It was a potential move that seemed both inevitable to CFL insiders and improbable to fans, and now it’s come true. Darian Durant’s time as the face of the Saskatchewan Rough Riders has come to a close. No, this is not a cruel Friday the 13th joke being played on Riders nation. The most popular Riders QB since Ron Lancaster has been traded with no obvious internal option to turn to.
Mitchell Gale threw more interceptions (three) than touchdowns (two) last year. He’s also a free agent. Canadian Brandon Bridge is intriguing but attempted only 13 passes as a Rider. Farther down the depth chart, Jake Waters and GJ Kinne threw 17 combined passes, none of which went for a TD.
Durant, despite missing time due to injury, completed 66.5 percent of his passes for 3,839 yards and a 93.3 efficiency mark. If your first and only priority were winning right now, re-signing him would have been a top priority.
Jones tried to rationalize the move at his press conference by saying, “We won five ball games with Darian last year; that’s reality.” I’d reverse-engineer that analysis and ask: How many games would they have won without him?
Of course, no decision is made in a vacuum, and in a hard-cap league there are other considerations. And Durant’s recent injury history certainly seems to have been one of them.
“One of the things that was kind of our downfall last year was that Darian got hurt three times,” Jones said.
The last time the South Carolina native started all 18 games was 2010. That said, he managed to play in 15 games last season. Only three QBs took more regular-season snaps in 2016 than the 34-year-old QB.
The other possible reasoning for not retaining Durant is his age profile, which doesn’t match the young nucleus the Riders are building around. Jones alluded to this by saying, “When you’re at the end of your career, you can’t play forever.”
In a nutshell, by the time this roster is good enough to compete for a Grey Cup, Durant won’t be.
The problem with that logic is you can turn around a CFL program in no time with impact players coming from the U.S. Jones should know this better than anyone as his quick rebuild of the Eskimos took them from pretender to contender in one offseason. A year later the Eskimos were Grey Cup champs.
An even more recent example, the Redblacks went from expansion team to champs in three years.
At the age of 34, Durant is old but not ancient. Henry Burris was the best player in the Grey Cup and he’s 41 years old. It stands to reason Durant has good football still ahead of him.
Durant’s best asset is his accuracy. He’s got a career 62-percent completion percentage throwing while throwing for almost 30,000 yards. Never a huge deep-ball thrower or an overly dominant rusher, his ability to read defences and place footballs in tight spaces should age gracefully.
But now he’s in Montreal and alternative options—either in a trade or free-agent acquisition—for Saskatchewan are thin.
Matt Nichols theoretically sounds good, but a Jones-led Eskimos team already let go of him once back in 2015.
If Durant’s health was part of the reason Jones traded him, then Ricky Ray isn’t an option.
If Durant’s age was a problem for Jones, then Henry Burris doesn’t make sense.
Meanwhile, you’d have to give up heaven and earth to get James Franklin from Edmonton, especially because you just lost all of your leverage.
As for Montreal’s side of the story, they have to be ecstatic with the move. The cost is negligible as the Alouettes gave up only a fourth-round selection in the 2017 draft and a conditional selection in 2018. Considering the Argonauts gave up T.J. Heath, a first-round pick in 2017 and a third-round pick in 2018 for Blue Bombers backup Drew Willy, Montreal got a steal.
What’s more, it clears up two of the team’s most glaring weaknesses in one fell swoop: leadership and QB play. Twelve CFL passers threw for more yards than the Als’ top passer—Rakeem Cato—last year. That’s unbelievably bad in a nine-team league, and the new regime in Montreal moved quickly to address it.
Coupled with Montreal’s decision to extend 34-year-old receiver Nik Lewis, the move shows the team is going for it right now, a fantastic sign for beleaguered fans.
The message to Riders faithful is significantly different—and, at least in the short term, a lot more distressing. It’s obvious Jones is willing to stomach more growing pains in the second year of his rebuild, and the coming first year of play in the new Mosaic Stadium may feel a lot like the last at Taylor Field.
In that way, the Darian Durant trade isn’t just about the end of an era in Riderville; it is a signal of two franchises willingly going in opposite directions.