This will be my last post in what
has been a glorious 2025. A year that saw the Riders win the Grey Cup. We will
be celebrating that one for a long time… mainly because history tells us we may
need to wait another decade to enjoy this again.
So as you sip on your nog and
whatever you choose to covertly spike it with look back fondly on this season:
-The Alford return TD in the Argo game
-An actual Nelson Lokombo pick… I think it may have
even been on purpose.
-Winning Labour Day AND the Banjo Bowl
-Not having a gust of wind ruin our chance of first place
-Despite all his struggles, Brett Lauther still clearly
not being the worst kicker on the Riders
-The ridiculous series of events that led to the West
Final victory including kicking a FG when we should not have, punting when we definitely
should not have and a magical pass to Nield to seal it.
-People getting mad that Corey Mace curses.
What were your notable moments from
this season?
From the whole Rider Prophet family
we wishing you all a a
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Kwazy Kwanza, a tip-top Tet and a solemn,
dignified Ramadan.
Sorry about not posting last week. I
hope you have recovered from the emotional damage of my brief absence. I went
down to Minnesota last weekend for a T-Wolves and Vikings game.
The trip was great… at least for me
as a Vikings fan. They were so inspired by my presence that they won 31-0. My travelling
companion who is a big Commanders fan has a very different view of the game. He
spent a lot of money to see Jayden Daniels get hurt and not see a solitary point.
Learned a few things while I was down there. First the Vikes have a “raffle” not
a 50/50. The reason its not called a 50/50 is because it is in fact a 60/40
with the winner getting 40. The way economy is going an actual Hundo/Nundo may
occur in my lifetime.
Also the Timberwolves have an outstanding in-game
promo called Bricken’ For Chicken. If an opposing player misses back to back
free throws the whole crowd wins a chicken sandwich. Man did that crowd get
amped up for those free throws. We actually saw Bricken’ for Chicken hit as a
Clipper missed 2 free throws. The building erupted. It got me thinking that the
Riders need an equivalent promo. Maybe Missin’ for Mission where missed FGs win
you ski passes to Mission Ridge. Or Doinkin’ for Donuts.
On to Rider news…
In what was the least surprising occurrence
since the Command Centre getting a call wrong, Trevor Harris is coming back for
one more. It was pretty clear in the days following the Grey Cup that he was
not done playing. Coming off a season where he stayed mostly healthy and had a great year both statistically and in terms of accomplishment why not? We were in some
trouble at QB if he didn’t come back so this is great news. As an added bonus
Tommy Time is coming back as well. We know he is a stud is short yardage. I
will be curious to see if he gets a legit chance to compete for #2. Question
will be if Maier also comes back. He owes it to himself to see what else is out
there in free agency but honestly with no starting jobs open he may opt to stay
in a pretty good situation here backing up an old man.
With QB secured the question becomes,
what’s next? Championship teams have 2 key elements: they are strong in the
trenches and have great Canadian depth. So that makes OL, DL and Canadians like
Emilus and, Campbell Allen priorities.
On the O-line we are currently sitting
pretty good. With Hardrick back we have both starting tackles and our Centre
locked up. We also have Fry and Johnson as well as our draft pick from last season who was just the top lineman in U-Sports.
D-line will be interesting. Individually
I love all our original starters (Carney, Micah, Rose, Ray) but they are all old.
And the risk with “running it back” is getting old. Colonel Sanders is a big
one for me. Him and Saad can be a strong interior if we want to go younger.
Dhonte Myers has had 3 NFL workouts
so far (Minnesota, Chicago, Denver). As much as I don’t want him to go, it would
not be the worst thing for him to go down to an NFL camp and come back in September.
Less of a hit to sign him for half a season than now.
That’s it for today. Your homework is
tomake suggestions for our Bricken’ for
Chicken equivalent.
As
we do every season, we end the year by presenting the infamous Rider Prophet
Awards. Recognizing all that is hilarious, awful and otherwise noteworthy in
the CFL. Longtime readers will note some changes to the awards. I have sun-setted
a few of the old awards and brought in some new ones. It’s an overt attempt to
try and freshen things up akin to a sitcom adding a new character.
