Tuesday Morning Sentimonies: Signings

The official story behind these sentimonies being a day late is that based on my prophetic powers I knew big Riders news was coming today so I waited. I will take no questions on the matter.

I was very glad for some good Rider news on Monday because, as a Vikings fan, the rest of the day was the equivalent of a boxer doing speed bag drills on your crotch. I mean I had been bracing myself for this all week. The only thing lower than my confidence in Sam Darnold was evidently Sam Darnold’s confidence. It was just further reminder that I have the absolute worst decision making when it comes to choosing sports teams. If you are a fan of a sport other than football or hockey and would like me to curse a rival of your favourite team by pledging my allegiance to them, we can work out a deal. 

But enough about my sports-related miseries, let’s talk Rider football.

 

-        Biggest news was re-signing Jameer Thurman. The cherry on top was him committing for 2 years. He was an absolute must re-signing. The best defenses always have a rock solid middle linebacker. Thurman is that guy.

-        Malik Carney was another welcome re-signing. The fanfare around this one isn’t near as loud as for Thurman but Carney is a decent guy to have in the DE rotation. More importantly up until he re-signed, we had essentially Colonel Sanders as the only notable American DL under contract.

-        Thurman and Carney both help bring continuity to the defense. Our front 7 were fine last year so we don’t need to tear it down and start again.

-         The other signing of note was Jake Maier. I explained last week why I like the addition of Maier. To the people lamenting that we only signed him to a one year deal, consider that this is the absolute lowest Maier’s value will ever be. Why on earth would he agree to a multi-year deal when his value can only go up? Guarantee we wanted a 2 year deal but if he had agreed to that I would have started questioning his decision making abilities in general.

-        A signing that won’t get any fanfare but should is AJ Allen. Were it not for the fact that Milligan stole all the attention, people would have taken more note of how good Allen is on teams. And more and more he can contribute on defense. Underrated but important guy to keep around.

-        The bad news was of course that Trevor Reid got an NFL shot with the Vikes. Given that Darnold was sacked 12 times as I drafted this, Reid can’t get on the field soon enough there. Reid is a big loss but with guys like Brammer and Hardrick under contract we at least aren’t immediately screwed as we would have been in previous years.

-        We did sign Brandon Kemp to help start building the competition in camp at OT.

-        The CFL schedule is still not out making it the second most delayed thing next to Sam Darnold’s decision making when under pressure.

-        I could solve the schedule issue in less than an hour. Present a draft schedule to the owners and then say that if you want to propose a change to the schedule it will cost you $100,000 paid to each team impacted. Their cheapness will override their unwillingness to compromise and voila.