Monday Morning Sentimonies: I Got A Lot Of Problems With You People

Riders 2 – Bombers 31

Last year we thoroughly embarrassed the Bombers in the Banjo Bowl. This year they returned the favour. I would have liked to open this post with a joke about how the Riders must have missed their plane and sent a bunch of other random people in their place. I’d like to… but I can’t. There was no mistaking that the team on the field on Sunday was the Riders. There was our useless O-line, our mistake prone QB, our atrocious return game and our second rate coaching staff. Oh yes, those were the Riders no doubt. As sad as that is to admit.

The loss was so embarrassing and infuriating that I’ll have to write my thoughts in point form rather than make an attempt to form them in paragraphs.
- The fact that Dominique Dorsey is still on our active roster is an embarrassment. He contributes absolutely nothing to the team and in many cases actually harms the team with his repeated idiocy. Dorsey’s job is to field kicks and advance them up the field… currently he is doing neither of those. It would be kinda like continuing to employee a carpenter who can’t measure and isn’t really good with saws. What exactly are you paying him for then?

- The way our line is blocking, they wouldn’t stand up to most peewee teams. Joel Bell can’t get healthy soon enough because if we don’t make some adjustments there teams will continue exploit that glaring weakness.

- Though it’s hard to fault Durant when his line can’t block, he is still making bad decisions. Shovel passes to Cates even though he has 3 defenders draped all over him. Passes into double coverage. Not seeing open receivers. He just looks lost out there.

- Somebody tell me why we aren’t using Fantuz?!? The guy caught 5 passes all for 1st downs and was open for many more but we refused to throw to him. Did he sleep with Durant’s woman? Is Berry still bitter over Fantuz scoring the TD that lost his team the ’07 Cup? Why are we ignoring a talented possession receiver?

- Rodriguez. Well the good news for him was that given Dorsey’s epic failures, Rodriguez’s didn’t look as bad by comparison.

- We were thoroughly out-coached. Winnipeg clearly had a game plan on both sides of the ball and we did not, nor could we adjust to theirs. The biggest example of getting out-coached was when we gambled on 3rd and 2. Winnipeg saw what we were about to do, called a timeout and adjusted their defense accordingly. Despite this we still ran the same play (the one the Bombers were expecting) and surprise surprise it failed. Our coaches continually show an inability to adjust.

- Lance Frazier better be taking James Patrick out for a nice supper to atone for costing him 2 INTs (though admittedly the second call on Frazier was pretty weak)

- Man oh man did Szarka get nailed on that one! Fortunately for Szarka he’s used to fighting off power tools so a big hit was nothing he couldn’t take.

- Here’s a sign of how bad things got during the game… at one point I was reduced to actually wishing we’d put Dinwiddie in.

- Of course then he came in a bounced 2 short passes off the ground and I was reminded of how much I hate him and I smartened up and promptly began calling for Cole Bergquist to get a shot.

- We are terrible on the road. Aside from beating a really bad BC team we have had zero success outside of Mosaic.

- Matt Dunnigan is the greatest colour commentator ever. Him calling that Montreal/Hamilton game made my weekend. He’s so damn entertaining. The best was how excited he got about that fight only to later go on about how that isn’t CFL football.

For me the most concerning thing isn’t that we had a bad game, that will happen from time to time in a competitive league. The most concerning thing the shortcomings of our coaches and GM that this is exposing. Repeated failure to win on the road points to a lack of preparation on the part of the coaches. There is no accountability for players such as Dorsey, Rodriguez and Goodspeed, they are simple allowed to go on sucking without fear of ever being replaced. And along our O-line even if we wanted to we can’t make a change because we have no alternatives Bell is hurt and Smith well the man is like the Jesse Lumsden of the O-line. Don’t you think somebody should maybe be bringing in some other recruits to try and address our issues? You know, like our GM. Isn’t that his job? Is there seriously no O-lineman on the face of this earth that can suck less than our tackles have been?

I’m not about to write off the season because there is too much talent on this team and all good teams will struggle at some point. We struggled in ’07 we struggled in ’09. But I’d be lying if I said I’m not concerned about the weaknesses that are developing and our GM/coaches unwillingness or inability to address them.