The Saskatchewan Roughriders announced today they have agreed to terms with George Cortez to become the team’s Offensive Coordinator.
Cortez joins the Riders after spending last season with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats as Head Coach and Director of Football Operations. The native of Port Arthur, Texas brings over three decades of coaching experience to the green and white, including 19 seasons in the Canadian Football League with four Grey Cup championships. This will be Cortez’s second stint in Saskatchewan after spending the 2006 season as offensive line coach.
Beyond that, the veteran coach spent two seasons with the Buffalo Bills as quarterbacks coach and four seasons in the NCAA as an offensive coach at the University of California-Berkley.
Last season’s Offensive Coordinator, Bob Dyce, remains with the team.
The Riders also confirmed reports that Mike Sinclair has left the team to join the Chicago Bears as assistant defensive line coach.
I believe it's a good move for the Riders. Cortez may have been a failure as a head coach, but as an offensive coordinator, his record is pretty stellar.
This is HUGE! We all saw the season Burris had. I believe with Durant who has similar traits to Burris can have huge sucess in this offense..WOW!! :thup: :thup: :thup:
Not so sure there Earl. … with that terrific offence that Hamilton ran last season, to not even make the playoffs, I’d rank that as a failure. And I"m really not sure at all that he’ll get another kick at the can as a HC. He might, but I have my doubts.
I’m with MadJack on this one. A case could be made that the ti-cats lost at least one game and maybe more due to not throwing the challenge flag. Thats HC all the way. I’m excited to have him in charge of the Offense here. Sounds like he is probably getting compensated very well and that he plans to move here with his wife. So could be a permanent fixture for some years, which would be nice.
I would agree. Their offense was good enough for them to be a winning team most games, but their D wasn’t nearly as good. Some of that lies with coaching, but a fair bit of blame lies in the quality of personnel he had to work, whose faults lie on the shoulders of the GM and not entirely on Cortez.
unfair as it may seem, HC’s terminated after brief tenures do not usually garner second opportunities
The possibility inherently exists, although it is a general exception for this to occur.
HUGE Championship move. Cortez at 60 yrs old probably will not get another Head Coaching chance so he should be locked into the Riders as the OC for a while which is a great situation for any team to have one of the top OC in the CFL without having to worry about him leaving for a HC job.
Bob Dyce certainly not the answer for a Championship team as OC but a likely move to Special Teams Coordinator is most likley in the plans. Playing and coaching at Manitoba and a long tenure of coaching in Canada at CIS, Junior, and CFL levels for 20 years now and has been a ST coach with the Blue Bombers not so long ago.
Whether or not he was a failure or not as a HC doesn't really matter. He called an offense which led most catigories in the leauge. Problem was he didn't have a defense. Enter Richie Hall and defensive minded Head Coach Chamblin. I believe if Durant can have half the season Burris had we'll be in good shape. Cortez is a proven OC in the leauge and was a QB coach in Buffalo. I believe that with Durant under his wing and weapons such as Sheets, Dressler and big play guys like Taj Smith, our offense can be deadly. His previous head coaching stints really don't matter any more.
Cortez is a good hire for Riders but I do expect to read of a big name signing in the receiving corps , young offensive line going into their sophmore year for a couple of them - maybe an exciting year for the fans of the CFL.
Bob Dyce was never the ST coordinator in Winnipeg. During Dyce’s time in Winnipeg the ST coordinators were Jim Daley, Scott Fawcett, Cory McDiarmid and Rick Campbell.
I thought I read that in his BIO somewhere. Even so he has been coaching the Canadian game at the CIS, CJFL, and CFL levels. He played at Manitoba and also was at two CFL training camps. He would know enough about Canadian football to be the special teams coach regardless. He has been a coordinator so he should be able to make the move to special teams coordinator. Since they do not have one and he would be qualified and knows the players could be a good transition for the team. If I am not mistaken they already have a receivers coach. After really doing a good job with the offense a lateral movement to the coordintor to special teams would also be fair to him.
