Monday Morning Sentimonies: Running Out of Gas

Riders 16 – Als 20

Explaining the Rider game from Thursday to someone who didn’t watch it is a lot like that scene from Simpsons where Homer buys the evil doll that comes with frogurt.

-        Frankie Hickson had 98 yards in the first half… that’s good.

-        He finished with 117… that’s bad.

-        The Riders dominated the first half and were up 16-3… that’s good.

-        They did not score a solitary point after halftime… that’s bad.

-        The Riders chased Caleb Evans from the game and got to play Davis Alexnader… ???... That’s bad.

In my pregame write up I ended with this “in a match-up of evenly matched teams, the one coming off the bye gets the slight edge over the team on a short week.” And that’s exactly what I saw. We were far and away the better team for the first 30 mins. But did not have enough in the tank to last a full 60. Two good teams. They were rested, we were not. They finished strong. We did not. 

Defense did their job. They allowed 3 points in the first half and only 20 total points. They forced 2 turnovers. They blocked a kick. They notched a ton of sacks. They did enough to win the game. I’m not giving them a pass of on getting decimated by a QB no one has ever heard of (a Rider tradition like no other). But despite that, they did enough to give us a chance to win. Honestly are you gonna fault them for not game planning for Alexander? I will say though, this is the first time I questioned Mace’s play calling. When Alexander came in we sent pressure. A pretty standard plan when facing a rookie. But he proved really quickly that the pressure was not impacting him and he was getting the ball out quick. I thought we should have pivoted and started dropping more guys into coverage. Force Alexander to read coverages rather than just identify one hot route. But we just kept sending pressure and paying the price for it. I will also add that Caleb Evans sucked so bad his suckiness wore off on his other players. Philpot made some drops you never make him see. If the defense were not on a short week I think they could have finished stronger but they just didn’t have that extra gear we have gotten used to. 

Offense was bi-polar. In the first half Patterson was slicing through one of the best D’s in the CFL with relative ease. Hickson (the only fresh guy on our roster) had a monster first half to power us. Then in the second half Montreal looked a lot more like a top end defense and we looked like a team starting a back-up QB. Emilus having another bout of inconsistency (or a I call it, a slight case of the Getzlafs) did not help our cause. Montreal’s offense gave us so little time of possession in the second half. We needed to make the most of the few possessions we got but could not. Remember though, that this is the best defense Patterson has played.

Also did not help that Lauther doinked twice. I won’t fault him too bad for the 57 yarder but he missed 6 points in a game we lost by 4. To beat the top teams you need your best players to make plays.

We went toe to toe with a very good team on the road on a short week. We also emerged from a very tough July schedule 2-2 with a back-up QB. I am pissed that we lost the way we did but all things considered this team is in a great spot. Our only losses so far are against the top 2 teams in the CFL and we were in both games… again with a back-up QB. Need to rest, regroup and come out swinging back on our home turf on Saturday.