STACKHOUSE’S 10 THOUGHTS

1 – RIDER GAMES VACCINES – As of 5:00 pm Monday, only the CFL’s Saskatchewan and Edmonton were allowing non-vaccinated fans into games. The pressure is mounting and my guess is both clubs will, eventually, follow the same suit as the other seven. But why stop there?  I’m currently in southern Ontario where vaccines don’t count. The province is only partially open and all other measures with regards to distancing, sanitization, and mask wearing remains fully in place. There is no point in half effort on this. If you want to go to a football game, they should require double vaccines, negative Covid tests, and double masks for everybody. Tickets should also cost a bit more too to cover the expense of tests and extra health measures. Let’s keep everyone perfectly safe as opposed to only a little bit safe. Of course, I wouldn’t attend myself under those measures but if you truly believe you are in danger cancel the games entirely and send the players home and tell the fans to wait it out another year or longer if that’s what it takes or use every single tool in the kit to keep us all safe.

2 – ELKS/ARGOS – Positive Covid tests have resulted in this Thursday’s game being postponed and as I write this there are no confirmed dates for it to be replayed. Is it just me or does it feel like we are going backwards with this pandemic? The vaccines are supposed to be the cure for this and yet I am seeing increasing cases, nursing homes enacting restrictions, hospital numbers going back up, sports leagues cancelling games, etc. This isn’t meant to start a debate about who’s vaxxed and who isn’t, but I feel like there really aren’t that many out there who aren’t and yet at the same time it feels like nobody is based on what’s going on.

3 – RIDERS WIN AGAIN – I caught the second half of Saturday’s win over Ottawa and it appears as though I didn’t miss anything by skipping the first half. Once again, Cody Fajardo played like the best QB in the league and while I understand there are some who are uneasy with his running the ball, you also have to understand his running the ball is a big part of what makes him so good. If you take that away, he’s not as elite. Let him go, take your chances on injury. You have to or else you’ve got a lesser pivot.  

4 – RIDER QBs – I moved to Saskatchewan in the summer of 2001 and have followed the Roughriders fairly closely ever since. It got me thinking about the quarterbacks on the team over the last twenty years and how they stack up against one another. It could be an interesting debate although there is no question Darian Durant is number one. In fact, Durant is probably number one in the history of the franchise and not just the last twenty years. Here are the remainder of my rankings based on 2001-2021: I’ve got Henry Burris at two, Kerry Joseph at three, and Fajardo at four, but Fajardo has a real good chance to be second within a year or two. After that, the choices are uninspiring but let’s go with Kevin Glenn at five, Marcus Crandell at six, Brandon Bridge at seven, Nealon Greene eighth, Brett Smith ninth, and Zach Collaros tenth. Smith was an interesting one. I didn’t mind him at all but there was, clearly, something about him that turned the Riders off and nobody else really gave him much of an opportunity.

5 – RIDER RBs – What the heck, let’s do the same thing with the running backs. This is a very close race between Kenton Keith, Wes Cates, and Kory Sheets. I’ll give the nod to Keith, Cates is second based on tenure, Sheets is third but he may have been the most talented of the three. After that, it’s very challenging and worthy of a discussion. For me, Corey Holmes is fourth and then it’s Chris Szarka, Jerome Messam, William Powell, Neal Hughes, Anthony Allen, and Hugh Charles. Although if memory serves me correctly, wasn’t Allen the guy who fumbled all the time?  Maybe move Charles ahead of him.

6 – RANKINGS AFTER WEEK THREE – Saskatchewan has to be number one on everybody’s list.  Winnipeg, despite the loss, is still number two. Montreal had a bad game against Calgary but they still almost pulled it out so I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt at three with the Argos coming in at four by virtue of their win over the Bombers. Ottawa has a pretty good defense but scoring is going to be an issue for them so let’s slot them in at five. Edmonton, BC, and Calgary get 6th, 7th, and 8th. Hamilton was off last week, but they are winless so I will put them 9th. Friday’s game was encouraging for rookie Stamps QB Jake Maier, but my guess is there will be some bumps along the way.

7 – CJFL SEASON – The Prairie Conference of the CJFL kicked off their season over the weekend with Ontario and BC slated to begin play this upcoming weekend. If game one was any indication, it would appear the Saskatoon Hilltops and Edmonton Huskies are going to be at the top again with company from the Regina Thunder. The Hilltops came back and eked one out over top QB Declan O’Flaherty and the Huskies while the Thunder have a slew of new faces on offense but that didn’t slow them down as they wallopped the Winnipeg Rifles, who are dealing with massive player losses (in part to Covid as players have moved on with their lives) from both eligible and graduating players.  The Sherwood Park (Edmonton) Wildcats ran up the score early and settled on a 36-25 win over Calgary in a match up of two teams who may be near the bottom of the standings.

8 – NFL BATTLES – The Chicago Bears coaches continue to say Andy Dalton is their starter, but they aren’t watching the same football I’m watching. Justin Fields is, clearly, banging on the door and one hinge has already given out. They can’t ignore him much longer, can they? Odds are that three of the five rookie QBs drafted won’t pan out to be anything special. If that’s the case, I’m picking Trevor Lawrence and Fields to be the best of the crop. Mac Jones has had a pretty good camp and I think we sometimes forget about quarterbacks who are good passers and don’t offer the running dimension. Jones is a bit on the boring side but he gets the job done. Zach Wilson has the unenviable position of playing for the Jets, and they’ve never been great at developing quarterbacks. Then there is Trey Lance who has next to no experience but the 49ers are believers. My hot take, which likely won’t age well, is this: Jimmy G manages to get through the entire season unscathed as far as injury and actually plays well enough to make them reconsider keeping him long term.

9 – BAUER COURT – Trevor Bauer’s administrative leave has been extended until later this week as Major League Baseball continues to investigate him in relation to sexual assault allegations. Late last week Judge Dianna Gould-Saltman ruled in Bauer’s favor and said the pitcher did not pose an immediate threat to the woman, who was seeking a restraining order. Before you jump to conclusions, understanding law is important here. The judge has decided Bauer isn’t a future threat but that doesn’t mean an assault never occurred. Regardless of what you think of Bauer, Aroldis Chapman is an active pitcher with the New York Yankees. He was suspended for 30 games in 2016 for allegedly choking his girlfriend and firing eight gun shots in their garage, but to this day claims he never hurt anyone. Bauer has already missed more than 30 games and it is possible he could even be absolved of wrongdoing although I maintain, at best, he’s stupid for doing something like this with a person he didn’t have trust with. At worst, he’s a criminal.

10 – LIFE IS TOO SHORT – I had lots of time to think about the tragedy in BC where the lives of Edmonton Oil King Caleb Reimer and Delta Hockey Academy’s Ronin Sharma and Parker Magnuson were cut short after a single vehicle accident over the weekend. Those of us reading this blog and website are immersed in a sports world so this type of news can be particularly unsettling when we are hit with a punch that makes us realize how fragile life can be and how lucky we are to have it. But, let’s also take some time to think about non-sports youth who have suffered greatly over the last year-and-a-half, some of whom have died for various reasons but we don’t ever learn about the tragedy because of the social status. No matter who the person is, a premature loss of life brings a great deal of pain and anguish to those left behind. I don’t know who any of you are necessarily, but I thought of each of you as I drove for 2 ½ days from Yorkton to southern Ontario this weekend and I also said a bit of a prayer for my life being spared to continue on for however long God decides to let me stay here.  

(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster. Follow him on Twitter at @Stack1975)