After one of the most tumultuous off-seasons in the 106-year history of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, that's now behind us and it's finally time to start playing football. For real.
It starts Thursday night when the Roughriders open the 2016 regular season at home to the Toronto Argonauts in Week 2 of CFL action (8:00 p.m. Saskatchewan time, TSN, CKRM Rider Radio Network).
Everybody knows by now what the franchise went through in 2015: a 3-15 season, the first-ever mid-season double firings of a coach and a GM, the subsequent hiring of the first-ever dual role head coach/GM (Chris Jones) Dec. 7, and then a complete and thorough overhaul of the roster which included bidding adieu to legendary players Weston Dressler, John Chick and Chris Getzlaf.
After 30 free agent tryout camps across the United States this winter, a spring minicamp in Florida, three weeks of training camp in Saskatoon and an 0-2 preseason, the next step of the journey is regular season game action.
And Chris Jones and company continue to tinker with their roster as they go, adding a pair of quarterbacks (G.J. Kinne and Bryant Moniz) over the weekend as well as former Carolina Panthers receiver Armanti Edwards, who was eye-popping in Sunday's first "official" team practice of the year.
"It means we'll always be on the lookout for the next people that we feel like we need to win football games," Jones said of the most-recent roster moves. "That's it. We're never going to be resting on our laurels, let's say. We're trying to find the right ingredients to win games. There's no ulterior motives."
Jones has the highest winning percentage (.722) of any active CFL coach and his track record of success is just as much of a trademark as his long-sleeved, buttoned up black shirts. The Rider Nation seems willing to be patient with the rebuild knowing Jones' history of success will ultimately follow him to the 306.
The only lingering question is: How long will it take? And will they have it together in time for Thursday's season-opener?
"That's the magic question," surmised Carm Carteri, a former Roughriders linebacker who's entering his 28th season as the club's radio colour commentator.
"I'm not sure how this team's going to react. I'm hoping they'll be able to react well. You know Chris Jones will have them coached up, but what surprised me is they had five days off during the bye week, right after training camp.
"Having said that they had a great first day on the field on Sunday and have three more good work days before the game. They're gonna be alright. Do I think they'll win? I'm more worried about the Argos. They got embarrassed at home (42-20 by Hamilton) in Week 1 so they're going to come in here fired up. The Riders are going to have to be at their best."
Of that, there is no doubt. But is their best - at this point - going to be good enough?
We're going to find out Thursday night.
Meanwhile perhaps the final distasteful remnants of the 2015 season were buried last week at the club's annual general meeting when team president Craig Reynolds announced a $4.3 million loss before franchise shareholders.
Many Rider fans have asked me how badly that reflects on the club, but to be honest I don't really know. So for that answer I went to former Roughriders president Tom Shepherd who knows his way around a balance sheet and has experienced firsthand the darkest days this franchise has ever had to offer.
"When you're looking deeply into the figures, some of that was one-time costs like writing off the rest of the cost of the two stadiums (old and new Mosaic Stadiums) and the contracts of last year's coach and general manager," Shepherd explained.
"It sort of adds to the loss, and it really is a loss because the money is gone, but it's not a loss that will be repeated. On the football part of the operations, it was probably close to a million dollars that they lost, not the $4.3 million because they were one-time costs. All those seats they put in for the Grey Cup, the costs of the contracts of the coach and GM, instead of writing that off over a whole bunch of years, they got rid of it all on the books for 2015 and that increased the losses tremendously.
"Any loss is bad, but it's understandable that they did that sort of thing with it. Definitely losing costs money and for the first time ever, my Friends of the Riders Lottery was down significantly. We still made $500,000 on the lottery, which was nice, but we've made $1 million annually for years. What was the reason for that? I don't know scientifically, but I think people took a little holiday from spending money.”
Perhaps now 2015 truly is behind us.
And finally, thankfully, we can look ahead.
