Saskatchewan Roughriders ready for training camp in Saskatoon

Just because he blew up the team and rebuilt it from scratch hasn't lowered Chris Jones' expectations.

The feeling you get listening to the Saskatchewan Roughriders new head coach, general manager and vice-president of football operations, is that anything short of a Grey Cup Championship will be an unsuccessful year for him.

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When the Roughriders take to the field at Griffiths Stadium in Saskatoon this Sunday, the training camp roster will bear very little resemblance to the one that opened training camp a year ago.

Of the 92 players they went to camp with in 2015, only 23 are still with the club.

Among the notably absent, fan favourites John Chick and Weston Dressler, who were unceremoniously dumped by Jones over the off-season.

But according to Jones, who just won a Grey Cup with the Edmonton Eskimos last November, he's not here to win a popularity contest.

"Those were great guys, tremendous players, future hall of famers but unfortunately we have to do what is best for our football team. Every decision that we've made is to try and win a Grey Cup and unfortunately that's the direction that we went." said Jones.

Rider fans may need a program to tell who's who in Saskatoon, the boss though has a pretty good handle on what he's got.

He knows as much about every player as one can reasonably know at this stage. Jones made sure he was the first face every walk-on saw at their evaluation camps this winter. He sat at the registration table.

"They don't know me from a man on the moon so you're able to evaluate them as soon as they walk up. You're able to see if they have manners, you're able to look at their hand writing, you're able to evaluate a lot about them before you start."

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The ones that made an impression, provided of course they also demonstrated an ability to play the game, will travel to Saskatoon this weekend.

You won't see a lot of hitting at this camp, in Jones' words they won't be challenging their courage. He already knows they can hit. That will be saved for when the lights come on in the pre-season games.

 "We want to see if can they adhere to our philosophy. Can they play fast, can they show up day in and day out and whether we are going to have a two a day or one a day." 

Who is Chris Jones?

We have learned some things about Chris Jones that perhaps we didn't know before. He wears black all the time because it matches his personality and his favourite football movie is the Longest Yard, the original.

When it came down to the time in his life to decide how he would chase money, would it be a career in finance or engineering?

"My mom said, what do you love and I said, 'I love football.' I was not good enough to play it but I love being around it, every aspect of it. I love being in the locker room, going out and competing in the game. Something I enjoy and I think our staff parallels that."

As for his basic message to the Rider wannabes when camp kicks off on Sunday?

"We just try to be very consistent with our players, ask them to do simple assignments over and over and over and the guys that are able to do those simple assignments are the ones we end up going with."

Rider News

Chris Jones confirmed today offensive tackle Xavier Fulton will re-join the Riders. They have also signed defensive tackle Jonathan Williams who spent the last two seasons in Ottawa.

The Riders have signed all their draft picks with the exception of first overall pick Josiah St.John.

"You know certainly we hope to be able to have him signed. I like him to join our football team but we've got certain philosophies and ways we're going to do things. That's kind of where we are right now." said Jones.