January 13th is becoming an ominous day for fans in Rider Nation.

On this day in 2016, the Saskatchewan Roughriders released long-time receiver Weston Dressler and defensive lineman John Chick.

Fast forward a year later and the Darian Durant era in Saskatchewan is coming to an end on the same day.

The Riders dealt the rights to the veteran pivot to the Montreal Alouettes in exchange for a pair of draft picks, a fourth round selection in 2017 and a conditional second round pick in 2018.

“Unfortunately, upon numerous efforts, we could not get anything done,” said Riders’ General Manager and Head Coach Chris Jones in regards to the stall contract negotiations with their franchise quarterback.

“Just like last year, they hired me to attempt to make the decisions that were best for this organization. We said last year that we’re going to fiscally responsible and we’re going to offer fair market value contracts and that’s what we did.”

Durant is scheduled to become a free agent on Feb. 14, but will reportedly sign with Montreal. Despite contract negotiations throughout the season with the Riders, the two sides remained apart and were moving further apart as time moved on.

Jones said that the closes they were to a deal was back in October/November.

“About a week, we went back to him one last time with an offer and unfortunately they rejected that offer and at that point, it started becoming a reality that we’re staring at losing Darian Durant to free agency and in order to avoid doing that, we wanted to get something out of him,” said Jones.

Jones feels that their offers were fair based on the production out of Durant over the last few seasons.

“We won five ball games with Darian last year, so that’s reality. He had won three ball games in the last three years and so unfortunately that’s reality,” said Jones. “For us to continue to go down that road, especially when it wasn’t going to be a contract that we felt comfortable with, it wasn’t something that I felt comfortable doing.”

Over the past three seasons, Durant has struggled to stay on the field missing large chunks of the 2014 and 2015 seasons with injuries. He was also out of the lineup for three games during the 2016 season, but did throw for 3,839 yards and just 14 touchdowns compared to seven interceptions.

Jones said Durant’s durability played into their decision to move on from the 34-year-old quarterback.

“One of the things that was kind of our downfall last year is Darian got hurt three times and it was one of the deals where we had to make sure that we quarterbacks that could remain on the field,” said Jones.

“The numbers don’t lie.”

The trade brings to close over a decade with the Riders for Durant, who joined the team before the 2006 season. He led the team to the fourth Grey Cup in franchise history at Mosaic Stadium in 2013 and was also a member of the 2007 Grey Cup team.

Durant leaves Saskatchewan sitting second all-time in Riders’ history with 3,519 pass attempts, 2,186 completions and 28,136 yards, while he’s third in touchdown passes with 149.

“11 years ago when I came up to Saskatchewan, I never could have imagined the love and support I've felt from the Rider fans across the world! Although I wanted to stay, everyone's time comes and this is mine. I have so many cherished memories of my time in Green. I'm excited for a new opportunity,” said Durant in a statement on his website.

“He was the face of the organization and he did do some very good things for our organization, this isn’t a Darian Durant hate day, this is a day to honour him because it’s not like he’s going to go do some good things in Montreal,” added Jones.

The challenge now will be find a replacement for Durant. The Riders currently have three quarterbacks under contract for next season in national Brandon Bridge, Jake Waters and GJ Kinne.

Whether the answer is in that group remains an unknown for Jones.

“I can’t comment on anybody that’s in our league that’s going to be a free agent, but there’s going to be somebody that lines up at quarterback for us,” said Jones. “We’ve got three highly qualified players that played behind Darian this year, all of them were ranked in the top-20 in their draft class in the US and so we feel very confident that one of those three is going to be able to do something, along with the guys that we’ve talked to and tried out.

“It’s going to be an open competition, we’re going to bring all our quarterbacks to camp and let them compete and we’re going to chart everything that we know how to chart and the best man wins.”

The Riders have had contact with other CFL teams about acquiring a quarterback as well, but nothing is imminent.

“We’re going to leave no stone un-turned and we’re going to continue to look until we find a quarterback,” said Jones. “A few years ago when Calgary was going through this transition, nobody knew who Bo-Levi (Mitchell) was either and so when he got the opportunity, he took it and ran.”

Durant had a 58-54-1 record during his 113 career regular season games with Saskatchewan. He was named a West Division all-star in 2009 and 2013.