Monday Morning Sentimonies: Bottom Of The Barrel

Riders 11 - 24

Just to the east, Winnipeg will soon be putting up signs saying Welcome to Swaggerville. Here in Saskatchewan we will soon be putting up welcome signs as well... though ours will say Welcome to Loserville. We actually wanted the name Sucktown but apparently that name is already under copyright to the city of Toronto ... as well as a brothel in that town.

It took me a long time to calm down to the point where I could actually write this post. Had you driven by my house Friday night you would have seen/heard some very animated and profanity filled ranting. Something I haven’t done in a long time. Sure I get mad after loses but it takes a lot to get me to the point of rage-filled rants. Sadly the 2011 Riders have driven me to this point.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow as recently we have become accustomed to being a team that is firmly in second and in contention for first. Hell even in the latter years of the Shivers/Barrett regime we were firmly a 3^rd place team in contention for 2^nd. But now, now we are firmly a dead last team in contention with the Argos for first overall pick in 2012.

I can some up my thoughts on that sorry excuse for a game in 2 words... Offense Sucks!!!!! Our offense makes the Bellefeuille ball control offense of ‘04/’05 look imaginative and potent by comparison. Yeah our defense struggled but if you take out the embarrassing play of Nick Graham (whose stock is plummeting faster than actual stocks) they did enough to win. 3 sacks, a pick, only 2 TDs allowed (one of which was entirely due to the aforementioned Graham). They weren’t outstanding but at least they did a respectable job.

But our offense... good lord!!  Ottawa doesn’t even officially have a roster yet and I still think their current defense could handle our offense. It’s become painfully obvious to everyone but the Riders that Doug Berry is the problem. Now you could give me the standard “but the players need to take some accountability too” line but I’m not buying it. Durant isn’t running. There were times when I was screaming at my TV for him to run because the D parted like the Red Sea but he refused to run. Now either Berry is telling him not to run, in which case he should be fired. Or he is telling Durant to run but Double D isn’t, in which case Berry is to blame for not benching him. I personally think that Berry is telling him not to run but either way he’s to blame. We have the worst offense in the league and at some point maybe Berry should take some responsibility.

You could also give the “but our receivers aren’t good enough “ line. While I agree that our receivers (at least those over 5 feet tall) are crap it’s still the best we have to work with. So maybe Berry should design an offense these losers can actually execute instead of continuing to believe that eventually his game plan will start working. Think back to 2008... injuries had removed pretty much anyone with talent from our offense. We were reduced to starting the likes of Michael Bishop, Gerran Walker, Michael Palmer, Vince Marshall and Mike Washington. But Miller and LaPolice designed an offense that even this rag tag group of future welfare recipients was able to win with. Berry has infinitely more talent to work with than Miller and LaPo did and is accomplishing far less. Simple put Berry is failing miserably at his job and does not deserve to keep it.

The next logical question is who the hell would replace him? Bob Dyce I guess. Now Dyce may not be that exciting of a prospect but at this point can he really do worse than Berry? Unless of course his receivers walk on to the field with high heels and feathered boas.

I also think Marshall is failing miserably and should be fired but I’m trying to be realistic here. I don’t see that happening. That said I doubt the team has the balls to fire Berry either so I guess we better get comfortable here in last place. Booze is my preferred method of coping. I’m am thinking a trip to Sucktown might help. At least a trip there has a good chance of resulting in scoring... unlike our current team.

Buckle up friends... its going to be a long season (well technically since it doesn’t look good at this point we will make the playoffs it will actually be a shorter season than we are used to. But it will be a metaphorically long season nonetheless.)