Riders promote Jeremy O’Day to general manager

The Saskatchewan Roughriders have named Jeremy O’Day as the club’s general manager.

“I feel like I’m ready for this opportunity,” O’Day said shortly after being introduced as general manager Friday during a news conference. “I can’t tell you how excited I am to get started with it.”

O’Day, 44, has served as Saskatchewan’s assistant general manager since 2011. He briefly served as interim general manager when Brendan Taman was fired in 2015. O’Day said he learned an immense amount from his predecessors in that time.

“During the last eight years, I’ve been like a sponge,” O’Day said. “I’ve been able to learn from not only the general managers that are here but also the general managers around the league.

“I take great pride in knowing that I had to climb up the ladder to earn the position that I’m in right now.”

The move comes three days after former vice-president of football operations, general manager and head coach Chris Jones resigned to take a job with the National Football League’s Cleveland Browns.

At the media conference, O’Day thanked Jones for their time together.

“I thank him for letting me earn his trust, letting me go through his journey here in Saskatchewan,” O’Day said, calling Jones an outsider when he arrived in 2015. “It was a wild ride with him here.

“(Jones) has earned everything that he’s accomplished in his life. He is a relentless worker.”

O’Day’s contract as general manager will run through the 2022 season, which will total 25 years with the green and white both on and off the field by the contract’s expiration.

Prior to joining the front office, O’Day played 14 seasons in the CFL — 12 of which with the Roughriders. During that time, he won two Grey Cups and was named a CFL all-star three times.

Reynolds unsurprised, prepared for Jones’ departure

Craig Reynolds, president and CEO of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, also took questions for the first time since Chris Jones resigned on Tuesday.

Reynolds said he was, of course, disappointed to lose Jones as the vice-president of football operations, general manager, head coach and defensive coordinator, but the club has always had a culture of letting people pursue their goals and dreams.

Because of the Roughriders’ success during Jones’ last two seasons, Reynolds knew that NFL opportunities could be on the horizon for him and stressed that keeping O’Day on staff was part of the club’s succession plan.

Additionally, Reynolds stressed that Jones did not hoodwink or dupe the organization with his abrupt departure.

“The reality is you can’t control when these opportunities come about and I think Cleveland, once they hired Freddie Kitchens, and they put Chris on his radar the timing was when the timing was,” he said.

Reynolds heard from the Browns’ general manager three days before Jones signed the deal with the NFL club. He said it became pretty clear in that conversation that they were very interested in Jones and had essentially created a position with him in mind.

With an NFL contract in hand, Jones exercised the out clause in his contract that Reynolds said was there from the day he signed with the Roughriders in 2015.

“This isn’t April, this isn’t May, this is January and … there’s strong interest in our head coach position with the Saskatchewan Roughriders. We have an outstanding football program here and an outstanding football team, so in no way were we duped as an organization.”

Consequently, though, one of O’Day’s first orders of business will be to find someone to replace Jones as the team’s head coach. That search has already started and O’Day said they’ll look both internally at current assistant coaches and externally for the best fit.

But with the assistant coaches already signed for the 2019 season, hiring a new head coach will provide some unique challenges.

“The incoming coach will have some flexibility (to bring in new assistants). When I say that – we’re probably 80 per cent secure in our coaching staff and with the coaches that we have,” O’Day explained.

O’Day will also have to look for another big position within the organization – a quarterback – but offered no comment or hints on who the future passer could be.

— With files from 980 CJME’s Arielle Zerr