Monday Morning Sentimonies: It Blows

Riders 12 – Stampeders 27

Ever get the feeling that the football gods are against you? I mean, I’ve not sure I’ve seen any clearer sign that they are not on our side than that gust of wind that arose in perfect timing to snuff out Montreal’s punt and give Winnipeg the chance to win that game. I have never seen anything like that. 

That gust of wind sucked any energy out of anyone in the province, both fans and players. I honestly think that if Winnipeg had been pounding Montreal at half, we would have played a lot better. We would have had the chance to mentally prepare. But up until the wind gave us the metaphorical DX crotch chop, we all thought we might be playing for 1^st. I guarantee the players were living and dying on the TSN feed like us fans were. To go from “holy crap we are playing for first” to “this game is meaningless” in a matter of 10 seconds of game time had to impact things. Should we have been more ready? Sure. Do I understand why we played with all the enthusiasm of me when I went to work hungover in my 20s? Yes. 

The game was essentially a preseason game. We got some reps for our back-ups. We emerged healthy, mission accomplished.

While the regular season ended with a whimper I think we should take a minute to appreciate our success. We are coming off 2 years of missing the playoffs. Realistically I was hoping for 3^rd place. How we got there is a bit ridiculous but 2^nd place in a rookie head coach’s first year here is an accomplishment. Home playoff games should be the standard (you know if you exclude the 80s, 90s and most of the early 2000s) and that was met. 

A few individual accomplishments I would like to highlight:

-        Trevor freakin’ Harris. If you prorate his stats  over a full 18 games season, Harris was on pace for 4800 yards and 30 TDs. His completion % was second among starters. The old man did good.

-        Speaking of laudable old men… Micah freakin’ Johnson. He did not miss a game, even had to fill in along the OL and notched 6 sacks (his most as a Rider).

-        I know Milligan rightly gets the hype but Canadian AJ Allen led the CFL in special teams tackles and filled in admirably in spot duty on defense.

-        Everything to do with the OL from coaching to players it was a absolute joy to not bemoan the peewee quality of our OL in a year where based on all the injuries we likely should have expected to. 

But the job is only just beginning. The real season starts now all the aforementioned stats and accomplishments won’t matter if we are one and done in the playoffs. Rest your voices Rider Nation, we gotta be ready to bring it on Saturday.