'We feel good about our 3 guys': Riders settle quarterback position, cut 23 others

With regular CFL season games just around the corner, the Saskatchewan Roughriders announced some of their last cuts from the team on Saturday.

Twenty-three players were cut from the team, with another 12 players earning practice roster spots. Four players were returned to junior level play.

"To be honest, [cuts] are all difficult," Roughriders general manager Jeremy O'Day said at a Saturdaypress conference.

"It's by far the worst part of my job, is to tell players that they're not going to be with the team."

O'Day said the team looks at each player's entire body of work in terms of their past performance, efforts through training camp and the pre-season schedule before deciding who makes the cut and who doesn't.

Quarterback position settled

Two quarterbacks were let go in Saturday'scuts.

International quarterbacks Ty Gangi and David Watford were released by the team, leaving Zach Collaros, Isaac Harker and Cody Fajardo as the Riders' quarterbacks for the regular season.

O'Day said he's confident with that lineup.

"Hopefully the past performance in this case is going to carry into the regular season," O'Day said. "We feel good about our three guys."

O'Day said he thinks Collaros is excited for the season, and Riders management felt that Fajardo performed well enough in the pre-season to lock up the No. 2 role for the club.

He said Harker was productive through the start of the season, a continuation of his college career, and even though he attended a smaller school, it was that production that got him to mini-camp in the first place.

"What impressed us is thathe adjusted to the speed difference, but he's also able to process things at a quick pace," O'Day said of Harker. "From my standpoint, it just seems like he's operating at a very high level, very quickly."

He said through training camp, the pecking order for the quarterback positionfigured itself out.

O'Day said it comes down to how consistent the players can be.

"That's really what pro football isall of our guys can have a good practice, they can have a good game, they're all pros, they can all play at a high level."