Defense Always Wins Games Sucker

Happy Hump Day Rider Fans. Rider Prophet here with my mid-week Rider thoughts.

Tomorrow night the Riders will be in Vancouver to play the Lions. They will be looking to avenge their loss to BC as they did with their loss to the Eskimos. This game will see 2 of the best defenses in the league squaring off.

For BC, injuries will play a big role in this game, They are already down 2 QBs, and as many as 4 starting defenders. This is not a good sign for BC. Normally they walk out of a game against us with a myriad of injuries. Now they are walking in with a bunch. They are so strapped for QB’s they had to go out and sign a back-up from AFL2 (the league for people not good enough for the Arena League).

Given our history of injuring Lion players, you know that Wally seriously considered forfeiting this game. From a long term perspective it may just be easier for them to concede the 2 points and walk away with no more injuries. Just look at what we’ve done over the past couple seasons:

• Of course 3 weeks ago, Fred Perry knocked Dickenson senseless.
• In 2005 we knocked out both Dickenson and Printers in the same game.
• Last year we knocked out Jason Clermont (6 weeks) and Tony Simmons (season) both within the first 2 weeks of the season. For the record, I'm pretty sure Simmons only missed two weeks because of the actual injury and spent the rest of his time on the shelf trying to recover from the bruised ego he sustained as a result of being injured by a kicker.
• And who could forget Jackie Mitchell, who hit Dave Dickenson so hard last year that it ended Antonio Warren's career.

Nate Davis stopped by Mosaic Stadium this week for a visit. I was listening to Sportsline that night and someone phoned in to talk about that and actually asked if there was a chance we would bring him back. They politely replied that Nate is thinking about retiring. What they really wanted to say is: Are you kidding me? Yeah there’s good coaching, let’s replace a member of our top rated defense with a guy that has already been cut by 2 teams, one of which was us! What do you think this is? Toronto?!

Speaking of Toronto, former Rider QB Rocky Butler has made it to number 2 on their depth chart. Given that Toronto will be playing Montreal this week, I’m thinking that Toronto will rely on Rocky more for his ability to predict every play Bellefeuille will throw at the defense than his ability to lead the Toronto offense. Then again if all Pinball wanted was someone who could scout the Bellefeuille offense I’m sure he could have convinced any Rider fan to do it for a case of Pilsner (shotgun draw, 5-yard out to Thurmon, punt and repeat).

Well that’s it for now, unfortunately this week I will be forced to watch the game in regular D as opposed to HD, stupid TSN. I guess I will just have to settle for watching a somewhat blurry Fred Perry level Jarius Jackson.

Sources say Buono has already prepared the envelope he will use to send the game film to the league office. Whether this is because he wants the officials to admire Fred Perry's clean, text book tackling methods is still uncertain.

Until next time I'm the Rider Prophet.