With the way things have gone for the Saskatchewan Roughriders during the 2022 season, it should not have come as a surprise to anyone that it was anything but a quiet bye week for the green and white.
On Monday, Riders head coach Craig Dickenson made his weekly appearance on the SportsCage with Michael Ball to discuss the latest happenings involving the green and white.
Earlier in the day, the Roughriders organization released a statement where they announced they were suspending quarterback Jake Dolegala for one game after he was charged with impaired driving during the bye week. The quarterback notified the team of the incident on Sunday.
Even though impaired driving is a serious matter, the Riders head coach doesn’t believe a player like Dolegala should be released based on an isolated incident. He added there are some similarities with Dolegala’s current situation to the event with Garrett Marino following his four game suspension when it was issued back in July.
“We don’t to give up on a guy just because he makes one mistake, if becomes a pattern then I think you have to take that into account. ”
Dickenson also noted the players are still young men and sometimes they will make mistakes and it’s important as a coach to continue stand by them as long as you can. He thinks that the one game suspension has sent a message to the entire team.
A hot item that discussed in Riderville last week during the bye week, was the comments from Dickenson following the Riders recent loss to the Edmonton Elk on September 16. During the post game press conference, Dickenson said the Riders were not a very good team right now.
The coaches comments were later posted as a headline on social media which received a comment from Riders cornerback Nick Marshall.
Dickenson said he apologized to the team on Saturday when they reconvened after the break. After some reflection, he felt that he was too negative in the post game conference.
The Riders head coach pointed out his comments were slightly taken out of context since his comment was meant to describe the current situation with the green and white.
When he met with Marshall to address the comments, Dickenson said that the cornerback understood the coaches position and the frustration that the entire team was feeling.
Dickenson said he wasn’t trying to demoralize his own team with the comments as the team was headed into their bye week.
“It was kind of a low point of our season, we just got beat by Edmonton, we needed this win and we weren’t able to get it, we’re not as good as we need to be right now, what do we need to do to get better and I wanted every player, every coach, all of us in the organization to look in the mirror and figure out how do we get better , there are only four games and where we are at now, isn’t good enough.”
Also on Monday, the Riders released defensive end Keion Adams. The Western Michigan product was in his second season with the green and white, as he picked up a pair of sacks throughout the current season.
Dickenson says the Riders recently added a couple of other defensive linemen that they want to take a look at. He felt the production they were expecting from Adams this season wasn’t there and the head coach reminded everyone that football is production driven job.
Gameday coverage of Friday’s game can be heard on 620 CKRM beginning with Countdown to Kickoff at 3:00, the opening kickoff at 6:00.
The SportsCage with Michael Ball can be heard weekdays on 620 CKRM beginning at 4:00.
