With the exception of in Saskatchewan, the focus of sports fans this week has been on a different Durant.

Kevin Durant’s departure from the Oklahoma City Thunder to join the Golden State Warriors to create an invincible NBA team has been big news.

But in Saskatchewan, Darian Durant returning to the Roughriders to play his first complete game since Labour Day 2014 definitely moved the dial, too.

Durant didn’t return to lead the Roughriders to victory against Ricky Ray and the Toronto Argos last week for openers but he succeeded in knocking the rust off, surviving some physical abuse and looking ready to return to form for a team that would once again be in a ton of trouble without him.

Thursday Durant arrived in Edmonton as sort of a sub plot in a bigger story.

Tonight’s game, which has already qualified as the largest of the season with a pre-sale of 29,0000-plus and is expected to top 34,000, obviously has no lack of hair on it with the departure of Jones, his entire staff and the five players, Kendial Lawrence, Shamaud Chambers, Otha Foster, Andrew Jones and Thaddeus Coleman.

There’s been so much focus on that, folks forget that Jones brought about additional change to Saskatchewan when he shipped out most of Durant’s high-profile teammates from the 2013 Grey Cup championship season, the likes of Chris Getzlaf (Edmonton), Weston Dressler (Winnipeg) and John Chick (Hamilton).

But the way it works in the CFL with quarterbacks, how the Roughriders do at rebounding from their 3-15 season last year without him, will likely have more to do with Durant than the 14 traitors from Edmonton.

“It was a long time coming. I worked this off-season to be in the best spot possible to be able to last. It felt good and I’m looking forward to building on what we started last week,” said the quarterback who was lost for the entire season in the opener last year when he ruptured his left Achilles tendon.

Durant, who completed 31 of 48 passes for 310 yards and one TD in the 30-17 loss to Toronto, said the Argos gave him a pretty good test drive.

“I had a couple of bumps and bruises but it’s all a part of the game. Nothing abnormal. I’m ready to go.”

Durant is here to start his 100th CFL game to move into a tie with Condredge Holloway for 24th place in that category, four back of Jerry Keeling in 23rd.

“That means something to me. It’s a great accomplishment. We all know that the career span for football players is not that long. There are no guarantees in this game. The past couple of years have shown that with my injuries. I feel very blessed to have played this long and I look forward to many more,” said U North Carolina product that comes into the game with a 54-44-1 CFL win-loss-tie record.

Not only is Durant returning after having missed a year and a half, his new G.M. coach shipped out his two favorite receivers Dressler and Getzlaf.

“I enjoy working with coach Jones. It’s been a great start so far,” was his response to that query.

Jones, predictably, restricted himself to three minutes and 43 seconds with the media in his welcome-back media availability, mostly saying “I’m here to play a football game” and refusing to deal with the obvious angles.

But when your correspondent asked him about Durant, he was positively eloquent.

“Darian has been nothing but a pleasure to coach. I’ve had the good fortune in my entire career of having so many good quarterbacks. From Anthony Calvillo to Ricky Ray to Mike Reilly to Darian, it just keeps going.

“Darian is just a consummate professional. He’s the first guy in the building. Sometimes he beats the coaches in there.

“He’s not as vocal as some of those other guys. He leads by example. You don’t know until you are around somebody. You’d figure he’d be more vocal. But he’s just leading his own way and people play better when he’s out there.”

Again, he better stay out there or it could be another long season in the flatlands, Chris Jones or no Chris Jones.