CHAMBLIN MEETS THE MEDIA

Roughriders head coach Corey Chamblin met with reporters on Thursday at Mosaic Stadium upon his return from the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama.  Here are some notes from the gathering:

ON HIS RECENT SCHEDULE

CC: The last couple of weeks I’ve been to the Senior Bowl and done some things like that.  Looked a little bit over the season, at things like offense and special teams and stuff like that.  Really just doing that and trying to solidify a lot of different things from last year and see how we’ll shape up for this year.

ON FINALIZING THE COACHING STAFF

CC:  That’s something I’ve looked at whether it’s adding, deleting or doing things like that.  In early-February we’ll really know because we’ve just had the Senior Bowl and there are always some opportunities for guys to move down south and also from the coaches convention.  Really we’re just holding tight to see if guys came away with any offers from there before we solidify anything.

ON HIS PAST TWO MONTHS

CC:  The biggest thing, for me, over the past two months is making sure the mindset of this team from the football operations department is moving into 2014, thinking about that year, not last year.  We had the celebration period but it’s time to make sure we’re putting together a good football team for 2014.

ON PENDING FREE AGENTS

CC: Brendan Taman, Jeremy O’Day, they do a good job of that.  A lot of guys want to know what their role’s gonna be this year and we need to figure out what guys’ roles will be if they come along.  If guys move on, how we’ll be able to change the roles of some other guys.

ON OTHER TEAMS’ FREE AGENTS

CC: There’s always some guys out there but thing about it is you have one or two guys and you think ‘maybe he can fit here’ but if guys sign back before February 15, then on the 16th, 17th, you think ‘okay how would they fit?’.  We’ve identified one or two guys but Brendan knows exactly what we can have and what fits.

ON AREAS WHICH CAN USE IMPROVEMENT

CC: When you look at it, with the status of Weston Dressler, Kory Sheets and all those guys, it jus depends.  Right now I see it on the offensive side of the ball and one or two interior guys defensively we have to look at.  It depends whether they sign back or decide on somewhere else.  There are some guys that if one or two guys leave, we can move some guys up and then just try to get some depth.  If one or two guys leave, we may have to look for some starters at that position.