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Last year’s Saskatchewan total was generally regarded as being bogus as general manager and head coach Chris Jones went through a 5-13 regular season like one giant tryout camp.

In August alone last year, the league fined the Riders $60,000 for roster violations, and hit the team and Jones for another $36,500 in the off-season. Even with that, the Eskimos have a shot at breaking that record, not that it’s a goal or anything.

There is also now a new rule for the last three weeks of the season where you can not place a player on the six-game without having their salary count against the cap. The rule was created to prevent a team already out of the playoffs to create space to play and get a good look at new players. Now who would do that?

Not Edmonton in 2017, that’s for sure.

“I’d be happy to have anybody look at our injuries,” said first-year Eskimos general manager Brock Sunderland. “Look at the people we had to put on the six-game. Why would we try to hide people like that? We had an all-star team on the six-game injury list.”

That rule, I’ll call it the Rider Rule, is possibly going to make it even more of a challenge for the Eskimos to end up under the salary cap. They’ll be putting at least three more players — LaDarius Perkins, Pascal Lochard and Alexandre Dupuis — all running backs, on the list. Two of them are likely out for the season.

The minor miracle so far is that Sunderland has kept the team under the $5.15-million salary cap.

“I’m still projecting to be under,” he said. “It’s been a crazy year, for sure. There have been a lot more challenges than I’ve ever been a part of. It’s been an incredible challenge. We have two games to go. We’re 10-6. And we’re still dealing with it every week trying to figure out who can play, finding new players and figuring out who can fit in under the cap. Every single week, Jason Maas and I have had to sit down and figure it out. It’s been unbelievable.”