Riders vs. Hamilton

It's Friday and another weekend of CFL action is just around the corner. Rider Prophet here, gearing up for what could be a historic week in Riderville.

After a 19 year drought, the Riders could finally clinch a home playoff game this weekend. Any combination of Rider wins and Stampeder losses equaling 2 guarantees us a home playoff game. This is such a lock that not even the Riders could screw this up.

But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. Before we can start thinking about a home playoff game, we need to first concentrate on our game in Hamilton on Sunday. That's right, for the first time this season we face the mighty Ti-cats. A team which boasts such amazing stats as: Least points scored, 2nd worst in the league in total offense, and a defense which has given up more yards than any other in the league. Maybe it would be more accurate to call them the Ti-can'ts. To be fair though, they do lead the league in 1 category... most field goals. That means the key to winning this game will be to contain Hamilton's biggest offensive weapon Nick Setta.

So earlier in the season Hamilton decided that the fastest way to improve their fortunes would be to bring in a top-flight quarterback, Casey Printers. That's worked out real well so far. Printers fell victim to the injury bug before he had the opportunity to work out the hand cramps caused by his NFL clipboard holding days. In the few games he has played in he hasn’t be that outstanding. Based on the results so far, I have to think that if Hamilton thought they could sell more tickets by bringing in a famous Casey, they would have probably been better off to go with the puppet that used to live in Mr. Dressup's tree house. Seriously, for $500,000 I bet they could have got Finnegan and the tickle trunk thrown into the deal too.

Sources say that to compensate for poor ticket sales, the Ti-cats have introduced a new line of cologne. It's a little different though - you wear it and the other guy scores… Unless you're Nick Setta, apparently.

Another interesting storyline to follow this week will be homecomings. This will be the first time Flick, Boreham, Justin, Smith, Holmes, Gordon, Kornegay and Hill get to face their old team. Also it will be Armstead and French's first chance to show off their talent to their former team. This means we can expect Armstead to dance around for a long time on kick returns for a 1-2 yard gain and French to drop passes when he’s wide open since that’s what they both do best.

Based on how many guys on our roster will want to stick it to their old team, I see us winning in a big way on Sunday. Plus we're playing Hamilton.

Around the CFL...
Dave Dickenson will be suiting up this week for the Lions when they play Edmonton. According to Dickenson, dressing for the game is just part of the process for returning to play and he isn't likely going to see action. Right... because really, what are the odds of a 3rd stringer in BC being called into action? Then again, given that the Lions are playing the Eskimos I guess the chances of the pass rush posing any kind of danger to a BC QB is next to nil. Anyone else find it kind of ironic that the QB depth chart is the exact opposite of what it was at the start of the season?

Apparently Stamps QB Henry Burris has been medically cleared to play this week against Winnipeg. Many are amazed at how quickly Burris recovered from his dislocated shoulder. Not me. I highly doubt that the fact that Burris' "miracle recovery" coincided perfectly with the strong play of Ben Sankey is purely coincidence. In fact, sources say that Sankey is one more decent game away from being cut due to the clause in Hank's contract that states that the Stamps aren't allowed to have a capable back-up QB on the roster.
That's it for now. This is the Rider Prophet signing off.