Riders 40 - Argos 42 (double OT)
Disclaimer: Normally I give myself a 24 hour cooling off period after the game before penning my sentimonies to work any lingering excitement/rage/rye out of my system. The late Sunday games do not allow for this so apologies if this comes across as less coherent and more ranty than normal.
I could sum up my breakdown of the game in 2 sentences. The offense was outstanding except for that one play where Glenn telegraphed a pick 6. The defense was embarrassing except for that one play where Jake Doughty made that ridiculous pick. Its really that simple. Its a shame that such an awesome game with so much drama and big plays had to end in such a disappointing way.
This marks the second time in as many attempts where the defense has cost us a win. Our defense is so poor that if they were defending me I would likely end up found guilty of the OJ murders (he's still looking for the real killer right?). Last week I thought our coverage wasn't bad but our tackling was a laughing stock. This week our tackling was much improved but our coverage was non-existent. We let Toronto drive for game winning/tying TDs 3 times... 3! Dummy up and make a stop on one of those drives and we win. The offense kept putting the defense in a position to seal the game and the defense kept letting Toronto's offense into the end-zone. My 8 year old asked me who the best receiver in the CFL is. I responded Chad Owens... unless you ask the Riders who seem to believe is it some sort of invisible man because that's all they were covering. It wasn't just players sucking, it was the schemes, there was a play where Knox was in covergae on Chad Owens. Given all the cover guys we have on our team, Knox ranks only slightly ahead of George on the list of people who should be covering arguably the best receiver in the CFL. Kevin Glenn and Ryan Smith should get to go down the line and kick every member of the defense and defensive coaching staff in the ass because there is no way you should lose when you throw for close to 500 yards and score 40 points. Simply put if we can't find a way to keep teams under 30 points then we aren't going to come close to the post season.
Offense was outstanding. They methodically drove up and down the field all day. I loved the play calling. I loved the protection from our offense. I love how dialed in Kevin Glenn was. That pick 6 ugly (had he telegraphed it any more, I would have been able to run down from the second deck and pick that) and costly but he did way more than was needed to win that game. Holy S*%$ Ryan Smith!!! I will now refer to him by his own name from here on out and may even start referring to Dressler as "the old Smith" if he keeps this up. Messam was a workhorse. Pretty much every on O contributed in a meaningful way. A true team effort.
Bottom line is our defense is currently not good enough to win with. You would think that a head coach whose speciality is defense could maybe put together something a bit less useless. He's got until Friday to figure something out. Its frustrating because we are literally 2 stops away from being 2 and 0.
Other random thoughts:
- Only thing that would have made Paul McCallum's day any better is if he had a smoke in his mouth while kicking. Its nice to have a kicker who, you know, does his job when called upon.
- That penalty on Brackenridge in OT was ridiculous. If that is truly what constitutes a penalty in the new CFL then I hate what they have done to a once great game. He made a play on the damn ball.
- I think that Doughty has a bright future. For it being his first game he showed a lot of good things.
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