Riders fire OC Jason Maas; Dickenson and O'Day returning for 2023
The Saskatchewan Roughriders have announced that offensive coordinator Jason Maas has been relieved of his duties.
The team also said that head coach Craig Dickenson will return for the 2023 season.
Jeremy O'Day will also be back in 2023 for his fifth season as general manager and vice president of football operations, the Riders said.
“There’s a number of things that went wrong this year and lots of lessons learned and I think Jeremy’s learned from that and he deserves a chance to correct,” said Craig Reynolds, CEO and President of football operations.
“I feel like he (Craig) obviously deserves an opportunity to come back with the success he’s had in the past. I still really believe in him. Obviously there’s still lots of work with conversations of what we can improve and how we can improve,” said O’Day on his decision to keep Dickenson.
Next season will be Dickenson’s fifth as head coach with the Riders. He has posted a 28-22 record and hosted two home playoff games, which includes a win in the first ever playoff game at the new Mosaic Stadium.
He also led the Riders to first place in the Canadian Football League’s (CFL) west division in 2019 for the first time in a decade.
However, It was an overhaul on offence Tuesday when the team announced the release of offensive line coach Steven Sorrells and announced that receiver coach Travis Moore would also not return in 2023.
“I feel like there’s a lot of lessons learned from this year and moving forward. One of them is we need to do a better job on offence so I felt like we needed to make some changed there and that’s what happened today,” said Dickenson.
The improvements on offence will not be easy for the Riders who finished the 2022 season with a 6-12 record, which included a seven game losing streak to close out the year. Plus, the team gave up a franchise record 77 sacks this season.
The Riders also failed to make the playoffs for the first time since 2016.
“That’s a prime example of how important the offensive line is and to well up front certainly is an area of focus for us and an area we need to get better at,” said O’Day.
Now that the team will look different when it comes to the coaching staff the question remains whether quarterback Cody Fajardo returns to the green and white given the changes.
“We do have a lot of evaluations that take place right now and you know we’re going to evaluate where we’re at. (We) certainly haven’t made a decision on the future of any of our players yet,” said O’Day.
Dickenson and O'Day's current contracts expire after the 2023 season.
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