By: Don Campbell
Photo: CP Images
Brendan Taman was merely waiting for his bag to arrive on the luggage carousel at Regina International, after a flight back from consecutive loss No. 7 in Toronto a couple of weeks ago, when a total stranger made a beeline for the beleaguered general manager of the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
From the way the guy was walking, Taman wasn’t thinking he was going to offer to carry his bag to the car and turns out he was right on that count.
All the guy wanted to deliver was some unsolicited advice.
“The only thing he says is ‘you know Benevides will cancel his European holiday right now for you’ and he walks away,” said Taman, the ‘expert’ obviously a fan of ex-B.C. Lions head coach Mike Benevides, fired after the 2014 season.
And it’s that way everywhere he goes with his Roughriders now 0-8 and set to touchdown in Ottawa Saturday on a charter flight and face the 4-4 Ottawa REDBLACKS Sunday.
The onetime football operations manager and player personnel guru with the Ottawa Rough Riders in the late 1980s grew up in Saskatoon and first worked with the Western Riders in 1987 so he knows all too well about ‘Rider Pride’ and what it means.
And while it’s great when the team is winning, it can be almost murder when it’s losing.
In the midst of a winless season, Taman can’t drive six city blocks in Regina in his leased Rider vehicle, the one with the logos all over it, without hearing all about it.
“As GM here, I have a lot of assistant GMs throughout the entire province,” said Taman, his dry sense of humour in check despite the winless run. “(The scrutiny) is just like it is in Ottawa . . . times 10.
“The fans can be very direct in their comments and thoughts. They are passionate and that’s a great thing. It’s also a good thing (right now) I don’t go out much. When the team’s away, I may borrow one of the player’s cars so no-one will know me.
“But it’s part of the job. It’s what you sign on for. And I get it.”
What was thought to be a promising season for Saskatchewan never really ever had a chance.
In fact, the season started heading south late in the second quarter of the season opener when No. 1 quarterback Darian Durant went down his a season-ending torn Achilles tendon.
Then if backup Kevin Glenn -the onetime REDBLACK (on paper at least)- didn’t go down in loss No. 5 with a torn pectoral muscle leaving the job to unproven and untested Brett Smith.
The Riders have played much of the season with five or more starters on IR, including middle linebacker Shea Emry.
At 0-8, the Roughriders have no illusions it would takes some kind of miraculous run to compete for a final playoff spot in the West.
No team starting a season 0-7 has ever reached the playoffs, let alone 0-8, and surrendering a league-high 259 points (32.2 per game) is no path to take to get there.
Still they have hope when they consider that six of the eight losses have been by four points or less. And as bad as the record is, they trail both B.C and Winnipeg by just six points though Taman admits it seems like more.
To compound the misery, Saskatchewan is 0-5 at home and plays four of its final five on the road.
“We’re not here to make excuses,” said Taman. “At the same time, we’re not here to hide hide behind the facts.
“Any team that loses its No. 1 and 2 quarterbacks will be hard-pressed to win in this league. We felt like we had a good insurance policy in Glenn and you can see how that worked out.
“But if we could even get one (win), we might still get going. To just get that one would be getting past a huge hurdle.”
As for his days with the Riders, Taman has only find memories even if he did work under league ownership with CFL commissioner Donald Crump and later the Gliebermans.
He misses walking from his office in the old building and slipping into the Civic Centre to watch the Ottawa 67’s.
Last season, when his club visited, they were on the front end of a two-game road trip and wound up practising in Gatineau for almost a week afterwards.
“Whatever happened to Hull?,” said Taman. “I couldn’t figure out what they meant when they told us we were going to Gatineau. To me, that will always be Hull.”
On one busy work day, he headed down to Preston Street and loaded up his rental with pizzas from the Prescott Hotel and delivered them to the coaches in meetings.
“One guys says ‘what’s this? .. and where’s it from? . . . and what’s so special about it?’,” laughed Taman. “I said don’t worry. Eat it. It’s the best.”
So Taman still has his wit . . . and the memories.
“We were BAD but I loved being there,” said Taman, brought to Ottawa by then head coach and GM Steve Goldman in ‘89. “From (training camp) Kemptville to the (Byward) Market to the Bank Street Bridge, I loved everything about the city . . . though I kinda of miss the Villa Deli not still here.
“I always thought when Ottawa wasn’t in the league that a big part of the league was missing.
“(The REDBLACKS) have done a really good job. That’s a good team over there with very good defence. And you can win in the playoffs with defence.”
