TAMAN PROVIDES RIDER UPDATE

Saskatchewan Roughriders GM Brendan Taman spoke with reporters at Mosaic Stadium on Thursday and provided an update on where the club is at this point in the off-season:

ON OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR GEORGE CORTEZ:

BT:  The only thing I can confirm regarding the rumours is that George’s contract won’t be renewed and he won’t be back.  The other names that were bantied about, I can’t really comment on that because they’re still part of our organization right now.  Corey’s in his own world of free agency from a coaching point of view where there’s a lot of moving parts on a daily basis.  Some guys have contracts internally and some guys are on the street externally so he’s had a lot of balls in the air.  I know there’s been a lot of speculation but the only one I can confirm is George won’t be back.

We talk at length about staff and players and we felt it was time for a change.  We wanted a different look and approach to things.  George is a really good coach and good guy, he helped us win a Grey Cup and did a lot of good things for us but sometimes you just reach a point where you just want to change things up.

IS THERE A LIST OF REPLACEMENTS?

BT:  Corey does.  And he has a lot of freedom on this.  He’s been going at it pretty hard and I stay out of his way and get an update here and there.  He’s busy approaching some things.  Knowing Corey he goes pretty quick at things and he’ll probably have something lined up end of month kind of thing.

WHAT ABOUT DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR RICHIE HALL?

BT:  He’s in an evaluation process and Corey’s going through – similar to what we did with George – we want to see what the options are if there is any and different if that’s better or not better than what Richie gives us a defensive coordinator.  Like I said it’s a work in process.  Corey’s been talking with Richie through out and I think we know where everyone stands.

I think there’s a chance (he could be back).  Corey will do everything he can to uncover every stone and see what he can discover.  I think there’s a chance but I’m not gonna out here and say he will.

WHAT KIND OF JOB DID CHAMBLIN DO THIS YEAR?

BT:  Corey’s an interesting guy.  He’s a deep-thinker, as I call him, he does a number of things really well.  I think he did a good job.  I didn’t help him enough in my end of things where we didn’t give him enough bullets in the gun per se.  When you lose games and don’t get to where you want to get to, everybody’s accountable but everything starts and stops with me so I’ll be as responsible as anybody.  I really like our head coach.  He did a good job and we have a good working relationship.

WILL YOU ENHANCE YOUR SCOUTING?

BT:  One of the things we’re going to try to get better at is how we go out and get players.  That’s under me and we’ll go out and try to come with ideas and enhance that a little bit.  What those exact plans are, we don’t know yet but I have some ideas and we’ll see where it goes.

I really like Jeremy and Craig and they work well with me but maybe we can enhance what we do.  But those guys are going anywhere?

WHAT BULLETS WERE YOU MISSING?

BT:  Anytime you don’t have the depth, and you just have to look at Calgary, they’ve just been able to put in people and keep winning games and that’s what we want to get to.  We weren’t able to do that for whatever the reason. We need to build up our depth and there’s different ways of doing that.  Whether you keep extra guys around during the season or get better guys in at certain positions, that’s what we’ll try to do.  I still think we’re a good team but our goal wasn’t met.

WHAT’S YOUR WISHLIST FOR PLAYERS?

BT: The last couple of years with injuries to Sheets or Darian, we just weren’t able to overcome that and that’s something we need to figure why that happens.  The QB position fell down when Darian went down and there’s a number of reasons for that.  We need to fix that better than we have.  In 2013 we couldn’t win games when Sheets went down.  Ultimately you live and die with your quarterback and we weren’t able to overcome that.

WHAT’S THE UPDATE ON DURANT?

BT:  He’s close.  He doesn’t have full range of motion yet.  He probably will in the New Year.  He’s still here.  He’s in everyday and he’s been in with Corey everyday.  He’s making good process and we fully expect him to be ready to go next year.

WILL YOU RENEW TINO SUNSERI’S CONTRACT?

BT:  We haven’t had those discussions yet.  I’ve had them with Corey but we’d like to get an O.C. in place first and see what he wants to do.

WILL YOU SPEND MORE ON SCOUTING?

BT:  Ya I think we’ve talked about it.  We have to be smart how we do things but Craig and Jeremy and I do a lot of it ourselves but we sort of run low on resources in terms of time.  We’ll probably strongly look at adding a person to our staff and a birddog or two in the States.  That’ll help Jeremy and Craig do their jobs.  I think they do a good job as it is but we probably need to get more out there and see more people.