THROWIN’ ELBOWS WITH BRENDAN MCGUIRE

1. EXPECT RIDERS TO HOST PLAYOFF GAME: First place isn’t out of reach but having to win 2 more games than the Calgary Stampeders over the final 6 games isn’t likely. Finishing ahead of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers however, is much more likely. Think about it. The schedule definitely favors the Roughriders with home games against Winnipeg and the free-falling Edmonton Eskimos. Road games are all winnable against the lowly BC Lions, Toronto Argos, those back-sliding Eskimos and the Riders usually play well at McMahon Stadium against the Stampeders. Winnipeg on the other hand, has to face the 1^st-place Ticats at home, come to Regina, battle the for-real Alouettes and then finish up with 2 matches with the Stampeders. The schedule favors the Riders in a big, big way.

2. CHRIS JONES WAS RIGHT ABOUT VERNON ADAMS JR.: Like many of you, I was perplexed in the summer of 2017 when then-Roughrider head of everything, Chris Jones, traded away a good Canadian U of R defensive back (Tevaughn Campbell) as part of a deal to get a short yardage backup quarterback with little other apparent upside. Jones told anyone who would listen how much he loved this quarterback because of his shiftiness and had it not been for Charleston Hughes coming available for a trade, that quarterback, Vernon Adams Jr., would probably still be here. Now we’re learning there was a lot more than “shiftiness” to Vernon Adams Jr.’s upside. Guy plays with the heart of a lion and makes clutch throws that would make Cody Fajardo, Darian Durant and plenty of other quarterbacks envious. Chris Jones knew what he had with Vernon Adams Jr. even if most of us didn’t.

3. BOMBERS MIGHT BE BETTER OFF WITHOUT HARRIS: Winnipeg looked fine to me in that home-and-home with the Riders during Andrew Harris’s suspension for doping. Instead of apologizing for his mistake, I’ve heard excuses and backtalk to go along with denial and refusal of accountability. How dare the rest of us question a running back finding the fountain of youth in his 30’s. If these things are too good to be true, they usually are. Alouettes star John Bowman spoke out against Harris over the weekend and good on him for doing so. The CFL Players Association had better take this issue seriously too in order to protect its own membership from having to choose between doping, like Harris got caught doing, and risk the consequences later in life or risk falling behind. The Blue Bombers are a good football team being weighed down by this. They might be better off without Andrew Harris or the distraction he brings.

4. DESJARDINS BUNGLED OTTAWA’S QB SITUATION: If Redblack GM Marcel Desjardins gets to bask in the glory of building Ottawa’s first Grey Cup championship in 40 years, then can wear the quarterback mess he’s created in our nation’s capital, too. It was he who let Trevor Harris get away over a difference in signing bonus amount despite the fact the overall salary would’ve been the same as what had been agreed upon well in advance. It was Desjardins who decided his franchise quarterback wasn’t important enough to engage in so much as a sit-down conversation before letting him walk, for 10% more money than Harris agreed to with Ottawa, in free agency. At 3-10, stuck with Jonathon Jennings as his quarterback and being outscored 69-12 in a home-and-home with the struggling BC Lions, it has become crystal clear the sad-sack Redblacks (Desjardins in particular) goofed in handling Trevor Harris.

5. REDBLACKS MANAGEMENT OVERRATED: The narrative about Ottawa’s return to the CFL has been one of a rousing success story. A great stadium, great crowds, tremendous popularity all over the city, a championship and 3 Grey Cup appearances in the first 5 seasons back in Ottawa cannot be ignored. Neither, however, should be the team’s 4^th losing season in this their 6^th year back in the CFL. That might be a more accurate way to describe the Redblacks existence, rather than giving them credit for taking advantage of a system that perpetually favors the weak sisters of the east division. I’m not saying GM Marcel Desjardins or Head Coach Rick Campbell don’t deserve credit for some of the good things that have happened over there or even that they deserved to be fired. But I am suggesting that this duo whose been in charge for going on 6 full seasons already doesn’t exactly have the most stellar track record, either. Hard to say how successful this duo would’ve been if they had to play in the rough and tumble west division. My guess: Not very.

6. THAT BIZARRE RICKY RAY TRADE: Got brought up again on Friday Night Football during ‘Ricky Ray Night’ in the Edmonton-Hamilton game. Ricky says the trade peed him off and I remember it prompting conspiracy theorists suggesting it was all done to help the Toronto market as a favor to the league office. I have another theory. Eric Tillman, Edmonton’s GM at the time who traded Ricky to Toronto for Steven Jyles and a bag of kicking tees, had a big affinity for Jyles and his potential. In fact, if you read Jim Hopson’s book, “Running the Riders”, Jim suggests that E.T. as then-Rider GM had a serious disagreement with then-Rider coach Ken Miller over whether Steven Jyles should be the guy (Eric wanted) or Darian Durant should be the guy (Miller wanted) during the 2008 season. Tillman thought he would legitimately come out of that deal looking like a genius. He rolled the dice and the dice came up snake-eyes on that one.

7. A CFL IDEA FOR TORONTO: Speaking of selling the CFL for Toronto, the league might want to consider an old idea: The marquee player exemption. That was the thing that nearly bankrupted the league in the 90’s when each team could exempt one player salary from counting against the cap. The Argos used it to sign Rocket Ismail, the Stampeders used it to sign Doug Flutie and plenty of others overpaid their quarterbacks with it, too. It created disastrous consequences with the big spending teams going broke because they were spending too much and the responsible teams, like the Riders, going broke because they could no longer afford to compete. The idea was a failure although such a rule, exclusive to Toronto, could help the Argos go after Andrew Luck or some other NFL star to play for the Argonauts. The real solution will be when the league gets serious about engaging Canada’s immigrant population but since they don’t appear interested in that yet, this would be a lazy, albeit expensive solution to re-engaging Canada’s biggest city.

8. PLAYOFFS A MUST FOR PATS RE-BUILD TO BE A SUCCESS: Last season was so unwatchable that the Pats must come out of it with something for their fan base. It’s okay to suffer through one re-building year every 4 or 5 seasons, but to have 2 in a row would make the Pats just another junior hockey team.

9. BLUE JAYS ARE HARD TO CHEER FOR: Hate to admit I’m openly rooting against the Jays brain-trust of team president Mark Shapiro and his puppet/GM, Ross Atkins. We keep hearing these speeches about re-building and ‘the process’. They seem very robotic and focused on numbers from data sheets, then they are on actual performance or intangibles. Alex Anthopoulos, Canadian or not, wasn’t perfect but he was a good communicator who put value in more than just numbers and age and was/is easy to root for. Not sure who I’ll be cheering for from the American League playoffs this October but I’ll be pulling for Anthopoulos, Josh Donaldson and the Atlanta Braves to win the world series. A sad reminder for what the Blue Jays were and sadly, no longer are.

10. DREW EDWARDS: Always enjoyed his work on 3 Down Nation. My favorite sportscaster early on, Geoff Currier, was/is always very worldly and good at remembering sports is just a game and a very small part of the overall universe. Drew Edwards clearly understands that perspective, too. I love reading from and writing for 3 Down Nation. But there’s no denying the site was better with Drew Edwards than it is without him.

(Follow Brendan on Twitter at @brendanhowardmc)