Recommitted Jordan Ridley [UFA 2029] - name was floated for a move to Brisbane in 2025, stayed

[Elixuh]

I mean no one wants Essendon it’s men’s division is a mess. (The AFLW team is 3-0 and seems like a good vibe)

That’s where it gets complicated. just the nature of where both clubs are right now. No good/established players want to go to Essendon (for good reason) and Brisbane doesn’t have much in the way of expendable mid tier young talent or draft assets due to your recent success with father sons/academy.

Like I said I think there’s a reasonable trade package around 2 mid tier assets and band 1 compo. Just going to be tricky to get to the right deal due to all the moving parts

Would you do a future second, the band one compo and best 23 player dev Robertson for the riddler?

 

[Tom14]

Damien Cupido for Blake Caracella talk about being fleeced.

Man Cupido could have been a gun…

 

[Tom14]

Would you do a future second, the band one compo and best 23 player dev Robertson for the riddler?

Dev RobbO going NowhereO

 

[BOMBERS 4 LIFE!!!!]

Man Cupido could have been a gun…

What a waste of talent

 

[FootyGuru]

Morris mentioned Brisbane, but the dogs and north who desperately need a key defender will surely throw their hat in the ring.

I think there’s a lot that could play out here, including Ridley staying a bomber.

 

[dmc333]

"The fish," a sage proverb tells us, "rots from the head down." At the Essendon Football Club, the stench has been lingering for the better part of two decades. The news that Jordan Ridley, a player of rare poise and a best-and-fairest winner, wants out is not another tedious chapter in the broken free agency model. It is not a story of a player chasing a few extra dollars. It is the entirely rational act of a sane man fleeing a burning building.

This, one must stress, should be the exception that proves the rule. We can, and should, bemoan the transactional nature of the modern game, the erosion of club loyalty for the highest bidder. But to apply that lens here is to wilfully ignore the subject. This is not a player problem; it is an Essendon problem. Ridley’s desire to decamp to Brisbane is not a sign of a flawed system, but a damning indictment of a flawed and flailing football club.

For what, precisely, would a sensible man be staying for? Essendon has perfected the art of mediocrity, transforming it from a mere state of being into a core institutional identity. They are a suburban club playing dress-up in a powerhouse’s clothes. They possess the facilities, the supporter base, and the history of a giant, yet they are run with the strategic foresight of a local committee arguing over who brings the orange slices. The weight of the sash, once a symbol of pride, now appears to be a lead-lined burden, dragging a generation of talented players into a vortex of perpetual disappointment.

---

One cannot, and should not, discuss Essendon’s present woes without exhuming the ghost of that great and terrible past. The doping scandal—and let us call it what it was, not the sanitised "supplements saga"—did not just cost the club a season and its dignity. It inflicted a deep and lasting psychological wound, a trauma from which it has never recovered.

The club’s present-day fitness and injury management, a ceaseless parade of soft-tissue calamities that would be comical if it weren’t so tragic, is the natural and pathetic endpoint of that scandal. In the decade since, a crippling fear has taken hold. Terrified of ever again approaching the "line," they now operate so far behind it they might as well be in another postcode. Where successful clubs push the boundaries of sports science, embracing cutting-edge techniques to find a fractional advantage, Essendon remains huddled in the past.

Their approach to conditioning feels antiquated, governed by a terror of innovation. They are too scared to try anything new, too timid to push their athletes to the absolute peak for fear of what might be lurking in the shadows of their own history. The result is not a robust, resilient playing list, but a fragile one, perpetually breaking down under the demands of a game that has long since left such timid methods behind. The players’ hamstrings are not just failing; they are a physical manifestation of an institutional failure of nerve.

So Jordan Ridley walks. And who can blame him? He looks north to Brisbane and sees a professional, well-run organisation. He sees a club with a clear plan, a stable culture, and a medical department that doesn't appear to be staffed by faith healers. He sees a chance to actually contend, to play in September, to fulfil the potential that would otherwise be squandered in the name of another five-year plan at the Hangar that will inevitably be abandoned after two.

His departure is not a betrayal. It is a diagnosis. It is the clearest possible signal that, for all the talk of fresh starts and new dawns, the fundamental rot at Essendon remains. It is a club haunted by its past, paralysed in the present, and with a future that looks depressingly like a carbon copy of the last twenty years. Ridley is not just leaving a football club; he is choosing competence over chaos, ambition over atrophy. He is a good player who has realised he is in a bad place, and has made the only sensible decision a man in his position could.

Is this AI generated slop? Reads like it.

 

[jdstorm]

Would you do a future second, the band one compo and best 23 player dev Robertson for the riddler?

Band 1 compo is basically worth 1 2nd round pick considering drapes would likely get band 2 anyway.

So your basically offering 2 2nds and a VFL player (who’s admittedly better then that on any other team) for Ridley.

Don’t think Dev is good enough to be that extra piece. Essendon don’t really need another small mid

Edit: would do that with Kai Lohman in the spot and then Brisbane could play Dev in their best 23.

But again why any established player wants to go to Essendon is beyond me.

 

[Keystone agony]

Band 1 compo is basically worth 1 2nd round pick considering drapes would likely get band 2 anyway.

So your basically offering 2 2nds and a VFL player (who’s admittedly better then that on any other team) for Ridley.

