DAY 2 OF RIDER FLORIDA MINICAMP COMPLETE

The vets joined on Saturday.  From left: Dressler, Bagg, Smith, Durant & Getzlaf

Here are some quotes from Day 2 of Roughrider minicamp plus a bit of a recap of the day’s activities at the IMG Academy…

DARIAN DURANT

ON HIS RIGHT ELBOW

DD:  This is the first chance I’ve really had to work it on back-to-back days and it’s been responding just fine.  The training staff is being sure that I keep ice on it to keep the swelling down – if it ever comes.  So far it hasn’t.  I just feel great.  I’m 100% and ready to go.

ON THE JACQUES CHAPDELAINE OFFENSE

DD:  I love it.  Coach Chap brings so much versatility to our offense.  We have a great receiving corps and that definitely helps us out.  I’m loving what we’re doing and it’s just about everyone getting on the same page, getting in the playbook and making sure we don’t have the simple mental mistakes.  This camp is good for the vets to come in and learn the offense and get a head-start.

This offense is ‘basketball on grass’ I think.  It’s about getting the ball to the open guy, not having a primary.  Just find an open guy, get it to him, and let him make guys miss and make first downs.  I think that’s what this league is about.  It’s about getting the ball in the hands of your playmakers and letting them go to work with the ball.  That’s what we’re going to do a lot of.

JACQUES CHAPDELAINE

ON WORKING WITH DURANT

JC:  I’m having a great time with Darian!  Darian’s the consummate professional.  I think he’s picking up really, really well what we want to teach the guys.  Nothing has surprised me in a sense.  He’s meeting and surpassing the expectations that I had.

YOU ASKED DURANT ABOUT HIS ELBOW?

JC: Of course!  It’s not so much from a rehab point of view, it’s about conditioning if you’d like.  At this point in time it would be normal to understand that the strength/enduration portion of his muscles and his elbow may not be where you’d like it to be.  But I think he felt great.  We’re really pleased with where it’s at.  I did not see anything on the field today – and we gave him the bulk of the work – to go ‘Okay we have more work to do’.  I think he’s ready to go.

WESTON DRESSLER

ON DURANT

WD:  I thought he did well.  I mean it’s hard to say.  We got a brand new offense in so there’s a lot going through our heads.  Moreso than just a spectator watching how one guy throws a ball.  From what we were able to take in receiving from him, I thought he did alright.

WHY WAS THERE CONFUSION ON THE FIELD TODAY?

WD:  I think it was more organized chaos for us.  We felt like we’d gone over a lot of the stuff briefly in meetings and then you throw it on the field.  It may seem like chaos because a lot of guys are talking back and forth but we’re just talking through our responsibilities in the short time before the snap.  For a Day 1, I thought as a receiving corps, we did a pretty good job of knowing our responsibilties.  Now we just build on that and try and know the little things within each play.  Know the adjustments we have to make, know the landmarks and route depths and things like that, and just keep improving from there.

COREY CHAMBLIN

WHO’S STANDING OUT?

CC:  I’m not gonna jinx anybody.  But there are some guys who are showing up.  I will tell you this to be honest – and I’ve told personnel people this – on the defensive side, because of all the rookies, they’re all the same.  And what I mean by that is there’s no bum.  There’s no bad guy that we were like ‘Hey get him out of here’.  You’ll see each guy do something positive and we’re like ‘You know what?  This is gonna be pretty tough’.  It’ll be pretty tough for us to make some decisions, especially at that linebacker spot.  On the offensive side, those guys I don’t expect to see anything other than their athletic ability.  There is a learning curve for those guys.  We have seen something from each one of them but it’s hard for me to exactly say who did something positve.

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DAY 2 NOTES

– It was a scorching 88 degrees for the back-to-back workouts, the hottest day of the week so far.

– The Riders are auditioning four different punters (three American) due to the void left by veteran Josh Bartel who’s still an unsigned free agent.  Special teams coach Bob Dyce said Bartel is exhausting all NFL options and had a recent workout in San Diego.  It appears the club is moving on without him.

– That said, we couldn’t get an evaluation of the punters because they were working at another field.  Levi Steinhauer did ALL of the longsnapping and Dyce was concerned about fatigue considering the injury which ended Levi’s 2014 season.  However Steinhauer said he’s fine.

– They worked on punts and field goals and since the American punters all had a background in holding, the services of veteran holders Weston Dressler and Rob Bagg weren’t needed.

– When the Riders released veteran centre Dominic Picard this winter, GM Brendan Taman said they’re hoping returnees Corey Watman and Dan Clark will step up to the fill the void.  The pair rotated at centre on Saturday and there were some definite foibles adjusting to the quarterback’s cadence.

– Speaking of, the Riders introduced the playcall “Omaha” to their offense under new coordinator Jacques Chapdelaine.  You’ll remember Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning popularized the call two seasons ago in the NFL.  What exactly is “Omaha”?  Manning explains it here:

– In the morning session, the starting five receivers for the Riders appeared to be veterans Rob Bagg, Taj Smith, Weston Dressler, Chris Getzlaf and Jamel Richardson.  However Richardson was inactive for the afternoon workout as he recovers from a left knee injury.  The Riders had #82 LaQuan Williams in with that group in the afternoon.

– The defense appeared to catch up to the offense from Day 1 to Day 2 and it was noticed by the football operations staff.  “Once the offense started to have to think more, they slowed down,” one observer pointed out to me.  There were far less completions in the frenetic afternoon session, including an interception by #5 Tyree Hollins off of Tino Sunseri.

– Former Blue Bomber receiver Cory Watson lined up in the second grouping.  The first throw his way came from Sunseri but it sailed through his hands.  He later made a nice sliding catch from Durant.

– Canadians Matt Webster and Keenan McDougall split time at safety.  However you can’t imagine they’d start in the secondary once the season kicks off.  Who knows — Webster saw some meaningful time there late in the 2014 season.

– Linebacker Eltoro Freeman was back on the field after missing Day 1 with a groin injury.

– Former NFL receiver Naaman Roosevelt is hard to miss with good speed and good hands.  His college quarterback at the University of Buffalo was former Roughrider Drew Willy.

– Speedster Greg Hardin wasn’t as eye-popping on Saturday as he was on Friday.

– The Riders will be looking for a right tackle to replace Ben Heenan who departed for the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts.  Levy Adcock has spent a lot of time there along with rookie Pierce Burton.  Adcock also spent some time on the blindside.  Other tackles Saskatchewan is looking at are Anthony Dima and Randy Richards.

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That’s about it for Saturday.  The camp will close with a workout at 7:30 am Saskatchewan time at the IMG Academy.  Our next SportsCage broadcast on 620 CKRM will be Monday at 4:00 pm live from Bradenton.

RP