Training camp doesn’t start until Saturday, but disaster has hit the Riders as four players have gone down to Achilles injuries that GM Jeremy O’Day says are all long-term.

The four are linebacker Larry Dean, defensive back Nelson Lokombo, defensive end Freddie Bishop and RB Jonathan Femi-Cole.

O’Day was simply stunned to see this occur as he spoke with reporters Thursday afternoon, “I can say that in all my years of playing football and being around the game, I’ve never seen anything quite like this where we had four injuries like that in the same period of time.”

O’Day says the four were not doing anything out of the ordinary as they got ready for camp and that the team’s plan was to start slowly in workouts to get them ready for training camp that starts Saturday, “We wanted to slowly ramp up the players and even into training camp you’ll see that the practices are toned back and we wanted to ramp them up until, get them back, until they were practicing like normal practices.”

O’Day did admit this could be one of the things teams and players must face after months of inactivity due to COVID-19.  As far as what’s next, O’Day says he has to sit down and talk with head coach Craig Dickenson and his assistants before making a decision as to what the next step is. (CKRM)