Don’t think Dev is good enough to be that extra piece. Essendon don’t really need another small mid

Edit: would do that with Kai Lohman in the spot and then Brisbane could play Dev in their best 23.

But again why any established player wants to go to Essendon is beyond me.

To get pick 6(Band 1), youd atleast have to give up pick 10 with 19(Band 2) to get there

 

[BOMBERS 4 LIFE!!!!]

Didn't tell the coach that he wants trade in his exit meeting. Ridleys' manager phoned Matt Rosa to tell him wants a trade.

Imagine Brad finding out after the meeting via Matt Rosa that Ridley wants a trade that's scummy by him.

 

[Wild Bill]

lol depth. Ridley would be you second best defender behind Andrews the bloke is a legit gun when fit

Zorko is better.

 

[Libbaaaa]

First Curnow and now Ridley hedging their bets and not demanding trades but using the media to do it for them, smart.

 

[Libbaaaa]

Lol

Not sure how this has anything to do with his mindless criticism of contract length?

 

[Lore]

9 pages already, hooboy

 

[BOMBERS 4 LIFE!!!!]

First Curnow and now Ridley hedging their bets and not demanding trades but using the media to do it for them, smart.

Hope it backfires on them and both Carlton and Essendon hold them to their contracts

 

[craffles]

We can’t turn our backs on those in need. Drapes and the Riddler need us. This is a humanitarian mission.

As a troll, you’re about as talented as Bradd Dalziell. Quantity doesn’t equal quality bro.

 

[Farm Boy]

We need to close the door of this northbound bus driving around Essendon.
There's another one driving around ready to pick-up what's left.

That is what happens when you're a feeder club.

 

[The Kings Ransom]

He’s a nice player.. but is he really a gun.

Compared over past few years with Charlie Ballard

10

Charlie Ballard

Age

26

Ht

196cm

Wt

95kg

Pos.

Def

Career

Season

Last 5

D

11.9

3star

K

8.8

3star

HB

3.1

3star

M

4.7

4star

T

1.2

3star

MG

185.6

3star

D

11.3

3star

K

7.7

3star

HB

3.6

2star

M

4.9

5star

T

1.3

2star

MG

158.9

3star

D

9.4

3star

K

7.0

3star

HB

2.4

3star

M

3.6

4star

T

1.4

4star

MG

156.0

3star

who wouldn’t get rated anywhere near as highly.

Ridley - fewer intercept possessions, intercept marks, spoils, a much worse 1v1 defense loss %. Ridley worse in just about every key defender defensive metric.

He clearly a nice ball user and gets lots of uncontested possessions in the back half.

But is someone who is defensively ok (not great) and gets a bunch of uncontested defensive half ball really in the game style of any of the top teams?

 

[Elite Pete]

The system is broken if Brisbane can bring in Oscar Allan, Draper, and Ridley.

And the best kid in the draft followed by a top 5 kid in back to back drafts while being maybe back to back Premier.

 

[MisterMarcus]

Allen, Draper, Ridley, Doodee, McCarthy, Marcus Adams

24

Marcus Adams

Age

32

Ht

192cm

Wt

98kg

Pos.

Def

Career

Season

Last 5

D

13.8

4star

K

8.1

3star

HB

5.7

4star

M

5.6

5star

T

2.0

4star

MG

240.5

4star

D

5.0

1star

K

2.0

1star

HB

3.0

2star

M

1.0

1star

T

0.0

1star

MG

57.0

1star

D

15.8

4star

K

9.0

4star

HB

6.8

5star

M

6.8

5star

T

2.0

4star

MG

235.8

4star

...

Lions sure do love them some injury-prone opposition players.

 

[The Inbetweener]

He’s a nice player.. but is he really a gun.

Compared over past few years with Charlie Ballard who wouldn’t get rated anywhere near as highly.

Ridley - fewer intercept possessions, intercept marks, spoils, a much worse 1v1 defense loss %. Ridley worse in just about every key defender defensive metric.

He clearly a nice ball user and gets lots of uncontested possessions in the back half.

But is someone who is defensively ok (not great) and gets a bunch of uncontested defensive half ball really in the game style of any of the top teams?

He’s a gun when injury free. Can see the appeal for the Lions if they can get his body right

 

[Pure_Ownage]

First Curnow and now Ridley hedging their bets and not demanding trades but using the media to do it for them, smart.

Neither of them is getting a trade though so it doesnt change much.

 

[mpal6]

Allen, Draper, Ridley, Doodee, McCarthy, Marcus Adams...

Lions sure do love them some injury-prone opposition players.

Injured ? Been good at some point in your career so far? Come to the front of our queue !

 

[Bald]

If I’m a player looking for success I’d want to go to Brisbane as well. They’re going to be very good for a long time.

If I’m a Brisbane player who’s had the success and is now looking to get paid I’d probably consider my options. That’s just how things are supposed to work.

 

[craffles]

Allen, Draper, Ridley, Doodee, McCarthy, Marcus Adams...

Lions sure do love them some injury-prone opposition players.

Daniher, Nakia Cockatoo, Cam Ellis-Yolmen

 

[craffles]

Injured ? Been good at some point in your career so far? Come to the front of our queue !

Can I interest you in a recently delisted Dylan Shiel