Riders vs Eskimos Round 3

Good Day Rider Fans. This is your friendly neighbourhood Rider Prophet gearing up for a home game against the 3-3-1 Eskimos.

I'd like to start off by congratulating Reggie Hunt on being named Defensive Player of the Week for his performance against the Argos. Amazingly enough Reggie was the first member of the CFL's top ranked defense to win the award this season. I think that's a sign of just how well the Dawgs are playing as a team. When asked to comment on how he managed such an impressive performance, Hunt said "I just never thought we'd get to line up for an actual game against our scout team offense!"

Now on to this week's game... Edmonton comes into this game more banged up than a cougar at JDs. Many starters won't make it onto the field in Regina including Tucker, Ebell, Comiskey, Morgan, and Alston. You really have to feel for Ricky Ray. Imagine his disappointment when he goes into the huddle only to find his already bad O-line missing its best 2 members, his go-to receiver is Kamau Incompleterson, and his RB changes more often than a weather forecast on the prairies. You know he just shakes his head and curses Maciocia under his breath.

One Eskimo that will not be sitting the game out is AJ Gass. He managed to delay his suspension yet again by calling in an independent arbitrator. The whole situation is ridiculous if you ask me. Two weeks ago, Gass was suspended by the league but he continues to play football. The way that the CFL's discipline policy is currently set up basically means that if you get suspended you have to sit out 1 of the next 3 games but it's left up to you to decide which one. That's like a court judge telling a burglar "I'm sentencing you to 2 years in jail, but you can serve those 2 years anytime over the next 10 years. I'll leave it up to you to figure out what works best for you." Ridiculous!

Sources say that after the arbitrator upholds the suspension, Gass and the Eskimos plan to delay things even more by launching a Human Rights complaint to the Supreme Court of Canada. Word is their goal is to have AJ serve the suspension during the West Semi-Final since the rest of Eskimos will sitting that one out as well.

While I don't expect another blow-out like we saw last time the Eskimos came to town, I do expect the Green and White to chalk up another win on Saturday. Given how many starters they are missing (and the fact that their starters weren't that good to begin with), our defense should be all over them like Michael Vick on a plea bargain (side note - apparently once Vick found out that our defense had adopted the nickname DAWGS, he had an irresistible urge to wager on our game). And besides if Omar Morgan couldn't cover Matt Dominguez, how is Morgan's back-up going to?

Well that’s it for now. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to email the Rider Prophet. Your feedback is always welcome… unless of course its negative feedback in which case it was probably intended for Rob Vanstone and should be directed accordingly.