The Saskatchewan Roughriders’ return to the field turned from a feel-good comeback story to a nightmare for the CFL club.
On Thursday, the team announced linebacker Larry Dean, defensive end Freddie Bishop III, defensive back Nelson Lokombo and running back Jonathan Femi-Cole all suffered Achilles injuries during a workout.
The players are expected to be on the shelf for a long period of time, but they are still being evaluated.
“I can say that in all my years of playing football and being around the game, I’ve never seen anything quite like this where we’ve had four injuries like that in the same period of time,” general manager Jeremy O’Day said. “Usually you would see one or two in a year, maybe.”
O’Day said they happened in a short period of time.
“It happened close enough where our trainer was dealing with one and then another trainer was dealing with another,” O’Day said.
O’Day said all of the Roughriders players arrived in Regina and once they received three negative COVID tests, they were allowed to work out at Mosaic Stadium. O’Day said as a part of the league’s COVID plan, coaches and other personnel were not present. Thursday was the last day of these workouts.
“The purpose of these workouts was to prepare our players to get ready for football. They’ve been off football for a long period of time and one of the reasons for these workouts was to start to ease them back into playing football,” O’Day said.
He said the workouts were standard ones and the injuries happened during non-competitive drills.
“We feel terrible about this. Our players worked very hard to get back to playing football, they’ve been very excited to be back in the stadium, they’ve had a lot of energy when they’ve been over here and our heart goes out to our players who were injured,” O’Day said.
The 2020 CFL season was cancelled due to COVID and teams are just now starting to prepare for the 2021 campaign. O’Day admitted the long layoff may have had something to do with the injuries.
CFL teams are to open their training camps Saturday. O’Day admits the injuries could have an effect on how they approach training camp.
“The first couple days of practice, we were actually counting on them not even competing against each other,” O’Day said. “We were actually going to have one side of the field with offence and one side with defence and more work on the mental aspect of it and then also just get their legs used to moving around again.
“Since this has happened, we went back and looked at (our training camp plan) again and eliminated some stuff even more than what we already had.”
Dean was expected to start at middle linebacker in place of Solomon Elimimian, who retired in February.
O’Day said it was too soon to say if the Roughriders would talk to Elimimian about a possible return, but the GM noted he would “explore all the avenues that we need to” as he searches for a starting middle linebacker.
Dean spent five seasons in the NFL (three with the Minnesota Vikings, one with the Buffalo Bills and one on the practice roster of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) before making the jump to the CFL with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 2016.
He played with the Edmonton Football Team in 2019 and was named the team’s most outstanding defensive player. He rejoined Hamilton during the 2020 off-season but didn’t play a down for the Tiger-Cats after COVID forced the cancellation of the season.
Saskatchewan’s linebacking corps is set to undergo a major overhaul in 2021, with all three starters from the 2019 season gone.
Not only did Elimimian retire, but Derrick Moncrief now is a member of the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams and Cameron Judge — who was named the CFL’s top Canadian in 2019 — signed as a free agent with the Toronto Argonauts.
Lokombo was Saskatchewan’s first pick (second overall) in the 2021 CFL draft out of the University of Saskatchewan. Femi-Cole was selected by the Roughriders in the sixth round (53rd overall) of the 2020 draft out of Western University.
Bishop signed with the Roughriders in the off-season after spending the 2019 season with the Argos. He also has CFL experience with the Calgary Stampeders, recording 20 sacks in 47 games.
O’Day said the injuries could have an effect mentally on other players in the dressing room.
“The players were super-excited the first couple days and things were going as planned,” he said. “Guys were excited to be out of quarantine and to be at the stadium and moving around and doing football drills.
“Getting them out of quarantine for that period of time was uplifting for the players. When something like this happened, it’s tough on them. This is what they do for a living, this is their means to support their family and we’re just starting the process of trying to bring our guys back as a family and when they see that, it’s tough.
“You’re sad that it happened to your teammates and it’s a disappointing feeling, especially coming off a long period of time when we weren’t playing.”
O’Day said head coach Craig Dickenson held a virtual team meeting following this workout to talk about the injuries.
In order for the Roughriders to bring in a new player in to fill roster spots, O’Day said they would have to follow all COVID-19 protocols, including the 14-day quarantine.
