Another bitterly disappointing season for the Saskatchewan Roughriders is over.
For the second straight season, the Riders missed the playoffs with a 6-12 record and didn't win a game after Labour Day. A victory over the powerhouse Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Labour Day Sunday was about the only highlight for the Green and White this year.
To make matters worse, attendance has plummeted. While the paid attendance was okay, the gate attendance was not. I can't remember the last time I saw so many empty seats at a Rider home game. Maybe 1992.
Yes, I know that fans in the east grandstand have to sit with the sun in their faces for most of the game and that's the side the camera faces, but 10 years ago that wouldn't have mattered.
This was an underwhelming team with little room for improvement. They aren't young. You don't look at them and say "Yeah, but they're going to be better next year". With the current core, six wins is likely as good as it's going to get.
Edmonton Elks' fans have reason for hope for next year. Rider fans – other than the perpetually optimistic ones who always think this will be their year – should not be hopeful.
And so you knew that changes were coming after this year's failures.
Head coach Craig Dickenson won't have his contract renewed. That's not a surprise. Back-to-back six-win seasons will lead to your dismissal. He was a great assistant coach. His brother Dave, has been a great head coach with the Calgary Stampeders for years. But as a head coach, Craig Dickenson just wasn't good enough.
Any CFL team that hires him as an assistant coach or a co-ordinator should consider themselves very lucky. If he's their head coach, they should be worried.
The surprising decision is the club brought back Jeremy O'Day as the general manager and vice-president of football operations.
I was a big fan of O'Day as a player. A guy who should be in the discussion for the CFL Hall of Fame. Two-time Grey Cup champion. Three-time CFL all-star offensive lineman. Admittedly, I have a bias towards the guys who play in the trenches. But you didn't need to be biased towards linemen to recognize O'Day was a great player for well over a decade.
He's been in Estevan before while representing the Riders and always carried himself well.
When he was named the team's general manager in 2019, I cheered. But he has taken what was a pretty good team with a really good core and turned it into a team that has missed the playoffs two straight seasons.
Here's the most damning part about his tenure: the offensive line has been porous the last three years. You would think that a guy who was such a great lineman for so long would be able to build an offensive line that would do a great job of protecting the quarterback and opening holes for the running backs.
But often we've seen Rider quarterbacks running for their lives and not having enough time to find receivers.
If O'Day can't assemble a strong offensive line, what chance does he have with other positions?
He's been a part of the Rider organization since 1999 and I'd love to see him contributing in an executive capacity. Just not as the GM.
The CFL is a professional league, the No. 2 football league on the planet. The objective is to do your job and to win. You're not looking to groom a player for the next level. This is their next level.
There are a lot of players in the league who are good enough to play in the NFL, but they're in their late 20s or early 30s, and NFL teams aren't going to be signing back-up or practice squad players who are 28 or 29 with little or no NFL experience.
So it's all about winning. In the past two years, the Riders haven't done their job enough. And they won't win next year, either. Not with this team.
A massive rebuild is necessary.
Unless O'Day learns how to be a strong GM in a real hurry, this rebuild will fail.