This
year’s award winners will receive a congratulatory pat on the back... I blew all the prize budget in Vegas.
Let’s
get to the awards.
Defensive Player of the Year
This
new award will actually jointly honour a pair of players. Collectively these 2
did more to boost defensive statistics and big plays in the CFL than all defensive
coordinators combined. I am talking of course about Zach Collaros and Chris Streveler.
These two threw a combined 27 interceptions and at one point during the season, somehow
managed to rank #1 and #2 in the league in interceptions. For their perseverance
and hard work, Collaros and Streveler as your inaugural Rider Prophet Defensive
Players of the Year.
Offensive Player of the Year
In
a year where pretty much every story coming out of Riderville was positive, one
player stood alone. Kosi Oneyka.
Details
have been hard to come by but somehow he did something so offensive to the team
that he was released outright. Do you know how bad it has to be for a Canadian
player to be released from a team that at the time was dealing with a rash of
injuries to Canadians and desperate for anyone with the right passport?
Whatever Kosi did… I hope it was worth it, because he picked a bad year to get
kicked off the Riders.
Quote of the Year
Following
a loss in June Argo Coach Ryan Dinwiddie gave a press conference for the ages.
You can rewatch it in all its glory below. The best part of it was when a reporter
served up a softball question about the Argo defense making an interception to put
them on the one yard line. Dinwiddie instead chose violence and responded “I thought
new got beat up front. We got one of our guards at 280 pounds, I don’t know
what he did all offseason”
Previous Winners: Ben Major,Craig Dickenson x2, Tom
Velessi,Cody Fajardo, Dave Dickenson,Kavis
Reed/Jacques Chapdelaine, Greg Quick,Solomon Elimimian, Ed Hervey,
Joe Mack, Henry Burris, Eddie Johnson, Jason Clermont, Mike Abou-Mechrek x2
Play of the Year
I
watch a lot of football so its rare when I see something that completely
surprises me, or I haven’t seen before. In week 17 Trevor Harris accomplished
such a feat. While Harris has received awards for his great play, I will be
awarding him for a for more dubious reason. He gets my play of the year for
managing to throw 2 interceptions in the same drive. That is not a typo.
On his third pass of the game he threw a pick. The defender ended up fumbling
to ball back to us. Two plays later Harris gave it right back.
Never
seen that before.
Most Insulted Sports Figure
Nelson
Lokomobo was trending to win this award for a second year in a row until he got
hurt. For the first time in ages, my most insulted sports figure was not a
Rider... just a former Rider.
I
dolled out a lot of insults at the expense of Zach Collaros, almost as many insults
as he dolled out INTs (but try as I may, I could not keep pace). I actually
like Collaros and respect his accomplishments but the super petty part of me is
happy to see Winnipeg finally get a dose of the Collaros that the Riders had.
Previous Winners: Nelson Lokombo, Craig Dickenson, Riders O-line, Riders
Offensive Tackles, John Ryan, Brandon Bridge, Steve McAdoo, The Riders
Secondary, Any Rider QB not named Durant, Pat Neufeld, Chris Getzlaf, Ryan
Dinwiddie, Jim Daley, Michael Bishop x 2, Marcel Bellefeuille
Botched Call of the Year
I
can’t even narrow this down to one play so I will just give this to everything
related to the Command Centre (making them back to back award winners in this
category). This is by far the worst aspect of CFL football today. There is no
rhyme or reason for when they do or do not intervene. There is less than a 50%
chance that if they do intervene they will get it right. It’s a sham and a
mockery… a shamockery if you will.
Fans’ Choice Douchebag of the Year
This
seems like the perfect segue from the previous award. You the fans have spoken once
again and with once of the narrowest margins we have had in a while, the CFL
Command Centre is your Fans’ Choice Douchebag of the Year. They received 37% of
the votes. A clear sign that you hate them as a much as me. A rare case of
democracy actually working.
