Chris Jones isn’t making any guarantees.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders’ head coach, general manager and vice-president of football operations is vowing to treat newly signed quarterback Vince Young like any other player on the CFL team’s roster.
Young’s college and NFL résumés carry some weight, but not enough to suggest that he’ll automatically be anointed the Roughriders’ starting quarterback in 2017.
“It’s a competition,” Jones said Thursday at Mosaic Stadium during Young’s introductory media conference. “We’re early in the year. Vince knows what’s in front of him. He’s not naïve (about) the league. He respects the league.
“We’ve got good players. We’re trying to create competition at every position … We’ve got some good quarterbacks and they’re all going to be in competition for our No. 1 job.”
Young joins a quarterbacking stable in Saskatchewan that currently includes Bryan Bennett, Brandon Bridge, Kevin Glenn, G.J. Kinne and Jake Waters.
Glenn, 37, has dressed for 251 regular-season games over his 16 seasons in the CFL. The rest of the quarterbacks under contract are still early in their CFL careers.
The Roughriders are searching for a starting quarterback to replace Darian Durant, who was traded to the Montreal Alouettes in the off-season.
Young said Thursday that he’s willing to do whatever he’s asked to do by Jones, whether that means starting or helping the starter from the sideline. The former NFL pivot just wants a chance.
“I know that we have some pretty good quarterbacks on the roster, so I’m just here to compete,” said Young, who started for three seasons at the University of Texas before starting 50 games in the NFL.
“I’m going to tell my teammates, ‘It’s not all about Vince.’ I don’t want them to think I come in here big-headed or things like that. It’s all about the team, the city and whatever we can do to win.”
Jones and the Roughriders aren’t risking much with Young. He won’t get paid a salary until he makes the team, meaning he’ll have to survive mini-camp and training camp.
And with several quarterbacks set to attend the Roughriders’ mini-camp in Florida in April, Young will have to outplay a number of other pivots just to earn a shot in training camp.
There could be more quarterbacks in the system by then as well.
“It’s according to who’s available,” Jones said when asked about signing more pivots. “We don’t ever quit looking for great players. The time that you quit looking for great players at any position is the time that you’re standing still.”
Durant is 34, so some have questioned why the Roughriders signed the 33-year-old Young if their goal was to develop a younger quarterback behind Glenn.
Jones isn’t concerned about that, pointing to the 2016 season as precedent.
“I’m looking at what Ottawa did last year,” Jones said. “They had Henry Burris, who’s 41 years old, and he ended up playing pretty good in the biggest game of the year (to lead the Redblacks to a Grey Cup title).
“We’re just looking at trying to win football games. We’ll continue to try to groom our young guys. That’s what we do.”
