Riders vs. Alouettes: Bet the Under

When the schedule came out I had this game circled as a loss. Short week. Road game. In La Belle Provence. Against the defending champs. This one screamed loss. “But Prophet,” you say, “Surely it can’t that bad?”. We have lost our last 2 games in Montreal by a combined 78-25. We haven’t scored more than 19 points in Montreal since 2018. We don’t play well in Montreal. Now add in the fact that we go into Montreal on a short week without Harris, Hardrick, Ouelette and Schaefer-Baker (arguably our 5 most important offensive players). There is not a lot of objective reasons for optimism.

But here I am officially upgrading our odds from “Chris Jones winning coach of the year” to “Riders selling out a non-Labour Day game”. Why? Well dammit I am buying what Mace is selling. More importantly so is the team. Obviously Fajardo not playing is a factor but for anyone who has not aggressively repressed any memory of last season, we lost to Caleb Evans last year… by a lot. My shred of optimism is fueled more by the fact that we are just a good team.

I titled this post “Bet the under”. I haven’t looked at what its set at yet but they can’t set it low enough for me not to bet under in a Thursday game featuring 2 back-up QBs and the top 2 defenses in the CFL. There might be more scoring in Olympic soccer... also more drone-based attempts at cheating in soccer apparently. 

Without Fajardo, the Als are much like us. High powered defense looking to compensate for a weakened passing attack. But that defense is a problem. People will point to the 37 points the Argos hung on them last game but 14 of those were not the defense’s fault (pick 6 and kick return) and losing their starting QB led to them being on the field a lot. I expect that was an anomaly.

So how does Patterson (minus Ouelette and Baker) manage against the stiffest test he’s faced this season (if you exclude the Montreal night life he may or may not participate in)? First and foremost he needs to keep protecting the football. Offense wasn’t great last week but he didn’t turn the ball over and he rarely went to 2 and out. That kept our D rested and in good field position. Do that more. Als are second only to the Riders in takeaways so we need to be smart. We are resting the walking limp that is Ouelette (who could still probably run for 80 if he needed to) so Hickson checks. Having a fresh RB on a short week is something we need to leverage. He needs big workload. Als are #1 against the pass but 2^nd worst at stopping the run. So not only do we a fresh RB, running is the one weak point of a stout Als D. With Baker out we need to find ways to get Bane more involved. He can turn screens or short slants into first downs. Realistically it will be a win if we can get to 21 points. Be patient and take what the D gives you. Montreal allows the least big passing plays so we are going to need to grind out drives.

Defense has the exact same game plan as last week. Shut down the running back and the rest will be easy. In our last visit to Montreal, Walter Fletcher had 141 combined yards. Caleb Evans ran for 66. We have the #1 run D so I don’t see that happening this time around. Goal needs to be, force Evans to beat us with his arm. Spoiler alert, he can’t. The Als have allowed just 7 sacks all season. Fajardo is living his best life because he could have taken that in one game here. D-Line will need to prioritize containing Evans and Fletcher and being disruptive where they can.

The potential x-factor in this one is kick return. Alford hasn’t notched a score yet but is quietly having another solid season returning. The Als have allowed a league high 9 big returns (including 2 TDs). In a game were points will be at a premium Alford could be a game breaker.

Other random stat I found interest. The Als, under Jason Maas, are the least penalized team in the CFL. Amazingly that is not a typo. Somewhere in his travels east from Edmonton through Sask, Maas apparently learned how not to be an undisciplined spaz. Between that and Winnipeg being awful this really feels like the Bizzaro CFL sometimes.

This will be a low scoring, hard fought game that will likely come down to 1or 2 plays. As much as I am hard pressed to bet against Mace, 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.

Als by a FG.