Monday Morning Sentimonies: This Is The Way

Riders 31 – Elks 42

The Roughrider equivalent of the Mandalorian is Riders seeing a heavily favoured Rider team lose to a winless team, looking at each other and knowingly saying “This is the way”. We have seen this before and sadly we will probably see it again... much like some unknown 3rd string QB picking us apart. 

With a chance to take sole possession of first place and the only thing standing in our way being a winless team coming to our home turf, the Riders choked so bad that PornHub wants to buy the rights to the game film. Though, with the benefit of cooling off and rewatching the game, I must say I have a very different perspective on the game. Don’t get me wrong, that pure rage that was flowing through my veins on Saturday is still there but we were in that game with 3 minutes to go. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t confidence inducing but we were in it. Now in the final 3 minutes we seemed to go about returning the favour Edmonton gave us in Game 1 and the end result is sadder than a single guy’s browser history. But we were in it.

Honestly would not have picked out defense to be the part of the team who struggled. Yes Tre Ford is a massive challenge to contain but when you let Tevin Jones of all people score multiple times… you struggled. I know Lanier is a massive piece to be missing but his absence alone can’t explain the best run D in the league suddenly trying really hard to double their total yards allowed on the year. As I expected, the defense struggled in the first quarter. But then stabilized in the second and locked it down in the third. I was starting to feel good because the 4^th is our time to shine. But unfortunately they replaced the NE in shine with a T instead. If they could have held on for one more quarter the outcome may have been very different. But they could not stop Leake. It’s like we were so focused on stopping Ford that we forgot about the possibility of someone else running.

Its not all on the defense though. I said, and maintain, that Edmonton does not have a good D. Well, we certainly made them look great. Three key things held us back. 1 – Patterson yet again started so slow I felt the urge to honk my car horn at him. Now after that first TD drive he settled down and was far from the biggest issue with the O but he’s not good enough to only play half a game. So we need him to figure himself out and be ready to play well from the opening kickoff. 2 – Not enough running. Frankie Hickson averaged over 7 yards per carry. He needs to touch the ball 20 times a game. Not a lot was going right on O so to not lean heavy on something that is going well seems odd. But the third thing was the biggest issue: our best receivers chose a hell of time to display all the catching ability of an inanimate carbon rod. Emilus dropped a bunch and added an offside negating a first down. Bane chose solidarity with his cement handed teammate. With 3 mins left and trailing only 4, Patterson hit Bane in stride with the perfect pass for what would have been at least a 20 yard gain. Bane dropped it, it killed the momentum of the drive and was really the point where any chance of comeback died. There was still lots of yards to go but I really think Patterson could have pulled it off… if he only had the ability to trust just one of his top 2 WRs to not be useless. 

I have always been a staunch Lauther defender but its getting to the point where he needs some competition to get him out of his funk. He missed his 6^th FG of the year. He is now 6 for 12 on kicks over 40 yards this year. When you’re on your back-up QB it would sure be nice to count on a couple 40 yard FGs when yards are hard to come by.

I know we were beat up, I know Edmonton is not a pushover, but that was a winnable game and the team failed to answer the call. For all the hype on the season we have now won just one of our last four. The adversity is ramping up and Mace needs to find a way to overcome it.

Other random thoughts:

-        Never thought I’d live to see the day where the Command Centre intervenes randomly and it goes in our favour.

-        Ajou and Johnson were the only guys with their heads on right at receiver. Ajou is going to be a monster. If the endzone turf was 2 millimeters taller he would have had 2 TDs.

-        I never want to see it again but watching Micah Johnson play O-line is kinda fun. Not technique just manhandling the guy in front of him.

-        Man I hope Sceviour and Brammer aren’t out long term, we are a couple injuries away from Corey Mace having to suit up at OL.

-        Alford is so good.

-        Picton gets the award for the weirdest and most meaningless TD I think I've seen.

-        In the first quarter Tre Ford had to miss a play because Sanders punched him in the dick. Maybe we should have employed that defense on Leake.

-        At some point on Junior Cheer Day can we re-create the greatest Junior Cheer day moment event? Bring Scott Schultz and Spergeon Wynn to the game and honour them by having them stand by an ambulance while the kids dance around them.