Craig Smith & 10 Things
**The football world was saddened with Sunday’s news of the passing of longtime CFL scout & personnel man Craig Smith at age 69. Condolences to his wife Cathy and extended family. Please see the Commentary post below for stories and memories of Craig, who truly was one of the CFL’s great guys for decades. He will be missed by many.
Truth & Rumours …
1 – HOLD YOUR HORSES: Going into the weekend the Saskatchewan Roughriders had never been 9-1 in their century-plus history. And they still aren’t. The football gods, and the Calgary Stampeders, made sure that didn’t happen as the Green & White fell to 8-2 on Saturday courtesy of a 32-15 beatdown at the hands of the mighty Horsemen. For the second time this season the Stamps manhandled and out-physicalled the Riders as the Stamps improved to 6-3. Both of Saskatchewan’s losses have come to Calgary, in lopsided fashion, which really throws into question the idea of “Who’s the CFL’s best team at the halfway point?” … Meanwhile Rider kicker Brett Lauther missed another field goal and has bigtime case of the yips. But it says here he’s earned the right to work his way out of the funk before being cut. He has yet to cost the Riders a game.
2 – AROUND THE LEAGUE: Week 12 opened on Thursday with Winnipeg dumping the Alouettes in Montreal 26-13. No surprise there as Als QB James “Captain” Morgan was making his first career start and although he looked the part, he served two interceptions and never really gave Montreal a chance to win. Montreal has lost four in a row and are down to their fourth string quarterback. … Death, taxes and Cody Fajardo winning. That’s what you can count on in life folks. Fajardo exhibited another Sprinkle of Jesus as the Edmonton Elkimos went into Ottawa on Friday night and handed the listless RedBlacks a 30-20 loss. The Green & Gold have won three in a row under Cody and you have to wonder where they’d be if they’d have started him from Week 1. …. And in the Braley Bowl on Saturday afternoon in Toronto, Nick Arbuckle sizzled by throwing for 430 yards and 3 TDs in the Argonauts’ 52-34 win over the BC Lions. His counterpart Nathan Rourke was no slouch, tossing for 326 yards and 2 TD’s. What a display of CFL football! … At 5-6, the BC Lions are in a crossover playoff spot and we haven’t seen a playoff crossover in the CFL since 2019.
3 – NFL: With 10 games played on Saturday, the NFL preseason is now complete. Some musings: Baltimore finished the exhibition season at 3-0, and so did Cleveland. … The Ravens smoked Washington 30-3 on Saturday but neither Lamar Jackson nor Jayden Daniels played. Remember it was the Commanders who snapped the Ravens’ NFL-record 24-game win streak a couple years back. … Those who were there said Shedeur Sanders “struggled” in the Browns’ 19-17 win over the Rams. It feels 50/50 whether he’ll make the team at all. … The Dolphins finished the preseason at 2-0-1 and the Dolf-Fans are enthusiastic about back-ups Zach Wilson and Quinn Ewers behind Tua. … Former Alabama QB Jalen Milroe was sacked five times and fumbled three times for Seattle in a 20-7 loss at Green Bay. Canadian Taylor Elgersma looked real sharp (6/8, 33 yards, 1 TD) in his time. … Join us at PumpJacks Cathedral on Thursday, Sept. 4 for our NFL Kickoff Party as the Cowboys and Eagles open the NFL season! The evening is brought to you in part by Ultimate Fan Zone in Moose Jaw, who is providing prizing.
4 – SURPRISE, SURPRISE: We have an impressive stable of NFL analysts on the RP Show and over the past few weeks they’ve given their picks on who will be the surprise team of the 2025 NFL season. Here are some of their guesses: Arash Madani/New England, Jim Barker/LA Chargers, Tori Gurley/LA Chargers, Jon Ryan/Las Vegas, Kenny Nagunst/Carolina, RP/Las Vegas. Jersey Jim Biringer/Las Vegas, Darren Dupont/Las Vegas, Mo Egger/New England, Joe Gunnis/Washington. … Jim Barker’s picking a Philadelphia/Kansas City Super Bowl while Jim Lang is taking Philadelphia/Baltimore. Me? I’ll take Buffalo/Detroit.
5 – THE GAMBLER: Hooo boy. I could go on and on and on about the new Netflix Series “America’s Team: The Gambler & His Cowboys”. I’ve watched six of eight episodes this week and, as a Cowboys fan, not much of the info is new but it certainly gives an inside glimpse at the personalities of Jerry Jones, Jimmy Johnson, Barry Switzer, Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin, et al. Even fans of other teams are marveling at the “behind-the-scenes” truth bombs being dropped. I’m certain there’s absolutely no way that I could work for Jerry Jones but you CANNOT take away anything from the huge gambles he’s taken in life to get to where he’s at. They call them the 1%. Maybe that’s because fewer than 1% of the population have the nerve to put their balls on the line the way Jerry Jones has. Because his gambles have paid off, he gets to call the shots. Win or lose.