I
would like to acknowledge that we had a record high number of write in votes
this year with the likes of: Stewart Johnson, Shawn Lemon, the Blue Bombers
(for signing Demario Houston), Bob Dyce, and “the guy four rows down from us
that was inebriated and shoving nearby fans, then refused to leave when
security was called and had to be frogmarched out of the stadium by the police”
Previous Winners: Chad Kelly, Craig Reynolds/Jeremy O’Day/Craig
Dickenson Garett Marino, Andrew
Harris, Simoni Lawrence, Jason Maas x2, Cory Chamblin, Chris Jones, Jon Cornish
x2, Henry Burris, Dwight Anderson, Mike Kelly, Jason Jimenez, Rob Murphy
Next
week we will award the 17th Annual Rider Prophet Awards.
The cornerstone of those awards is the Fans’ Choice Douchebag of the Year. The
annual opportunity for you the fans to cast your vote and recognize outstanding
achievements in the field of Douchebaggery.
Cast
your vote on Twitter @RiderProphet. I also accept write in votes in the
Comments below:
Here
are this year’s nominees:
Chad
Kelly – I feel the
defending champion should have the chance to repeat… and its not like missing
the entire season due to injury stopped Kelly from being a douche. There was
his claim that he is a top 32 QB in the NFL and his social media post gloriously
foreshadowing his triumphant return… that ever happened.
CFL
Command Centre – Another
repeat nominee from last year. From there insistence on inserting themselves in
calls that no one wanted them to, to their complete lack of anything resembling
a coherent logic for when to intervene and whether or not to get the call right.
Not much unites Canadians these days but our universal hatred of the Command
Centre certainly does.
Micah
Awe – The dirtiest
player in the CFL and its not even close. I can only assume he has embarrassing
photos of top league execs because he continues to deliver illegal hits with impunity
knowing the worst we will get is his 20th consecutive fine. I think
we owes the league some money for his hit in the WSF that was once again glossed
over.
Shawn
Oakman – When the words
“threated”, “sexually explicit material” and “child” all make it into the one
sentence outlining the wrongdoings that more than enough to warrant a nomination.
It has now been over a week since
the Riders won the Grey Cup and this province (myself included) still remain
firmly entranced in the championship glow.
Look, Grey Cups in Saskatchewan are
a big freakin’ deal! The only other award we tend to get is for being the
murder capital of Canada. So you’ll have to forgive us if the party drags on
for a while. We have gone decades between them so we got a lot of celebrating
to get in in case it needs to tide us over.
One group who is not taking this
particularly well is Bomber fans. I get it. Watching your most hated rival win
a Cup on your home turf while your team has been out of it for 2 weeks is
painful. Had the Bombers won here in 2022 no amount of whiskey would have drown
my sorrows (though I damn sure would have tried). But just shut up and take your
lumps rather than drawing further attention to how butt hurt you are by trying
to hurl terrible unsolicited insults. Topping the list is “You only have 5
championships ever”. This is true but we have the same number of Cups as you
since 1990 and more since 2000. No one really cares that you were good in the
40s and 50s. Another popular retort is that “there is no shame in getting to a lot
of Cups and losing”. There most certainly is. No one looks on the Buffalo Bills
of the 90s as anything but an abject failure. Second place is just the first
loser and boy do you know how to lose Cups (more than anyone in history). But if
you really want to see a Bomber fan’s logic fail apart and start frantically trying
to move the goal posts on the argument tell them “Ok if losing a Grey Cup isn’t
a big deal then really the Bomber should be mocked more for 2009 than the
Riders because we at least made the finals right?”
I know there were many idiot Rider
fans in the 2 years that Winnipeg won the cup who could not take their
butt-hurtedness with any form of dignity but we won this year so we get to
celebrate and make fun of you. If you would just quietly skulk in the corner,
we’d leave you alone and thank you for hosting a great Grey Cup. But when you attempt
to wade into things are start trying to bring us down you just come across as
desperate.
