Riders sign Jeremy O’Day, Craig Dickenson through 2023 season

The Saskatchewan Roughriders have locked up general manager Jeremy O’Day and head coach Craig Dickenson for the next three seasons.

The CFL team announced it has signed both to two-year contract extensions, taking them through the 2023 season.

O’Day took over as general manager in January 2019 after then-general manager/head coach Chris Jones left for an opportunity with the NFL’s Cleveland Browns. One of O’Day’s first actions as general manager was to hire Dickenson as Jones’ successor on the bench.

“I don’t know if there would be anywhere else I’d rather be than here,” O’Day told media on Monday. “This is where I played the majority of my career and got the opportunity to get into football operations.

“Even more of a factor, my whole family is here.”

Their first season in the roles was a major success, with the team earning 13 wins for the first time since 1969 to place first in the West Division. The last time the Green and White accomplished that was in 2009.

Dickenson was named the West Division’s coach of the year in 2019.

“(Dickenson) is someone that I wanted to join me for the same length. It was important to me to keep Craig in Saskatchewan with us. We felt like he’s done an exceptional job, not only in his first year as a coach, but also this off-season,” O’Day said.

While a season wasn’t played in 2020 due to COVID-19, teams can now start re-signing and negotiating with their pending free agents.

O’Day has quite a list to work through with 28 free agents. That doesn’t include players like linebacker Cam Judge, kicker Brett Lauther and punter Jon Ryan, all of whom opted out of their contracts in hopes of getting a shot in the NFL. Their rights remain with the team until free agency.

But O’Day is happy to get back to working on how the team will look.

“It’s been very fast this past week and it’s been a lot of work but I’m happy to be back. It feels like that we’re getting back to normal,” O’Day said.

O’Day did say the team would be spending less in free agency than in 2020.

“We will have less money to spend on players’ salaries moving forward and I don’t think that’s a terrible ask from our organization to ask us to do that with the impact the pandemic has had on our organization,” O’Day said. “It’s not just the players being impacted. The staff and our coaches have been impacted as well.”

O’Day said he doesn’t look forward to telling a player they are going to have to take a pay cut.

“With having to go through all these challenges, I think that a majority of our guys know that it’s coming; they understand the situation that we’re in,” O’Day said. “Everyone’s going to have to pitch in. Everyone’s going to have to sacrifice to get us to the point we want to be at.”

One player who is a priority for the Roughriders is quarterback Cody Fajardo, who is only signed through 2021.

“I think that this off-season is probably like no other year where we didn’t have a season to evaluate players on and there’s some unknowns that we don’t know moving forward. We’ve had discussions and will continue to have discussions moving forward,” O’Day said.

Meanwhile, offensive co-ordinator Jason Maas and defensive co-ordinator Jason Shivers have signed contract extensions through 2022.

The rest of the coaching staff has been signed for the 2021 season.

A few weeks ago during Grey Cup Unite, Dickenson announced one member of the coaching staff wouldn’t be returning due to the financial situation caused by COVID-19.

Tim Prinsen was signed as running backs coach for the 2020 season but was not announced for the 2021 coaching staff. Instead, 2020 offensive assistant Josh Lambert will take that role.

CFL teams were able to begin football operations on Dec. 7, with CFL free agency set to begin on Feb. 9 at 11 a.m.

The entire Roughriders coaching staff for 2021 is as follows:

• Craig Dickenson — head coach and special-teams co-ordinator
• Jason Maas — offensive co-ordinator and quarterbacks
• Jason Shivers — defensive co-ordinator
• Richard Kent — defensive backs
• Josh Lambert — running backs
• Kent Maugeri — special teams
• Deion Melvin — linebackers
• Travis Moore — receivers
• Ben Olson — defensive line
• Stephen Sorrells — offensive line