6 – FORE!: It’s your final week to sign up for the 3rd Annual Labour Day Golf Classic at Aspen Links next weekend! it’s the greatest alumni group we’ve had: Dan Clark, Andrew Greene, Scott Schultz, Wes Cates, Marshall Hamilton, Neal Hughes, Evan Johnson, Rob Bresciani, Macho Harris, Brett MacNeil, Rod Hill, Frank Robinson, Brendan Rodgers, Ryan Carey, Jermese Jones, Gavin Walls plus the Bomber Alumni Cheer Team! Email info@aspenlinks.ca to register your team. Don’t delay!
7 – HOCKEY TALK: Western Hockey League training camps begin this week. In Regina, 93 hopefuls will hit the Brandt Centre ice beginning Thursday. … The Pats are getting kudos for the unveiling of their new slogan Blue Runs Deep this week. It sure does! … The Moose Jaw Warriors open training camp here in Moose Jaw this week as well. Someone wrote in here a few weeks ago asking for an outlook on the Warriors. On the RP Show last week, longtime Warriors Voice James Gallo said, “I hope the best is yet to come!” The Warriors followed up a WHL championship season in 2023 with a last-place finish in 2024. … Each week leading up to the NHL season I’m giving my division-by-division predictions. Last week it was the Pacific Division and no one argued. This week it’s the Central: Winnipeg-Colorado-Dallas-St.Louis-Minnesota-Nashville-Utah-Chicago.
8 – COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Don’t look now but the College Football season kicked off Saturday with five Week 0 games. The highlight? Jeff Reinebold’s Hawaii Rainbow Warriors opened with a 23-20 victory over Stanford in Honolulu which had to be a huge relief for the iconic CFL coach. … But who’s kidding who? All eyes will be on next Saturday’s clash in Columbus as the #1 Texas Longhorns visit the #3 OSU Buckeyes in a 10AM MT kickoff. The Buckeyes are favored by 1.5 and the pundits are wondering why the #1 team is listed as an underdog? It’s all part of the fun and intrigue. … The Longhorns are coached by former CFL QB Steve Sarkisian and their quarterback Arch Manning is the betting favorite for the Heisman Trophy as College Football MVP. … The #1 story in CFB, that I’ve seen, is if the youngest Manning will declare for the 2026 NFL Draft. That would make tanking a lot more attractive for the Titans, Saints, Browns, etc.
9 – VIVA LAS VEGAS: We are excited to announce that beginning Monday, September 29 the RP Show will begin airing daily in Las Vegas on the Silver State Sports & Entertainment Network, part of Fox 5 Las Vegas! There will be some mild tweaks to our show moving forward, but it’s all positive! A huge thanks to Game+ TV (our longtime national TV partner in Canada and US) for giving their blessing and to our production partner SkyCron for making it happen. Sometimes you just gotta roll the dice …
10 – RANDOM THOUGHTS: The Blue Jays have the best broadcast team in MLB. … Is it worth it to pay for LinkedIn Premium? … The universe rewards endurance. … Whatever happened to Stifler? … What does it say when you hold up a sign which calls someone else a “Looser”? … I’d rather have a small piece of a big pie than a big piece of a small pie. … Turn off the lights. The Nesting Ospreys have defeated the Apple Valley Eagles in Minnesota high school football. They haven’t actually played each other, but the ospreys took charge when they built a huge nest to raise their chicks, high up on a light pole at the Apple Valley High School football field. Because of it, the migratory raptors that are protected under state and federal law forced the school, known as the Eagles, to rearrange their football and soccer schedules, switching to day games instead of night. Turning on the hot floodlights would have risked cooking the birds and starting a fire. “When you see these large birds flying across your field with these humongous sticks, you start to ask questions like, ‘What is going on here?’” said school A.D. Cory Hanson. “And you take one look at that nest, right? And you’re like, ‘OK, this is not your average bird.’” … AND HOW WAS YOUR WEEK?
Y’er welcome,
RP
10 – RANDOM THOUGHTS: The Blue Jays have the best broadcast team in MLB.
Personally, I get tired of them constantly trying to sell Vlady to us.
Young Archie Manning, he’s going to be a great professional quarterback for some NFL team, the Manning family are All American 🇺🇸 good people.
I’m not taking a shot at the rodpedersen.com staff for this, but it’s sad that there used to be a great rivalry between the South Sask 3 in the WHL. For a few years, any combo of Swift Current, Moose Jaw and Regina generated some excitement. Not sure what’s going on in Swift, but it’s weird how irrelevant the Broncos have become.
Irrelevant to whom?
To everyone including you. This blog and those who contribute to it do a good job of covering Saskatchewan’s sports scene and the Broncos haven’t been mentioned here in months. There is no conversation good, bad or otherwise about the Broncos and you know that isn’t a good thing Rod.
Of course! It’s a terrible thing! I leave our WHL coverage up to Glen Erickson for the most part and he does a great job. Live moves on and times change.