Darrell Davis: Riders coaching search was limited

Jeremy O’Day didn’t have much of a choice.

That doesn’t mean he made a bad choice in hiring Craig Dickenson as the Saskatchewan Roughriders head coach. But O’Day, Saskatchewan’s new general manager and vice-president of football operations, was severely hamstrung in the candidates he could pursue. Rival teams in Ottawa and Winnipeg refused to let O’Day interview assistant coaches Jaime Elizondo and Paul LaPolice. It sounds like O’Day contacted Mike Benevides, a long-time defensive co-ordinator and former B.C. head coach.

But the Roughriders ham-handed handling of their  current staff forced O’Day to concentrate his search on guys already under contract. Before Chris Jones deserted the Riders for an NFL job, he had already inked 10 assistants for 2019. With the CFL limiting the size and salaries of coaching staffs this season, one of those re-signed assistants had to be O’Day’s most likely choice. Signing Dickenson to a three-year contract shows that O’Day didn’t mind the restriction. And it really may have forced him to hire the absolute right guy.