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Pros and Joes and no Mo Price

Apr 28, 2016 | 10:10 AM

W  ednesday night I felt like Wang, the Japanese Tourist at the start of Caddyshack (who owns property along the Great Wall of China, you know, the good side!) taking pictures of almost everything on the final Pros and Joes night at Taylor Field.

For those who don’t know, each year the Riders hold a guys’ only night (the girls’ only night comes next month) where fans can pay $100, tour the facilities at Taylor Field, and talk to coaches, staff and players about football. You also get a couple of free beer, after that you pay, and then a really nice spread of artsy looking pizza to start and then roast beef and chicken with Cajun BBQ sauce.

It’s kind of what I imagine heaven would be like.

Unfortunately Chris Jones and the rest of the Rider coaches were not there because they are in the United States getting ready for another free agent camp this weekend in Memphis. As Rider CEO Craig Reynolds told us, the Riders have been holding free agent camps every weekend since the start of the year.

For example, here are the remaining listed free agent camps leading up to the rookie camp back here in the province that invented football:

Saturday, April 30th  Memphis; 
Sunday, May 1st  Little Rock, AR;
Saturday, May 7th  Oakland CA; 
Saturday May 7th  Atlanta, GA; 
Sunday May 15th  Carrollton TX.

If you notice the shared dates between Oakland and Atlanta, I would imagine the Riders will also have their scouts on hand to help run the camps and the Rider coaches will be split between the locations.

This was the fourth year the Riders have hosted this evening and while I have been to them all, this year took on a different meaning because it was the last year at Taylor Field and next year it will be held at the new stadium, which I have no problem calling Mosaic Stadium. When George Reed is sitting next to you at another table, you get goosebumps at the history involved.

“I thought they should have shut it down when I was playing,” Reed said during a brief address to the audience who roared with laughter.

So I ended up sitting and talking with Riders Tevaughn Campbell, Chris Best and Brendon LaBatte, while Justin Capicciotti, Shawn Lemon, Tre Armstead were also in attendance. For the new Riders, Campbell, Capicciotti, Lemon and Armstrong, it was their first tour as well of the Rider facilities, which made things fun since they were supposed to be guiding groups through.

Campbell is a defensive back from the University of Regina Rams whom the Riders got from Calgary in a trade. This guy is fast, 4.5 40 yard time and has tremendous reach. Calgary drafted him in 2014 and he played in a few games until getting a shoulder injury which has healed. His speed will come in handy on the corner or at safety.

Best showed us his fingers and how he has only one finger left that works properly. The hands of an offensive lineman take a tremendous beating and Best said a visit with the hand therapist at Wascana Rehab is a must during the season. He also told us about the problems of playing in stadiums like Winnipeg with the noise.

It is the quarterback’s responsibility to not just call the play, but also the protection scheme the Riders are supposed to provide to the quarterback. Darian Durant is ideal for this said Best, not just because of his experience, but because he has a deep voice the players can hear in front of 30,000 Winnipeggers screaming in unison while offering human sacrifices to their Dark Gods.

If anyone can be considered old school, it is Brendan LaBatte who plays with the oldest style helmet on the team, and old-school shoulder pads that have a cushion on a pad that prevents his head from snapping back if he gets hit in such a way.

The new players were asked what brought them to the Riders and they all said Chris Best is a winner and he makes them better players. The new Riders also said the passion of the fans makes it fun to stand on the home side rather than the visitor’s side.

There are other tidbits like did you know the Riders have had eight different offensive line coaches in the last 10 years? For offensive linemen, they take a month off after the season to recover and then hit the weights to prepare for the next season.

One person who will not be joining them is Maurice or Mo Price who announced his retirement after taking and cashing his signing bonus. Price was expected to offer veteran stability to the receiver position and apparently was a favorite of Jones or John Murphy who got him a trade with Ottawa that sent a sixth round draft pick Ottawa’s way.

Other than losing the draft pick, I have never thought much of Price ever since he shot his mouth before the 2013 western final and then the Riders stripped the ball from him as he was going in for a touchdown and the world saw Price as “all hat, no cattle” as they say in Texas.

There were a few thoughts of trying to get the trade voided and getting the sixth round pick back, partly as a dig at Ottawa who ask for compensation every time they lose a coach, and perhaps in reaction to rumors the new Ottawa uniforms will have #RNation on their pants , when everyone knows the real #RNation is Rider Nation.

Reynolds said the Riders will respect the trade, even though Price took part of his money and ran, which is no different than the Riders cutting someone before their bonus is due.  It’s interesting some are saying Price took the money and ran from the Riders, but I look at it this way, I never liked him as a receiver and this is just a business expense, like spilled milk in aisle 16 in some store. The Riders are better off without Mo Price.

