Riders 19 – Argos 20
(In my best Chris Farley voice) Remember that time we used to win game? That was awesome.
But those days are gone. And not because of the rouge but because we once again crapped the bed. At the start of the year we were notorious for our slow starts but furious finishes. Now we have upgraded the starts to pretty good but any semblance of an ability to finish has disappeared like the guy who tainted Andrew Harris’ supplements.
This one is mostly on Trevor Harris (and the guy calling his plays). Clearly it’s my fault for praising his Montreal performance too much because he came out and looked like the second coming of Nealon Greene (but like when Nealon had a broken leg). While some passes were a thing of beauty, he mostly just threw bad picks, incompletions and generally failed to muster anything resembling an offense. Toronto was beating us in the trenches and the pressure impacted him big time. I know he’s far from a mobile QB but we needed to move his launch point. Him just standing in the pocket makes life too easy for the D-line. A rollout would help. Or some more running. It was tough sledding for Hickson but he had 79 yards. The issue was that he only touched the ball 6 times in the second half as opposed to 10 in the first. Pass game was struggling, maybe lean more on what works. What has happened to Bane? He burst onto the scene this season and has almost disappeared. Should he not me making more of an impact? Bottom line is the offense was not only useless after the first quarter but often times counter productive. 1 TD will not cut it in pro football.
Defense was very bi polar. At pretty much any part of the field they were softer than 3 ply toilet paper. But dammit once we let them get to the 1 we had them right where we wanted them! 3 goal line stands is unreal!!! But it masks that we yet again gave up over 300 passing yards. We are the victim of our own aggressiveness. Toronto ran a couple screens and I outright said “they are setting us up for a deep shot”. Sure enough a few play later, they pump and our DB gets beat deep. If its that obvious to me, you know opposing OC’s can see it. Nice to see CJ Reavis step up and have a monster game. He hasn’t played bad this year but hasn’t really had the impact I was expecting after that season. Malik Carney also continues his upward trajectory.
Its
tough enough to win when your QB shits the bed. But compounding that with bad
coaching is not a good combo. If Mace had any sense of clock management, we
would have made it to OT. I don’t often like playing not to lose. But in the
shadow of your own goal posts you need to understand the situation and just
kill the clock. Instead we went sack (damn near safety). Timeout negating a
completion and incomplete, managing to kill next to no clock. It was bad coaching
and it cost us. They did the same dumb stuff to end the 1st half. 49
seconds left in the first half and we have the lead on the road. Run it and hit the lockers. Instead we
stupidly decide to throw. It ends up being a pick and costing us 3 points… in a
game we lost by 1 point I’ll remind you. We aren’t good enough to overcome bad
coaching decisions like this.
I feel the need to comment on how we lost. Is a missed FG a dumb was to lose? Yes. But I love the rouge and will defend it until the day I die. Its Saskatchewan’s fault for gifting Toronto field position and time on the clock. Now I would support a rule tweak to align FGs and punts with kickoffs. Kick out the back gets you nothing, you only get a single if its downed in the endzone. That would keep the spirit of the beloved rouge.
After
starting 4-0 we have been 1-5-1 since. That’s not a great summer. We have all
the tools of a contending team but until we learn to play 4 complete quarters
it won’t matter. Honeymoon is over. Its time
to start seeing some damn results.
Other random thoughts:
- On the play just
before the first Patterson 3rd down plunge I swear we were a mile
offside.
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Until
they change the rule, I fully support Dalke and any hair pulling of opposing returners.
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Korsak
had a great game.
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After
being the talk of the province it was nice to see Lauther go out and quietly
take care of business.
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Did
Marcus Sayles sleep with ref’s wife and/or daughter? Because he could sneeze on a receiver at
this point and get called for PI. They calling everything on him not matter how
incidental or not his fault.
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That
one play where Schaefer got tackled for a loss looked like he was supposed to
throw it. But he bobble it a bit and the pressure came too quick. But the call
was definitely for him to throw.
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I
like how Kelly tried to sell that he got hit in the jaw when it was clearly to
his chest. Probably not getting much sympathy from the refs this year.
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Somehow we're still in first place in the West. God Bless the CFL
ReplyDeleteYou take away Milligan and the secondary is NOT good. The O-line had a poor game but the Argos front 4 are ridiculous
ReplyDeleteBryce - BC and Ssk still on top despite not winning in over a month. That's crazy.
ReplyDeleteAnon - Getting harder to argue with that. Never been sold on Lokombo. Fields had been quietly effective up until recently. Sayles is the best non_Milligan guy and he's inconsistent.