Monday Morning Sentimonies: Impressive Regular Season

We now know our opponents for the West Final and in a surprising turn of events it’s the Bombers. Bo Levi Mitchell was out there handing out turnovers like he was trying to promote a new bakery, which warmed my heart. While I certainly have lots to say about the upcoming playoff game, I’m going to save it for later in the week.

Today I want to spend a bit of time reflecting on how good of a regular season we had. As I’ve done now a couple times this year, I compiled some stats comparing the 2019 Riders to the 2018 ones.

After 18	2018	2019	Difference	% Change
Wins	12	13	+1
Offense
Points	450	487	+37	+8%
Offensive TDs	25	44	+19	+76%
Passing Yards	3971	4769	+798	+20%
Rushing Yards	2014	2030	+16	+1%
Sacks allowed	27	37	+10	+37%
Turnovers	35	25	-10	-29%
Defense
Points allowed	444	386	-58	-13%
Passing Yds allowed	4425	4119	-306	-7%
Rushing Yds allowed	1655	1667	+12	+1%
Sacks	45	56	+11	+24%
Turnovers	41	33	-8	-20%
Special Teams
Punt Return Avg	11.9	9.0	-2.9	-24%
Opponent Punt Ret Avg	9.2	15.1	+5.9	+64%
Kickoff return avg	25.3	25.4	+0.1	+0%
Opponent Kickoff Ret Avg	20	17.5	-2.5	-13%
Net punt avg	33.4	35.4	+2.0	+6%
Penalties	137	185	+48	+35%
Players Dressed	71	67	-4	-6%

A couple things jump out for me. First and foremost is the 13 wins. Many of you (myself included) have never seen a 13 win season. Seasons with 13 loses I’m familiar with but not wins. Hasn’t happened in since 1970 and is only the 3^rd time ever. I’ll also remind this comes despite a 1-3 start. Expectations were lowered when Dickenson and Shivers took over for Chris Jones but fortunately they didn’t buy into that.

Offensively, touchdowns were up 76%... that is not a typo. Scoring was up slightly but the source was very different. Instead of relying on the D and Lauther, we actually just had an offense that did it’s job. Go figure. The number that stands out here for me is turnovers. They were way down. That’s one of the things that has most impressed me about Fajardo is that he’s smart with the ball. Just 8 INTs and one of those came on a 2 point convert. For comparison, Collaros threw 9 last season and did not play even close to a full season. Some will point to sacks being up as a negative but that’s more a product of running plays that could conceivably result in a sack rather than running exclusively hitch screens and runs up the middle. For all the criticisms against McAdoo (and I have had many) he deserves credit for what he did this season. He’s a very bi-polar OC. When he has a QB he trusts (like Fajardo and Reilly) things look good. When he clearly loathes his QB (Bridge) his playbook becomes so limited it could fit on a post-it note.

Defense is what really stands out for me. Many (myself included) assumed the loss of Jones would negatively affect our D. Turns out Jason Shivers had other ideas. Less points allowed, less yards allowed, more sacks, overall a less explosive but more solid defense. Turnovers were down but if you track them over the course of the season, the trend is encouraging.

First 6 games: 4 turnovers

Middle 6 games: 11 turnovers

Last 6 games: 18 turnovers

For comparison we had 10 turnovers in the final 6 games of 2018. Turns out Shivers picked up a thing or two from all those years working under Jones.

Special Teams was a curiously the one area that struggled… under a Head Coach who is a noted Special Teams expert. Lauther had an off year (even before his final game performance). I still trust him for a money kick come playoffs but he didn’t have a great regular season. Kickoff returns were great. Punting… well let’s not rehash my obviously anti-Saskatchewan views on our punter. I mean his is a West All-star so clearly its me that’s wrong about things. I apologize.

So let’s appreciate what an amazing season we’ve had so far. Who would have known that Jones bolting and Collaros getting KO’ed would have us falling upwards.

Now, let’s start getting pumped for the West Final. We are 60 minutes of football away from a return to the Grey Cup and all that stands in our way is the much hated Bombers.