It's almost time for the Saskatchewan Roughriders to return to the field.

The Green and White will open their 2017 training camp at Griffiths Stadium in Saskatoon coming up on Sunday as they start to work towards a possible return to the post-season following two straight years on the outside looking in.

Last season was the first time that Riders Head Coach & General Manager Chris Jones had missed the post-season during his career in the Canadian Football League, while that is providing motivation heading into this season, Jones said it's not on his mind.

“It's been a long time since I've had a losing season, so we'll just have to use what we can use, but I can tell you this, we won't dwell on it, our staff is too positive to sit there and dwell on negatives,” said Jones during the Riders' season preview teleconference put on by the CFL last week.

“Anytime that you don't reach the Grey Cup, you don't reach the heights that you had before, that's what you do this game for, so unfortunately we didn't get to where we wanted to be last year, so you go back to the grindstone and keep grinding.”

Just like last season, the Riders have seen a lot of turnover heading into 2017, especially at the quarterback position where Brandon Bridge is the only returnee.

Darian Durant was dealt to Montreal in the biggest move of the offseason for Saskatchewan, while 37-year-old Kevin Glenn is back and will head into training camp as the projected starter.

“I have a lot of confidence in myself and I think that the coaching staff has a lot of confidence in me too,” said Glenn. “I have full confidence in myself being able to lead this team not just on the field, but off the field too as far as experience and helping the young guys be professionals. At the same time, not one guy is going to do this, it's going to take a team effort from the coaches down to the players.”

The past few seasons in the CFL have shown that veteran quarterbacks can have success when put in the right situation with Henry Burris winning the Most Outstanding Player award in 2015 and leading the Ottawa Redblacks to the Grey Cup in 2016 at the age of 41.

Glenn said he's coming in to prove that he can still be the “guy” for a team.

“You've just got to take advantage of your opportunities, so this is an opportunity for me,” said Glenn.

The Riders also brought in former NFL star quarterback Vince Young to compete for a spot on the team's roster, so he will provide an unknown factor heading into training camp and how he can adjust to the Canadian game and being out of football for the past three seasons.

While the quarterback play has been suspect over the past few seasons for the Riders, their biggest issue has been protecting the quarterback. Jones feels they've improved in that area heading into 2017.

“We've still got some unanswered questions, whether (Dan) Clark and (Brendon) LaBatte can stay healthy and then who's going to step up and be the right guard. We're at least decently solid at both tackle positions, so it's going to be interesting to see which guys show up,” said Jones.

Jones confirmed that veteran lineman Brendon LaBatte is entering training camp healthy this season after battling a neck injury that cost him most of the season in 2017. The hope is that the 30-year-old can return to form to help solidify the left guard spot.

The Riders added another veteran to the receiving core with the addition of former MOP Chad Owens as well as Duron Carter and Bakari Grant to the group that included Rob Bagg, Naaman Roosevelt, Caleb Holley, Ricky Collins Jr, Joe Craig and Nic Demski.

“They did some good things last year, but any time you can add a guy with the experience that we added with some of the additions that we added, I don't think you can turn your back on the experience,” said Jones.

“Last year with all the injuries that we had, we felt like we had ample leadership, but from time-to-time because of all the injuries a lot of those guys weren't there and it's tougher to be a leader when you're standing on the sidelines.”

Defensively, the Riders have continued to build around the group that was in place to end last season. The defensive backfield has seen quite a bit of turnover however with Otha Foster heading to the NFL and Justin Cox being released due to an offseason arrest.

Jones likes the additions that were made.

“We had a pretty good offseason, our mini-camp was very good, we added some very good football players and they have some unique talents, some of them are straight cover guys and some are more Sam linebacker types that can blitz and good tacklers,” said Jones.

The Riders will find out if the moves they made were enough to get them back into the post-season over the course of the 2017 season, but it all starts next Sunday in Saskatoon for the opening of training camp.

Their first presesason game is June 10 against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers at the new Mosaic Stadium.