STACKHOUSE’S 10 THOUGHTS

1 – RIDERS WIN – The Saskatchewan Roughriders secured a home playoff game with a win over Edmonton on Saturday but they hardly played like world beaters.  Cody Fajardo hasn’t looked right all year.  Some of that can be blamed on the offensive line.  Some of it can be blamed on a lack of weapons for most of the season, some of it can be blamed on bizarre play calling but the reality is that Fajardo has to shoulder some of this himself.  Yet, they are 9-and-4 and despite obvious flaws they still may very well be the second best team in the league.  That maybe says more about the CFL than it does about the Riders.

2 – REST – It sounds as though the Riders may rest Fajardo in the season finale this weekend.  Makes sense since he’s been so crisp and is in top form for the playoffs (sarcasm).  I get the notion of being scared of the ‘what if he gets hurt’ scenario but you can’t operate that way.  Well, I guess we all have for two years so never mind.  On a serious note, the best chance anyone has of beating Winnipeg will be the result of them not being sharp due to their starters having too much time rested.

3 – BEN/RODGERS – Follow along and I’m sure someone will be able to explain this to me because I just don’t understand the logic.  Aaron Rodgers, widely scorned and ridiculed for his strategy for dealing with Covid, never had any symptoms, got cleared and there is no evidence he infected anyone.  Now, the media is fit to be tied that he’s chosen Zoom to conduct interviews.  Meanwhile, Ben Roethlisberger is now out with Covid after being vaccinated.  He won’t be the focus of a 2-week news cycle but for all intents and purposes both his and Rodgers’ experience with Covid will be identical.

4 – GRUDEN – Former Raiders coach Jon Gruden is suing the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell over his ‘forced resignation’ as head coach of the Vegas Raiders.  The lawsuit alleges Gruden’s emails were the only ones made public out of 650,000 emails collected in the NFL’s investigation of the Washington Football Team.  The lawsuit also states when the initial salvo did not result in Gruden’s firing or resignation, the NFL ratcheted up the pressure by intimating further documents would become public and they followed through on that threat by leaking another batch to the New York Times.  I think what’s important to decipher here is that Gruden isn’t denying anything but he’s wondering why only he is being singled out. 

5 – GRUDEN HYPOTHETICAL – This has all got me thinking, let’s pretend those emails by Gruden are never leaked.  He’s probably still coaching today.  Why do they have to become public for him to walk the plank?  If the parties involved feel as though what Gruden said over seven or eight years ago was offensive enough to warrant a termination or resignation today then that should be done in a manner where all of this dirty laundry isn’t aired for the world to see and it should have been done as soon as the NFL head office was aware of the offensive comments as opposed to having someone leak them to media and then we can all fabricate outrage and that’s the reason for Gruden’s dismissal.  The outrage really should have nothing to do with it.  Either he’s worthy of working or he’s not and the public doesn’t need to know the details.  But, for some reason, it’s only offensive for Gruden to call Michael Sam a homophobic name if the public finds out rather than if the NFL head office finds out.  Am I the only one who finds that strange?

6 – WASHINGTON INVESTIGATION – It also has me wondering if the public knew more about this investigation into the Washington Football Team, how many more heads would roll?  Because the public knows about Gruden’s emails, he’s gone.  But because only the NFL head office knows about the sins of the Washington organization, whatever is in that final report only constitutes a $10-million fine as well as steps put in place to ensure whatever happened doesn’t happen again.  I’ll guarantee you if the public ever finds out specifics, more than a pound of flesh will be sacrificed.

7 – NFL UP FOR GRABS – On the field, no single team has emerged as a clear-cut Super Bowl favorite.  If Derrick Henry wasn’t hurt I’d be all-in on Tennessee but without the NFL’s best running back, the Titans are brought back to the rest of the pack.  In the AFC, I still have them as the top team but then you have a bunch of pretty good teams who are full of flaws (Buffalo, Baltimore, Kansas City, Cleveland, New England) and while I see each of them capable of winning on any given week I have a hard time projecting them to reel off three or four in a row to win a Super Bowl.  In the NFC, the Rams haven’t really shown they are capable of beating good teams consistently.  Arizona may be the best and you can’t ever write off Tampa Bay and Tom Brady.  From there, you have Dallas and Green Bay and then nobody else that I can take seriously.  If I was forced to pick a Super Bowl finalist from each conference today….I’d go with the Cowboys and the Bills even though Josh Allen doesn’t look nearly as good as he did last year.

8 – SENATORS OFF THIS WEEK – These are just questions and I know they make people mad but I just don’t understand.  The Ottawa Senators are 100% vaccinated.  Everyone who enters their building would be 100% vaccinated.  The teams they play against are 100% vaccinated.  Yet, they have 10 players on the Covid list and their games this week are cancelled.  If the vaccines work, why can’t we just act like it?  If there are 10 Covid+ players skating around the ice and the people they come into contact with are also vaccinated, why are we so worried?  In an environment where that many are vaccinated, wouldn’t it just make sense to test those who are symptomatic?  It just feels like we are spinning our wheels on this.  Vaccines were sold as the cure to get out and yet we treat them the same as if they are hand sanitizer.  What is the goal here?  0 cases?  0 in the hospital?  0 deaths?  Someone please.  Even if I think the goals are unrealistic, I’d like to know what they are.  I’d also like to point out that even without vaccines professional athletes are at such a low risk, statistically, it registers at nearly 0% for serious health outcomes.

9 – BERRIOS SIGNING – The Toronto Blue Jays have signed pitcher Jose Berriors to a 7-year contract extension valued at less than $20-million per season.  The day before, Detroit signed Eduardo Rodriguez for 5-years at $15-million per year.  Rodriguez had turned down a 1-year, $18.4-million qualifying offer from Boston.  What both of these signings tell me is that contracts for starting pitchers are on the way down.  Berrios has been a workhorse starter hovering around 200 innings per season and is entering his age 28 season, the prime of his career.  Five years ago, a pitcher with his credentials would fetch between $25-$28 million and Rodriguez would be in the $20-million per range. 

10 – CANORA ATTENDANCE – While the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the WHL have had their share of attendance issues over the last number of weeks, there was no complaining about numbers in Canora for that community’s first senior hockey league game since 2012.  There were 329 jammed into their arena (the town’s population is 2000).  We can come up with all sorts of reasons as to why they did so well with numbers but it’s worth pointing out that there was no vaccine pass requirement to attend based on how they offered the game to their fans.  I believe people are desperate to get out and socialize but I also believe there are a great many taking a stand.  Just my belief, I could be entirely wrong.  For what it’s worth, organizers were banking on a crowd of 200 and said they’d be more than happy with that when I asked them prior to the game.

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