To the likely dismay of Rider Nation, not much is changing with the Saskatchewan Roughriders as they get set to host Hamilton Thursday night to kick-off Week 4 of the C-F-L season.

       Chris Jones is still the G-M and head coach of the Riders, Brandon Bridge will be the starting quarterback and thousand-yard receiver Duron Carter is still listed as the starting boundary cornerback…on defence!

“Duron’s gotta make strides,” said Jones when asked about Carter’s need to improve. “Like everybody else, he’s no different. Unfortunately for him, he’s Duron. He’s a dynamic guy that you guys love to ask about. Number 42’s a good player but nobody ever asks about him! Duron’s a guy that you want to ask questions about. He’s gotta learn to play defense, learn to disrupt routes early in the play and if he does that, he’ll have success.”

       For his part, Bridge weighed in on the, “where Duron Carter should play,” question.

“I would love to have Duron on offense!” exclaimed Bridge. “I would love to have him on offense. He’d have the same impact he had last year. A thousand yards. Attention of defenses and defensive coordinators. They’d probably be scared of him. He’s definitely a playmaker for our offense. He helps out other guys too if he has all that attention.”

       Following two straight losses, including the last one to visiting Montreal…the perceived worst team in the C-F-L…by a 23-17 score, RiderNation’s “Chicken Little, the Sky is Falling” narrative was addressed by Jones during Wednesday’s day-before-the-game news conference.

“Let me just cut you off right there,” as Jones interrupted a question by a member of the Regina media regarding fan discontent. “I’ll be honest with you. I just worry about this football team. I can’t worry about the fans. If we went undefeated, there’d by somebody complaining. I remember when we won the state championship in high school, I was sitting in a cafe the next day and there were people complaining we didn’t throw the ball more!

“I’m not going to sit here and worry. I know what we gotta do. We’ve been here before. Unfortunately we’ve stubbed our toe again. We took too many penalties last week which helped cost us a football game. We’ve got to correct that, play good football and get back to our winning ways.”

       Saskatchewan will try to do that when they host the 2-and-1 Tiger-Cats. Game time is 7 p.m. at Mosaic Stadium in Regina and on T-S-N.