Riders’ Maas finally gets to see offence in action

After a year-and-a-half of waiting and countless Zoom calls, Jason Maas is starting to see his offence come to fruition.

After being let go as head coach of the Edmonton Football Team in November 2019, Maas signed on to be the Saskatchewan Roughriders offensive coordinator on Dec. 5, 2019.

But with a global pandemic wiping out the 2020 CFL season, it gave Maas a lot of time to come up with new ideas.

“I think sometimes time off is not as well-spent as you think – you can overthink things and over-analyze things,” Maas said. “I like to think football and I think that’s part of being a coach – you’re always analyzing different situations and thinking about your offence and trying to make it better – but it’s hard to do that and not get to see something.

“You can think of something a lot and think it seems really good, I like the changes we’ve made and some of them we made last February – in February 2020 we made a ton of changes to our offence and I want to see it operated … Some of this in camp is going to be things we thought of way long ago and we just need to see it executed to make it better or maybe we did something that made it worse.”

But while Maas is at a new team, he has a good foundation to build off.

Quarterback Cody Fajardo is back after a 2019 season that saw him be named the West Division Most Outstanding Player.

After taking over the starting job in week one due to an injury to Zach Collaros, Fajardo threw for 4,302 yards and 18 touchdowns to eight interceptions. He also ran for 611 yards and 10 touchdowns.

“I think Cody was thrust into a unique situation taking over the team at the beginning of the year with an injury and just trying to learn as he went. Obviously, the coaching staff, when that happens, there’s a lot of changes that have to be made with play-calling with thinking things through and, and finding your way a bit. I thought they did a tremendous job in 2019 in getting their guys ready to play, executing game plans and scoring points. And at the end of the day, that’s the number one goal is the win game score points,” Maas said.

“I think anytime a quarterback with talent goes in and gets a lot of experience, which Cody did, I mean playing 17 games and starting a playoff game. Playing as well as he did and have the talent he has plus the guys around him. I think the sky’s the limit.”

And Fajardo admits he is feeling good during his first camp as the team’s starter.

“I think I’m having my best camp I’ve ever had in the CFL to tell you the truth,” Fajardo said. “And I was a little nervous at first – just a new offence and being out for a year-and-a-half. I think I’m completing the ball at a very high number and I’ve made a lot of good throws in my opinion so I’m really excited about the camp I’m putting forward and just all the hard work I put into the off-season with coach Maas.”

And a few other weapons will be back for the Riders in 2021. Running back William Powell returns after rushing for 1,093 yards and 12 touchdowns, Shaq Evans is coming off a 1,334 yard season with four touchdowns while Kyran Moore searches for his first 1,000 yard season after recording 996 yards and six touchdowns.

While he was only a rookie in 2019, wide receiver Brayden Lenius says the biggest difference he is noticing in the playbooks is the pace of the game.

“I think it’s a lot faster and a lot more moving parts to it. Guys are moving around constantly, which gets the defence on their toes and makes them guess,” Lenius said. “The tempo and all the moving parts we have, it’s a lot faster.”

Rider fans will get a chance to see the offence at full speed on Aug.6 when the Riders open up their season at Mosaic Stadium against the B.C. Lions.

Notes

Offensive tackle Cyrus Kuoandjio has decided to retire from the CFL. Head coach Craig Dickenson admits he was surprised by it. “We tried to talk him out of it but his knees are giving him a lot of problems and he didn’t want to deal with the pain of playing with some bad knees.” … Offensive tackle Terran Vaughn continues to be sidelined with a shoulder injury and is expected to remain there for the near future. “We’re a little bit worried about it. We sent him to get some pictures — we don’t have the results just yet – but he’s definitely out of practice for at least a week or two until we can figure out what it is.”