Rider Pride Report

CFL Insider's Saskatchewan Roughriders Columnist Terry McEvoy weighs in with his take on Gang Green.

I guess it was Nik Lewis playing Saturday (and catching a TD) for Calgary, but you had to wonder if Jerry Lewis might have made a few decent plays. The Riders couldn’t cope with Copeland, and Rambo even drew first blood. Joffrey Reynolds was tough, but maybe Debbie would have had a yard or two also.  

For the second straight week, the Saskatchewan Roughriders were dismantled. There’s no way to sugar-coat it, I’m afraid.  In consecutive games, they were very seriously outplayed. The defence allowed a lot over 500 yards, and the offence once again was spotty and mostly ineffective. Even worse, by the admission of several players, the Riders did not seem ready for this show.

Just as happened the previous week in Winnipeg, things went downhill rapidly for Saskatchewan. Calgary drove 90 yards on their first possession and scored, following a quick two and out performance on Saskatchewan’s first series. By the time the half finally ended, Burris and Company added three more TD’s, led 28 – 8, and coasted to an easy 44 – 22 win.

Questions, questions, and more questions will haunt the Riders this week. Where did the defence disappear to? Is there a quarterback controversy? How did the mental fire present in the recent winning streak get extinguished so quickly and completely? What changes need to happen, and how will they be made?

What’s really quite amazing to me is that this type of (hopefully) temporary meltdown seems to have haunted the Saskatchewan squad in recent years, be it Shivers or Tillman, or Barrett or Austin. I mean the games where they did not seem to come out fighting, and when they appeared to just never “have it.” It’s a disturbing tendency, but the fix needs to happen soon, I’d say. The seeming lock on a home playoff game is suddenly not nearly so assured, and another stinker this week against BC would have those same fans who loved anything Rider a few weeks ago screaming for someone’s head.

I certainly can’t figure out the Saskatchewan dilemma, but fortunately for the Riders, they won’t be counting on me to help. But help is what they need, and I’d expect some interesting name changes before Saturday at 5:00 PM Saskatchewan time. I’ll be there, and will let you know next week if my guess was correct.