For many people, the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ 2017 season represented a marked improvement over some of its recent predecessors.
The CFL team posted 10 victories in the 2017 regular season (twice as many as it had recorded in 2016), made the playoffs (its first post-season appearance since 2014), won a playoff game (its first post-season victory since the 2013 Grey Cup game) and reached a division final (its first time in such a contest since the 2013 West Division final).
All of those accomplishments are of little solace to Chris Jones.
“You get paid to win championships,” the Roughriders’ head coach, general manager and vice-president of football operations says. “You get paid to get where you’re supposed to go.
“(Reflecting on the 2017 season) is just frustrating. I’m still not over it. I won’t be over it probably until we start up in February or March when I can get it out of my mind and go on to the next one.”
That’s not to say that Jones didn’t see some positives in 2017, his second season at the Roughriders’ helm.
He liked the effort put in by the team’s players and staff members, not to mention the resilience showed by a team that started the season with two straight losses and with four defeats in its first six games.
“We didn’t start off the way we wanted,” Jones says. “We stubbed our toe a couple of times early in the year, lost close ball games and had a lot of people doubting what we were doing. But everybody hung together and we ended up putting together a decent year — certainly not a great year.
“I’m proud of the work they put in. I guess you’d rather win than lose, so you’d rather win 12, 13, 14 (regular-season games) like Calgary has done. But if you don’t win the Grey Cup, it’s a failure. You get into this thing to win a championship, not to just play well.”
The 2016 Roughriders won five regular-season games and missed the playoffs, marking the first time in Jones’ CFL coaching career that the team with which he was associated hadn’t qualified for the post-season. He still refers to that season as “a debacle.”
The 2017 Roughriders lost their first game by one point and their second game by three points, a start that prompted many to wonder if the team was en route to another tough season. When Saskatchewan was 2-4-0 after six games, questions about the club’s direction continued.
But the Roughriders won their next three games to get over the .500 mark and then posted five more victories in their final nine games to get to 10-8-0 and finish fourth in the West Division.
“It’s not like we were that far away in that five-win season; there were some close games there where we just failed to finish,” Jones says. “This year, we learned how to finish close games and win some road games.
“We trust our process — the way we do things, the way we practise, the way we train — and that’s really one of the things we do well as an organization.”
The five-win improvement also had its basis in the Roughriders’ roster.
Some players who had been with Jones during his previous CFL stops helped Saskatchewan’s newcomers figure out the coach’s “process.” Jones and his staff also had more talent at their disposal after an off-season filled with impactful free-agent signings and trades.
Asked now what pleased him the most about the 2017 season, Jones points to his team’s work ethic, to the way it rebounded from some tough losses, and to the character in the locker room. Asked what displeased him the most, he replies quickly: “The finish.”
“You feel like you’ve taken strides as a team and as an organization,” he adds. “You get things rolling in the right direction and then that happens.”
“That” was a 25-21 loss to the Toronto Argonauts in the East Division final.
Following a 31-20 victory over the Ottawa Redblacks in the East semifinal, the Roughriders travelled to Toronto to face the Argos with a berth in the Grey Cup game on the line.
After trailing 18-3 through three quarters, Saskatchewan rallied to take a 21-18 lead with 2:44 left in regulation time. But the Argos responded with a 10-play, 68-yard drive that ended in Cody Fajardo’s game-winning, one-yard touchdown run with 23 seconds left.
The victory sent Toronto to the Grey Cup game, while the loss sent Saskatchewan home.
Several Roughriders enjoyed impressive statistical seasons in 2017.
Defensive back Ed Gainey led the CFL with 10 interceptions (including a franchise-record four in one game), defensive end Willie Jefferson had a league-high 37 quarterback pressures, and Duron Carter, Naaman Roosevelt and Bakari Grant all exceeded 1,000 yards receiving.
Quarterbacks Kevin Glenn and Brandon Bridge combined to throw a league-best 35 touchdown passes, but it’s unclear if either will be the Roughriders’ starter in 2018.
Bridge can become a free agent in February and Glenn was pulled eight times in 2017. Not surprisingly, Jones admits that the quarterback position is the Roughriders’ biggest question mark heading into 2018 — just like it is for every team in the CFL.
“In today’s world, you need two (quality QBs),” Jones says. “Then you’ve got to figure out how you’re going to fit in the quarterbacks’ salaries and still be able to pay all these other guys.
“Our philosophy last year was to stack the offence with as many good players as we could because we didn’t know who our quarterback was going to be. Then we had two (QBs) play very good football and, economically, we had five quarterbacks make under $500,000.
“We’re doing something right.”
The Roughriders currently have 20 players who are eligible to file for free agency in February, but Jones notes the team has agreements in place with several of those players.
The head coach-GM vows that the Roughriders won’t overpay to attract or retain free agents and, with a solid nucleus in place after two off-seasons of building his team, Jones doesn’t have to go wild when the market opens anyway.
“It makes it a lot easier when you’re looking for two or three (players) and not 12,” he says. “But you’d always better know who your next one is (on the depth chart) because it only takes one play for a guy to get hurt or one thing for a guy to do off the field and get in trouble.
“That’s when you think you’re one place and you’re somewhere else.”
Jones hopes the 2018 Roughriders will be more consistent than the 2017 team was. As well, he’d like next season’s team to get off to a quicker start and not have to play catch-up all season. That could be the difference between going on the road for a playoff game and staging one at Mosaic Stadium.
To that end, Jones and his staff plan to do some tweaking to the Roughriders’ roster. Asked what areas need to be shored up, Jones replies: “Every one of them.”
“We’ve got to get where we can run the football better,” he continues. “We’ve got to protect the quarterback better. The quarterbacks have to protect the football better. Receivers need to block better.
“I thought our special teams played very well this year. That was a point of emphasis (last off-season) and it helped us. Defensively, we just need to get another year older.”
But before Jones gets to 2018, he’ll have to flush 2017 — and that won’t be easy.
“You don’t (get your mind around falling short); not if you’re a competitor,” he says. “In my opinion, that’s what makes you. You’ve got to win. You’ve got to win every time you’re out there and when you don’t give yourself another opportunity to play, it’s a failure.”
