Tuesday Morning Sentimonies: Labour Day Letdown

Riders 33 – Bombers 35

Winning on Labour Day is not hard. Bad coaches have won on Labour Day. Bad QBs have won on Labour Day. Bad teams have won on Labour Day. But Corey Mace and crew managed to fail. Coach summed it up correctly in the post game presser “I thought that game sucked”. It sucked big time. The last second drama will gloss over just how not in that one we were. We were essentially chasing the whole game, when we should have been taking the play to them. Not sure what hurts more, losing on Labour Day or my head the morning after losing on Labour Day?

Everyone shares in the blame in this one. Of all people, Mario Alford screwed us (that’s a new one). Defense let a terrible offense hang 28 points on them and could not get stops when they needed them. Offense went dead for most of the 2^nd and 3^rd quarter. Receivers continue to catch the ball like they think its covered in herpes. We aren’t a good enough team to overcome all the difficulties we seem to inflict on ourselves.

I was actually pretty happy with the offense overall. We put up 3 TDs on a very stingy defense. 33 points scored should be enough to win you a game. This was done behind an O-line that you can’t even call patchwork because that would be an upgrade. Zerr, Tate and Johnson were not intended to be seeing the field this season. Though Micah did so damn good I might just go get a nameless 57 jersey as an homage. The biggest issue with our O is that the supposed “good” receivers we have who are been paid decent money are not our best. Emilus is half good, half bad and it’s a roll of the dice which one you get on any given play. Bane is below even at Emilus levels right now. Meanwhile Johnson and Meyers (who we are paying league minimum) are setting the standard on the field. After laying an egg last week, Harris did his job. His only issue was that he quit working 3 mins into the second quarter and woke back up halfway through the fourth. 

Defense did not do their job. Its becoming painfully obvious that we have a MOP calibre DB in Milligan, a guy who is more good than bad in Sayles, and the rest of our secondary is more useless than a lifeguard at an Olympic swimming event. We can’t stop the pass. I pray Jaxon Ford is healthy soon because the only time I ever notice Lokombo is when he’s late getting to a play over the middle. He adds no value back there and opposing teams are exploiting it. D-line used up their one good play on the first drive and then managed to have next to no impact for the rest of the game. Micah being pulled to O likely impacted that but still. That was about the lowest calibre O-lines we are going to get. I will give the D credit for only allowing 6 points after halftime but realistically the game was over at half. 

We suck. We have not won since July 13. When our winless streak inevitable gets extended next week in the Banjo Bowl that will 2 calendar months without a win. That some Dickenson level terribleness. If we can't even win on Labour Day then I'm gonna need Wisers to sponsor me to afford the rest of the painful season.  

Other random thoughts:

-        I get the idea of having the fans sing the anthem but they screwed up by not having someone say the first 2 words and then hold the mic up. The fans are more than willing to sing but just assuming they will all start unprompted was a bad call.