Johany Jutras/CFL.ca
TORONTO — When Jeremy O’Day was named the general manager of the Saskatchewan Roughriders just a few weeks ago, he didn’t have a lot of time to sit back and enjoy his newest career accomplishment.
There was work to be done and he knew he needed to get started right away.
“There really wasn’t a lot of time to let it set in, to be honest,” O’Day told Davis Sanchez and Donnovan Bennett on The Waggle podcast presented by Sport Clips.
“As time goes by, you’re starting to understand it a little more. It’s been full speed ahead for me, hiring the head coach and then sitting down with Craig (Dickenson) and going through our roster, our free agents and then preparing for the season and all the little things that people don’t see.”
Episode 142: Debating the QB landscape + O’Day drops in
EPISODE OVERVIEW:With free agency looming, Davis and Donnovan look at some of the top available pending FA’s, including some big name quarterbacks. Later, newly-minted Riders GM Jeremy O’Day stops by to talk about his whirlwind week.
EPISODE RUNDOWN: Sherritt bound for Cowtown (5:30); The guys who have signed (9:00); Ranking Reilly, Bo, Trevor (11:15); Evaluating the top 30 free agents (14:45); More free agent QB banter (17:30); Top Super Bowl recipe searches (31:45); Mental health awareness in football (37:00); Sitdown with Jeremy O’Day (42:30).
With the departure of Chris Jones, who took a job with the Cleveland Browns of the NFL, the Roughriders head coach and defensive coordinator positions were left open. O’Day quickly filled the vacant bench boss spot, promoting former special teams coordinator Craig Dickenson.
O’Day and his new head coach decided to take their time with finding a defensive coordinator, however. He and Dickenson will interview internal candidates within the Riders organization as well as external candidates, making sure they pick the right person for the job.
“Craig wants to take his time,” said O’Day. “He wants to talk to a couple people. We certainly have candidates from within that are capable of doing it, guys that have worked with Chris Jones for a number of years that understand how Chris does it. It’s awful intriguing when you have guys that worked under a guy that did it so well and got to spend those endless hours with him picking his brain and understanding how you’re attacking other team’s offences.”
The next step for O’Day and co. is free agency later this month. One of the team’s top priorities is the quarterback position and while he wouldn’t say which of the pending free agency pivots his team is targeting, O’Day did say they already have a system in place if any of them hit the open market.
“We’ll have them ranked, the guys that we’d like to try to get in and like to make them become our quarterback.” O’Day said of his process for any pivots that are pending free agents. “That’s already something that took place prior to Chris (Jones) leaving. Obviously the situation for us hasn’t changed. We’ll go back and reevaluate it now that there’s a new head coach. As a group, we’ll go through that.
“We have our list in place and basically how it goes is you’re waiting to see if those guys make it to free agency and then if they do, hoping that you have the best chance to get the best one.”
