Monday Morning Sentimonies: Bye Week Musings

The Riders were kind enough to schedule their final bye week (of the regular season) around my plans so I was able to spend it on wellness retreat in Las Vegas. In terms of financial and physical wellness the retreat was lacking but it more than made up for it in terms of mental wellness. 

But now its back to reality and back to Rider football. If we are being honest, I’m sure most of us expected to the final game of the year between Calgary and us to be meaningless. I mean, there may have been a point in time where we thought it may have determined our playoff status but the more Calgary football you watch, the more it becomes painfully obvious this is a team going through the motions as they slowly plod towards massive offseason changes. But suddenly that game has potential to have massive implications. I’ll have full analysis of the game itself Friday but for now, here are some random musings:

 

-        Boy the Riders’ front office must be hoping for a Montreal win. I can’t imagine how empty the stands will be if it ends up being a cold evening game featuring 2 teams who just don’t care.

-        Knowing the Riders’ marketing team they will try and come up with something innovative to attract fans to the stadium… but it will just be something like a fridge magnet featuring the 2022 schedule.

-        BC has sure gotten themselves into a QB mess. If we were not relevant in the playoffs I would be throwing my full support behind VA winning a Grey Cup just for the pure chaos of how BC would handle the offseason.

-        As a noted Bo Levi Mitchell hater and someone who has spent the last 2.5 years saying that Bo is done and can’t physically do it anymore, I gotta give him full props for what he has done this season. He’s playing his best football in years.

-        That said a QB of a non-playoff team cannot be the East nominee for MOP. Team nominee sure but there is nothing outstanding about missing the playoffs in a league where two thirds of the league gets in. Its possible to applaud Bo for his great season and still maintain that he can’t be MOP. These are not mutually exclusive concepts.

-        The funny thing is that is the command centre hadn’t intervened to force a tie in the Riders/RedBlacks game, Hamilton would still have a chance to make the playoffs this week.

-        Truthfully I think Hamilton is a better team than Ottawa.

-        In a testament to how weird this season has been, currently the teams who are 2^nd and 4^th in scoring will miss the playoffs.

-        I don’t believe in conspiracy theories but in the off chance things are rigged its definitely in the league’s interest to intervene in favour of the Als this weekend… just saying.