CHRIS JONES, COREY CHAMBLIN PREGAME COMMENTS
Saskatchewan Roughriders Head Coach & GM Chris Jones held his traditional day-before news conference on Friday as his Roughriders prepare to host the Toronto Argonauts Saturday at Mosaic Stadium (4:30 pm, TSN, 620 CKRM Rider Radio Network).
Here are some quotes and notes:
– We had a solid week of practice. It wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination and certainly as coaches we always hold it to high standards but it was a solid week.
– Ricky Ray’s playing at one of the highest levels I’ve seen him. He’s thrown for over 300 yards for, I don’t know how many straight games. We’re going to have to do a great job of containing Ricky. S.J. is playing at a high level and the rest of the receivers are playing to his level. And they’ve got a big back and you saw last week we had trouble with a big back. We’ve got our hands full.
– It’s a similar offensive system to what Ricky’s been in. They’re doing a better job protecting him and he’s not getting hit quite as much. Ricky’s staying upright and anytime he can do that, he’ll do a good job of delivering the football.
– You can’t ever say (the game against Calgary) was just one of those nights. You’ve got to go out and execute every week. The offensive line play had been consistent up until that point but anytime you take a step back, you have to go back and look at what you’re doing and the people you’re doing it with. Those guys have to take that to the game.
– Our defensive front’s good. We’ll be able to get after Ricky with four guys but when we decide to send six or seven, we will.
– Corey Chamblin’s done an outstanding job. They do a good job of mixing press man with off man. Their front’s been able to create pressure with four. They’ve got two very outstanding linebackers with Bear and Marcus so he’s done an outstanding job.
– (On not blitzing as much or running as many 3rd down fakes as he did with Edmonton): It’s one of those deals where you’ve gotta have people in positions and the right folks. We had a QB there that could run a lot of that stuff on the punt fakes for us and on the blitzing part, we had a few more veteran DBs there, guys who’d been through it. You can’t hang a young DB out there too early because if you do, all of a sudden he gets deep, and people are writing bad things about him.
– Last week was very frustrating. I’ve had a very frustrating week quite honestly. I wish we coulda played on Day 2. I feel like we’re a lot better than what we showed in the first half the other night. I feel like we’re potentially better than our record but until we figure out how to close that gap of losing close games, that’s what we have to figure out.
Former Riders Head Coach Corey Chamblin returns to Saskatchewan as the Assistant Head Coach, Defensive Coordinator and DBs coach of the Toronto Argonauts. He had these comments on Friday.
– It’s hotter here than I remember! But for the most part, it’s a good feeling. It was home for awhile for my family and it’s a good feeling to see all the work that’s gone into this stadium. I look forward to coaching in it.
– Not really any emotions. It’s moreso thinking about family. My youngest son was born here and we won a Grey Cup here. We had a lot of family members outside of family like those who work for the organization or just people in the community. Those are the biggest feelings and memories.
– I feel a small part (of building the new stadium). A very small part. You can see how teamwork built this thing, just like 2013. That was a group of people coming together to accomplish something, just like this beautiful stadium.
– I spent the year out of the CFL between family, doing projects and coaching little league football. The biggest part was relaxing, stepping away from coaching and finding myself in terms of being Corey, not just ‘Coach’ at any level.
– Being a head coach is a stressful gig, without a doubt. It was a time for me to step back, grow with my family, fall in love with my family, and enjoy being with them.
RP
@rodpedersen