We get a few more weeks to enjoy this
before reality hits us… everyone but like 5 people on this team are pending free
agents. O’Day has a ton of work to do if we are to have even a chance at the
first ever repeat in franchise history. But now is not the time to panic. The
fact that no one is signed also means that we have a ton of money to sign
people with. There is going to be some really tough negotiations and decisions
coming up. Myers, KeeSean, Baldonado and Colonel Sanders are coming off rookie
deals and have definitely established themselves of players worth more than
league minimums. Emilus and AJ Allen deserve to be paid like the top end Canadians
they are. Championships, a great coach and a winning culture help attract people
here but players aren’t charities.
Expect a few small time Canadians
to sign in the coming days. Also Expect Harris to re-sign before Christmas (its
so a done deal). Everything else will need to wait until the Salary Cap year resets
Jan 1.
As always, the Rider Prophet is
here to help get you through the long offseason. We are starting our offseason
coverage with the notorious Rider Prophet Awards headlined by the Fans’ Choice
Douchebag of the Year Award. Voting starts tomorrow. So be sure to let you
voice be heard.
You’ll have to forgive me not
posting on Monday morning. While I certainly didn’t go as hard as the players, I
did have a bottle of 2013 Grey Cup Whiskey and a visit to the green mile to
keep me from getting to bed at a reasonable hour.
We did it!!! 12 longs year we
waited for this moment and man oh man was it sweet. When the clock hit zero
(with a brief pause to make sure Bradbury didn’t rain on our parade from the command
centre) me and the whole province erupted.
As expected it was the defense that
lead the way. Four turnovers, none bigger than the goal line forced fumble by Campbell
that Sayles recovered. They held Montreal under 20 points. Other than a bust in
coverage in the secondary (cough, Fields, cough) they really did not allow
much. Marcus Sayles had a monster game. It’s amazing how good he his when his
lower body is not held together by duct tape and horse tranquilizers. Remember
that he is a Rider because BC didn’t think he was talented enough and cut
him in training camp. Thank you BC. Baldonado is growing into an impact pass
rusher in front of our eyes. A fitting way to end the season for a defense that
has been so good all year.
The big difference is that offense didn’t
leave them high and dry. They scored early and kept scoring and against a stingy D. O-line kept Harris
so clean he didn’t even need to wash his jersey. No turnovers. They made
mistakes, we didn’t. I was fully expecting a struggling Harris game. And yes he
certainly tried to throw a pick 6. But he didn’t. And other than that he
was really dialed in. Nice to see us Myers involved (good things happens when
he touches the ball) and Emilus is just a flat out stud.
Also credit to the coaching staff.
Called a great game, particularly on O. Made great in-game decisions like that challenge of pass interference.
Last year we saw a lot of potential but a lot of mistakes from Mace and his
crew. This year, they looked like seasoned vets. They also drink beer like seasoned
vets, another plus in my books.
This was a really weird year. All season
you had the feeling that they were building something special. All season they remained
atop the league. But at no point were they dominant or did they feel like
they were certifiably the best.
Standing amid hundreds of fellow Rider fans at Albert
and Vic singing song after song in unison is when it really hit me. We won!
Nothing brings this province together more than the Riders winning and Grey Cup
wins here are so special because they are so rare. It’s refreshing to end a season
just feeling content. Not angry. Not disappointed. Not hopeless. But happy.
Drink it in Rider Nation. The Cup came home and we could not be prouder of the
team that put in the work to make it happen.
I would like to point out that in
the 96 years this team existed before the Rider Prophet came onto the scene we
had just 2 total cups. Since my arrival we have won 3, more than the entirety
of before. I know correlation is not causality… but times are certainly better
during the age of the Prophet.
It has been 11 long seasons since I
have been able to write a post this important. I don’t know if you’ve heard but
if you have a been a Rider fan long enough you will know that 11 years, that’s
enough. If you do not understand this reference then it is your duty as Rider
fan to pause now and go watch this video… I’ll wait.
2013 was the last time the Riders
appeared in the Grey Cup. For context back then there was no Tik Tok, the
Ottawa RedBlacks had yet to play a single game, Winnipeg was in the East
division and Micah Johnson was a spry young rookie just starting his CFL
career.
On Sunday the Riders have a chance to
raise the Grey Cup for just the fifth time in their 100+ year history. To say it’s
kinda a big deal would be like saying air is kinda important to sustain life.
