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Sean McEwen will be the centre of attention for the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
The centre is one of the CFL club’s big free agent signings this past offseason as the Riders look to make it back to the Grey Cup for the first time since 2013.
“There’s a lot of little reasons but at the end of the day, it was a football decision. I just thought it was a great fit and it’s where I want to be from a football perspective,” McEwen told The Green Zone on Thursday.
Listen to Sean McEwen on The Green Zone:
“Just the culture they are building. When you’re on a team, you try to focus on your own team and stuff but it’s hard not to notice when something good is building elsewhere. You can just tell the kind of culture and the way those guys play for each other, it just shows up on tape. They are willing to go the extra mile for each other, and that’s the kind of coach and teammates you want to play for.
“It’s little things like O-linemen getting down the field, throwing the extra block, picking their running back off the ground, stuff like that you can just tell people take a lot of pride in what they do and I think that starts at the top and I am looking forward to being part of that because I take a lot of pride in that myself.”
McEwen, a Calgary product, was a member of the Toronto Argonauts from 2016-19, winning a Grey Cup in 2017. He joined his hometown Calgary Stampeders for the 2020 season, where he remained until this past offseason.
McEwen is a three-time CFL all-star (2017, 2021-22) and was the East Division CFL Most Outstanding Offensive Lineman in 2017.
Sean McEwen is a three-time CFL all-star and a 2017 Grey Cup champion. (CFL/Submitted)
While the Stamps didn’t have much on-field success during his time there, the 31-year-old doesn’t have any regrets going back home.
“You can have regrets, but there’s so much in my life I wouldn’t have, not just from a football point of view, but from a life point of view, that I wouldn’t have had if I never came back to Calgary,” McEwen said.
“It’s pretty much impossible to have regrets. This is where I got married, where my daughter was born. There were a lot of big life events that happened because I moved to Calgary, so I don’t second-guess anything.”
He now joins the Riders and has plenty of familiar faces around him – head coach Corey Mace was in Calgary for the 2021 season with McEwen while offensive co-ordinator Marc Mueller had been in Calgary from 2014-2023.
“For the most part, I do have a good understanding of the general concept of the offence. (Mueller) used to be in Calgary and he brought over the same sort of core concepts. Some of the terminology is different, so that has been the biggest learning curve for me for sure,” he said.
“There’s going to be things I don’t know and have to learn along the way but having as good an understanding as possible is just part of being a pro and just doing what you can to be ready for training camp.”
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He will need to get used to some new teammates, including quarterback Trevor Harris.
“Trevor’s reached out and I am very much looking forward to playing with him. He just seems like a great leader, and you just want to get a feel for each other more than anything,” McEwen said.
“There’s a time when it’s time to do the job, but just building that relationship is so important. I have been lucky to have a good relationship with all the quarterbacks that I have snapped to throughout my career and I don’t see why it will be any different with Trevor. He just seems to be about the right kind of things and I am looking forward to getting that dynamic going with him.”
One of the main traits of the current Mace and general manager Jeremy O’Day tenure has been bringing in former Grey Cup Champions, McEwen being one of them.
He believes you need that sort of championship pedigree in a locker room to succeed.
“Winning a championship is the hardest thing you can ever do but without a doubt it’s the most rewarding thing,” McEwen said.
“Just having people who have done it before to push through those hard moments where it doesn’t feel like things are going the right way but it’s about building that character and the backbone of your team that’s going to get you the rest of the way. The more guys you’re going to have like that, the better.”
He’s also excited to play in front of Rider Nation as a member of the home team.
“I don’t think you have to be in Regina to know the support of Rider Nation. I’ve seen it many times at McMahon (Stadium), where half the town is green when they come to town. I know a lot of people even in my own community that are Riders fans. It’s pretty crazy just how far they reach and I am looking forward to seeing what it’s like on the ground floor,” he said.
“I’ve been told a lot of things. I don’t want to psyche myself out and make myself more nervous than I need to be so I’m just going to try not to think about it.”
Rider training camp begins on May 11 in Saskatoon.
“Last week of full-out training right now. The week after will be more of a maintenance week and a lot more on-field stuff, not that that hasn’t happened already but I think it’s a bit of a deload week before camp,” McEwen said. “It’s creeping up and I am getting excited.”
