Darrell Davis
Regina Leader-Post
Joshua Bell chose Wascana Lake over the Rideau Canal, so darned right he’s going to enjoy Regina’s beautiful park during his upcoming break with the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders.
“The coaches have been running and putting work in, too,” said Bell, Saskatchewan’s new defensive co-ordinator, whose team will announce its final roster on Saturday then endure a weeklong respite before preparing for its June 13 regular-season opener against the visiting B.C. Lions.
“If our bodies are tired then we know the guys’ bodies are tired. It might be nice just to get away for this break. We talked about it. ‘Hey, find your happy place. Find your reset. Find your release. Go walk around Wascana Lake, just to get away from it until you can rest and come back with a different vibe.’ Most definitely, I’m gonna walk around the lake.”
Wascana’s joggers may soon cross paths with a loquacious, intelligent, energetic guy with the coolest dreads, who promised he has toned down his $&%@-talking and still drops some of the most memorable phrases.
To wit: “There are two types of players we don’t like: Ones that do everything we say and ones that don’t do nothing we say. We’ve got a lot of guys now that are right in between there.”
Or: “Coaches can always be wrong. Players can always be right. So the unity is what we want.”
And: “They hunt, baby. And when you’re hunting you gotta choose what weapon you use out on the field, whether it’s a machete or a bazooka. Use one of the tools we’ve equipped ourselves with.”
Finally: “(Head coach Corey) Mace is amazing. He dropped me in the hot grease early. I thought he was gonna be around like a little floaty device for me. And he wasn’t.”
Football teams typically don’t make coaching changes following a championship season, but after winning the 2025 Grey Cup and spending two years as head coach and defensive co-ordinator, Mace has surrendered defensive play-calling duties to his longtime compatriot.
“He’s got some nuances,” said Mace. “Bell’s an outside-the-box thinker, which is awesome, so there’s gonna be some new wrinkles (in Saskatchewan’s defence) and ultimately how we would call the game might be different. I’m excited to see how that goes.
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“Certainly in the pre-season things have looked really sharp. I’m just incredibly proud of the guy and obviously felt more than comfortable handing over the keys from that standpoint.”
Mace and Bell worked together with the Calgary Stampeders and Toronto Argonauts before joining the Roughriders in 2024. Bell was Saskatchewan’s defensive backs coach, the position he played during his NFL and CFL career.
During each of the past two off-seasons, there have been reports the Ottawa Redblacks were trying to hire Bell, who admitted he was interviewed by a CFL team interested in hiring him as its DC.
Mace acknowledged that Bell would have been a target for teams needing a defensive co-ordinator, so that factored into his decision.
After a recent practice at Mosaic Stadium, Bell said he was proud to be representing his family and a coaching tree that includes John Hufnagel, Dave Dickenson, Ryan Dinwiddie and Mace, who have taught him that teams are a true brotherhood.
Bell vowed to continue that tradition with his current charges, staying on the sidelines to make his calls and stay in conversation with his players. They have also been adapting to his new role and are realizing he’s no longer just a voice for the DBs.
“I have to remember I’m the DC,” said Bell. “It used to be, ‘That’s just Bell talking sh*t.’ But now if I say something like that with the new guys around, they’re like, ‘That’s the DC saying that.’ And I have to say, ‘No, you don’t forget. Do not forget that I’m the DC.’
Here’s a final one:
“I do the simple part, the play calling,” said Bell. “That’s the blessing I have, and I let Coach Mace do the personnel stuff.
“My job is to give them information to make informed decisions. And then after that, my job is to make the vibes vibe.”