Other retirements include Tyron Brackenridge, who was among the victims in the first or second wave of cuts Jones brought in when he took over the team last year. Brackenridge played five years in the NFL and five in the CFL, winning with us in 2013. Brackenridge reminded me of the James Patrick experience, where a player went from safety to linebacker and back because of his physical play. Age though catches up for everyone and Brackenridge has set himself up in the financial planning business in California. I expect to see Brackenridge as an automatic Plaza of Honor inductee very soon.

Another former Rider Kory Sheets tried out for the Montreal Alouettes this past weekend at a free agent camp. Sheets enjoyed one of the magical seasons of the ages in 2013 and in the Grey Cup when he set a new rushing record, only to leave for the Oakland Raiders where he blew out an Achilles tendon (the same type of injury that got Darian Durant), got an injury settlement and hasn’t played in a game since. Sheets made some noises about coming back to the Riders, but the Riders didn’t think Sheets had much to offer and his off field activities including the odd marijuana bust were helpful.  No word as yet if Sheets made it through to the Montreal main camp.

Thursday night is the start of the NFL draft, which will run through the weekend, and the Pros and Joes tour took us through the video room where the staff reviewed film of potential draft picks for the CFL draft held May 10.  The Rider picks will depend in part of which Canadians are picked in the NFL draft or signed as undrafted free agents in the few days after the draft.  The NFL has definite roster sizes, so the undrafted free agents had to be pretty good.

Which reminds me of a story Campbell told us at the Pros and Joes where he attended a New York Giant camp on the east coast where the humidity was amazing and out of a couple of hundred potential players, the Giants took one or two over to the main camp.

So if the Riders have a potential player either drafted or signed afterwards by the NFL, they won’t see that player until after Labour Day when the NFL season is over.

So here are the latest ratings of eligible players for the CFL draft.

April Scouting Bureau Ranking

1 David Onyemata DL Manitoba, Lagos, Nigeria

2 Tevaun Smith WR Iowa, Toronto, ON

3 Mehdi Abdesmad DL Boston College, Montreal, QC

 4 Arjen Colquhoun DB Michigan St., Windsor, ON

 5 Josiah St. John OL Oklahoma, Toronto, ON

 6 Charles Vaillancourt OL Laval, Coaticook, QC

 7 Alex Singleton LB Montana St., Thousand Oaks , CA

 8 Trent Corney DL Virginia, Brockville, ON

 9 Philippe Gagnon OL Laval, L’Ancienne-Lorette, QC

 10 Brian Jones WR Acadia, Enfield, NS

 11 Taylor Loffler DB UBC, Kelowna, B.C.

 12 Juwan Brescacin WR Northern Illinois, Mississauga, ON

 13 Mercer Timmins RB Calgary, Burlington, ON

 14 Dillon Guy OL Buffalo, Hamilton, ON

 15 Anthony Thompson DB Southern Illinois, Montreal, QC

 16 Michael Couture OL Simon Fraser, Burnaby, BC

 17 Jason Lauzon-Seguin OL Laval, Pointe-Claire, QC

 18 Elie Bouka DB Calgary, Laval, QC

 19 Llevi Noel WR, Windsor AKO Toronto, ON

 20 Doug Corby WR Queen’s, Burlington, ON

The Riders will likely go with an offensive lineman because the team philosophy is having Canadian positions as opposed to having one star Canadian player and then trying to find an adequate back up (case in point former Rider lb Shea Emry) and I think Vallaincourt is the front-runner because St. John may go in the NFL draft or get signed afterwards.

The Price departure also raises an interesting position because the Riders lost a player (albeit a useless player as far as I am concerned) but more importantly a draft pick. So if there is a team that is looking to trade up to ensure they get the player they want (as we are seeing in the NFL right now) then the Riders could get two draft picks for the price of the first overall pick, especially if they are sure the player they want will be available later on in the draft.

In other CFL news, the Riders were under the CFL cap, along with the other eight teams, so there were no bandits this year and no lost draft picks to teams who exceed the gap. The more interesting bit of news comes with the CFL and NFL joining together on referee training. This could see NFL refs coming up to Canada to work some CFL games, likely on the sidelines and boundaries where there are possession issues, and CFL refs going down to the United States. This is a worthwhile proposition in my books because anything that improves our volunteer like refs (they aren’t well paid) will improve the game.

So enjoy the NFL draft, keep a scorecard of the above Canadian prospects, because that may help narrow down what the Riders may do. In the meantime, get ready for the release of the new Rider jerseys on May 12.

I’m a little afraid…