isn't really a neutral middle ground anymore. I mean if cutting Saskatchewan's most beloved adopted midget son doesn't make you hate the guy, nothing will.

I get that our new GM's approach may rub some people the wrong way. But it's not like Jones can be expected to improve our lowly team be just continuing with the misguided idiocies of his predecessor. So hate Jones all you want but he didn't deplete our Canadian talent. He didn't let our team get old and expensive. He wasn't stupid enough to think Chris Getzlaf should be the highest paid receiver in the league. He's just the man tasked with cleaning up the mess he inherited. It's a yucky job but someone has to do it. I personally think we should at least wait to see A) what his final roster looks like and B) if we actually start winning before polishing up our pitchforks and looking to do some serious ass forking. There will be plenty of time to run him out of town when he fails to go 18 and 0.

People are noticing a discrepancy between Jones' "we did everything we could" version of events and Dressler's there wasn't really any negotiation version. My guess is what happened was the "negotiations" consisted of Chris Jones saying the this is the most I'm willing to pay you and repeating that any time the agent tried to suggest something higher. A bit cold? yeah but that's what we pay Jones to do... make the tough business decisions.

A rumour has now started that we may be dumping Durant and going after Trevor Harris in free agency. At this point I don't anything can be dismissed. Would Jones do that? Probably. Will he? Maybe. I bet Durant is being asked for a pay cut (or at least replacing base pay with more incentive based stuff). I also bet that Jones would like to have depth behind a guy who hasn't finished a game in a year and half. But there's also risk there. There are no guarantees in landing Harris (as I personally think Montreal should back up a truck of money to his door) and when healthy Durant is better than Harris (just look at how Toronto locked up Ricky Ray first and Harris is priority #2). With Jones I wouldn't rule anything out (Jones would cut the drum line if he felt it would help us win) but I also don't think its inevitable.

Fasten you seat belts because if you think this roller coaster offseason doesn't have a few more twists and turns, you are sadly mistaken.