These two teams played twice in the
regular season but the results of those games are as meaningful as my season
pass to Maxwell’s Amusement (kids ask your parents). In the first one the Rider
pummeled a depleted Alouettes team and the in the second one the Als pummeled a
depleted Rider secondary… mostly Exume. This will be the first time this season
these teams face each other at full strength.
The story of the Als is they go as
Alexander goes. They are 10-0 (including playoffs) this season when he starts
and 3-8 and he doesn’t. So the key to victory is clearly murdering Alexander.
I’m kidding I do not promote violent crime. That said if he were to be
kidnapped for the day and safely released Monday it would not be the worst
thing.
While many are focusing on the QB story,
for me the bigger factor in this game is defense. This game features the best
two defensive units in the CFL. Both loaded with playmakers at all positions.
Both stingy in given up points.
Let’s start with our defense. They
are the reason we are here and if we win it will be because of them. Its no secret
what Mace’s defensive strategy is. Stop the run, force long drives and get
sacks and turnovers. I think that plays well into this match-up. Als had the
second worst running attack this season (I know we are all shocked that Maas would
ignore the run). That said, Stevie Scott has had an impressive playoffs so far
and can’t be taken lightly. The big story is of course the health of Alexander’s
hamstring. They say he’ll be fine. I say let’s make him prove it. If he’s allowed
to stay in the pocket he can hide the injury. But if he’s forced to run odds of
him tweaking it are so high Shawn Lemon is tempted to bet on it. He’s already
tweaked it twice this season running. So get pressure and get him moving. He is
not afraid to chuck it deep. 7 of his 10 TDs this season came on passes over 20
yards. We need to limit those big plays. Last week this unit shut down BC who presented
similar challenges as Montreal but is arguable better at every position other than OL.
I have faith in the Defense… maybe not Mace level, punt with no time on the clock
faith, but pretty strong faith.
Offensively this is going to be a
grind. The Als are very good on defense. #4 in points allowed. Least total
yards allowed. Least pass yards allowed. Tied for most sacks. If you thought
Harris struggled against BC last week, well buckle up. The Als have one primary
weakness… their run defense. They were 6th against the run in the
regular season and the loss of Oakman only further weakens them. Now you could
take the Winnipeg approach and only run your star RB 8 times against that
weakness or you could play competent football and hammer them with Ouelette. In
a grind out game he’s who I am leaning on heavy. Passing plays will be there
but Harris needs to be careful with the ball. He can’t lock onto receivers or
be indecisive or Montreal will eat him up. I would look to get him in a rhythm early
with some short easy passes. We cannot afford to wait until after MGK plays for
Harris to decide to play football. We won 75% of games this season when scoring
6 or more in the first quarter (its actually 100% if you exclude the final 2 meaningless
games). The winning % drops to 60% when scoring 5 or less. We know the defense
will start strong. Any kind of early offensive support is massive. Good things
happen when Myers gets the ball so lets do that early. He can turn a short
crosser into 6. Based on last game I would say lean on Emilus when we need a
first down (assuming Keesean does not play).
I unfortunately expect a script similar
to the West Final. I do believe Harris can win a ring but he’s not going to
look like a conquering hero doing it. He’s going to throw a pick early. He’s
not going to score until the second quarter. The defense will once again need
to keep us in this. This will be a low scoring defensive struggle.
But we are built for this. We are healthier.
Better rested. Deeper. I expect a strong second half where we out-grind the
Als. Brett Lauther is going to have to make a kick that either absolves him of
every miss ever or places him on a Paul McCallum story arc. I’m believe it will
be the former. Harris may not be good as he once was but he's as good once as he ever was. He showed he can deliver when the stakes are at the highest (even if the stakes are only high because he could not deliver before then).
In true Rider fashion we are going
to find the ugliest way possible to do this. But as has been the case with this
team all season, they are going to find a way to it.
Riders 24 – Als 20.. with Ouelette as your MVP and Allen as top Canadian.
I’ll see you at Albert and Victoria after the game.
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