REYNOLDS ADDRESSES ROSTER-GATE
Saskatchewan Roughriders President and CEO Craig Reynolds held a news conference on Friday afternoon to address his team’s $60,000 fine from the CFL for roster violations. Here are some of his comments:
ON THE PENALTY FROM THE LEAGUE
“Obviously we made some mistakes as an organization. We totally accept that and understand that. This is 100% on us. As an organization we strive to do things with the utmost integrity and we understand where the mistakes were made. We’re gonna correct that going forward and it won’t happen again.
WILL JONES BE SUBJECT TO DISCIPLINE FROM THE TEAM?
“No. We’re going to handle this internally and obviously I’ve had some conversations. We’ll continue to have some conversations but I prefer to keep that internal.”
ON THE RIDERS COMPROMISING THE LEAGUE’S INTEGRITY
“Clearly it’s disappointing and we’re disappointed as an organization. We expect a lot out of ourselves and we strive to do everything with integrity. We strive to be league leaders and we fell down in that regard here. That’s 100% on us. I’m ultimately responsible for this organization so it’s 100% on me.”
DID YOU KNOW NON-ROSTER PLAYERS WERE BEING PAID?
“I had several conversations with the Commissioner leading up to Thursday’s announcement where they talked about the violations. We now understand what those violations were and we accept that we were in the wrong.”
WHEN DID YOU KNOW THIS WAS GOING ON?
“It’s a couple weeks. Similar to what Chris said, the League alerted us they were looking into some of our roster activity, specifically our tryout players. A couple of weeks ago we were alerted to that and had some dialogue continuously throughout that period of time.”
WHAT DID YOU THINK OF CHRIS JONES’ COMMENTS?
“With all due respect, he’s got a football game to coach tomorrow. This has gone on for awhile here. It’s been quite a distraction this week. I’m here to address as many questions as I can and I think Coach needs to be focused on the task at hand which is playing Calgary tomorrow.”
SHOULD HE BE MORE ACCOUNTABLE FOR HIS GM ROLE?
“Absolutely and I don’t want to suggest at all that he isn’t being accountable. He accepts accountability for the mistakes the organization made. I think he made that clear in his statement today. Chris and I have had several conversations with that and he’s never once wavered from that. I think at this stage he has the dual role and we have a football game in 24 hours and I think he needs to be focused on that.”
WHAT ABOUT BEING FINED TWICE IN TWO WEEKS?
“It’s very disappointing. Clearly. We had a fine for a ratio violation and we talked about that. We understand where the mistakes were made and have put measures in place to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Similarlu here, we’ve made some mistakes and we’ve put measures in place where we’re not going to make those mistakes again.”
WERE YOU PAYING PLAYERS WHO WEREN’T ON THE ROSTER?
“Absolutely not. We have tryout players so clearly you’re going to bring tryout players up and assess them versus your current roster. That’s what we did. The violations were around tryout players competing with roster players which is against CFL rules.”
WHERE WERE THESE PLAYERS STAYING?
“They’re here on a tryout basis so when they’re here trying out, we’d put them up. I’m sure there were several that were here on a tryout basis, went away, and then were back to be assessed.”
WILL YOU BE MORE ACTIVE IN FOOTBALL OPS NOW?
“I wouldn’t say a ‘more active role’ in overseeing the operations. In my role there needs to be oversight and I’ve mentioned that in the past. I like to grant a lot of autonomy to the football folks and I think I’ve done that with Chris. But I ask questions and am involved. Obviously when you have mistakes like this you need to understand why and the path forward. He and I have had several conversations around that and will continue to do that moving forward.”
Honest answers from an honest man! Now the team needs to start racking up a few wins going forward, hopefully starting on Saturday.
Lol, you may need another bus load of free agents to try out again cause the horse is going to ride all over you
Hey horsie lover, does it really matter what your team does? When you travel north we will kick your butts same as last year. Heck, same as every year. Esks rule!!!
Double E
"In Jones We Trust"
Mr. Reynolds;
The fact that Clarence Denmark caught 7 passes for 195 yards and two TDs tonight says volumes about the Rider's evaluation and game planning.
Denmark wasn't in the game plan when he did play and then he was evaluated as not good enough for the Riders.
This rests on Cheater Jones.
SWC
"Hey horsie lover, does it really matter what your team does? When you travel north we will kick your butts same as last year. Heck, same as every year. Esks rule!!!"
Your 2015 Grey Cup has now been permanently put In The CFL record books with a giant astricks. Sorry but it's true.
Darth Vader is not up for overnight. Nice we had Denmark for a little while I guess.
Puff and pass lol.
Stamps smoking dope in alley. Look at Nelson hackewich Twitter.
Classy
The Denmark performance suggests that the Riders should look to the Jim Popp model and stock up with players in their twilight years. We need more players in their 30's who have ten years experience, rather than so many players in their early 20's and just starting their careers. Therein lies the problem. Guys like Nick Lewis and Stephan Logan bring leadership and skill hard won through years of play. In football we fans only care about this season, not the next few, as we may not be alive in 2017 or later.
actually there is no astricks on our 2015 grey cup bud because we have a guy named Ed Hervey that ran our team not Chris Jones thanks…and if you associate this situation with grey cups and Jones then I guess the stamps, argos also have tainted cups and until he is out of your sask club then anything you do well as a team is tainted. Also your 2007 grey cup is well tainted seeing you were over the salary cap so keep cheating on saskatchewan
How is the Jim Popp model doing the past 2 years? How did the riders do last year following the Jim Popp model with Jamel Richardson and Taj Smith?
Geroy, Clermont – the old guys have their place on a roster for a winning team.
Typical Stamps fan. Gets insulted by an Eskimo fan. So instead of pointing his rage at the Eskimo fan who insulted him. Like a Chimpanzee he starts slinging his crap at everybody in range.
Listen Red one… No Rider fan insulted you here! It was an EE fan. Either direct your anger at that Eskimo fan. Or go to some anger management classes. Leave the Rider fans alone turd brain
So did the CFL fine the teams that bought players like Doug Flutie via a "personal services contract"??? The Riders, as a community owned team, could not buy high impact players like that and suffered losses because they could not compete. Funny now that the Riders have some cash the CFL decides to make an example of them to the rest of the league falls into line. Do other teams do this? Did the term "taxi squad" come out of the blue? Someone should ask the EE fan about that.
I've worked for a couple corporations in my time. The Riders are run one in the same. So tell me what other corporation has their GM give a speach to the Media. Then reacts by refusing to take questions. All of which leaves the President to stand in front of the same media to clean up the mess. There is no business model that runs in that way. Jones made the mess and left the guy that hired him to face the fire.