Riders vs. Ti-Cats: Last Chance To Witness The Carnage In Person

Saturday the 4-12 Riders play their final home game against the 8-8 Ti-Cats… the game will likely be a “technical” sellout but realistically the stadium will be 2/3 full at best and that could drop if the temperature does. Realistically a Saturday afternoon game, in late October where the home team hasn’t won in over a month and whose motivation for trying to break that streak is about on par with their motivation to come to my house and do my yard work for me on Sunday is a pretty tough sell. Now if they were to advertise the world’s greatest halftime show, Mascot Soccer, for Saturday it would no doubt be standing room only. However, given the effort that has been put in the halftime entertainment this year my guess is that we will be treated to an imagination halftime show.

If it can’t mascot soccer I would also be willing to accept this guy…

I actually heard that they planned on having a video tribute to the 2011 season at halftime but had to scrap the idea when they couldn’t find enough highlights to fill a commercial break, let alone the whole halftime break.  

Personally I’m excited for the game… mainly because of who will be starting at QB. It only took 4 separate injuries (you know and the whole general lack of production over the past month) for Ken Miller to decided to shut Durant down for the season. So that means that Ryan “I would be a good QB if it weren’t for those pesky DBs” Dinwiddie will get the start.

 Obviously I would be more excited if we were starting a competent QB or at least someone with potential (cough Bergquist cough) but at least with Dinwiddie playing I am guaranteed some entertainment most likely in the form of INTs. Also given Dinwiddie’s track record he’ll probably be replaced by halftime anyway. Hopefully by Bergquist but the way this team has been going it wouldn’t surprise me to see Durant (there must be some other part of his body that has yet to be injured by needlessly playing him).

Even though it’s coming too late for my liking, at least the Riders are finally starting to shut down some veterans for the year in favour of some newer guys. In addition to Durant, Andy Fantuz and Barrin Simpson are done for the year.  This means that after weeks and weeks of me practically begging for it, Chris Graham might actually get a shot in the middle. Will he light it up? I have no idea. But we will never know until we give him a shot. Hopefully we will get a chance to see if Freddie Barnes can do something other than run down defenders who pick off our QB… well actually with Dinwiddie starting; odds are good that Barnes will have to do that a few times too.

Other guys who we should really give a chance to see what they can do include Patrick Neufeld, Alex Krausnick-Groh, Eddie Russ, Tyron Brackenridge and Yvenson Bernard (wait we don’t run the ball so you can scratch that one).

I also wouldn’t mind seeing Freeman hit 100 tackles (he is 6 away), Getzlaf hit 1000 receiving yards (he is 83 away) and Wes Cates hit 1000 yards rushing… haha just kidding, at the pace Cates is on he might not get 1000 yards if the season was 40 games long. On a more serious note a kick return TD would be a nice season ending treat for the Mosaic faithful.

As with the past few weeks, our opponent’s care, we don’t ergo we will lose, likely by a lot. Further pouring salt in the wounds will be the fact that we will get to see 5 guys who the Riders let get away administer the beating… Chris Williams, Rey Williams, Marcus Thigpen, Carlo Thomas, Belton Johnson. We do so well at this whole player personnel thing. If you are wondering, I intentionally left Stevie Baggs out since at the price Hamilton is paying for him I think he is immensely overrated.

Hamilton by a lot. The good news is I expect a massive fireworks display at the end of the game since we haven’t been using any up for TD celebrations.