Monday Morning Sentimonies: The Easy Way

Riders 37 – Lions 18

After 3 solid weeks of heart attacks, curse words and finishes way to close for anyone’s liking, Saturday was a nice refreshing resounding win. Sure it had some moments of uncertainty but overall we did our job and comfortably beat a team that we should of. 

All eyes were on Jake Maier and… well he got the job done. If this was a exam he put in a solid 70% performance. There were times he looked unsure and panicky but he avoided making any big mistakes. When the team around you is running this well and playing defense like they were, not doing anything stupid is pretty much the whole job assignment. Maier nailed it. I’m sure Mueller’s pregame speech to Maier was “Hey Jake, how’s the arm today? Great because its going to get put to use a lot today… handing off to AJ.” We some flashes of what Maier can do on those passes to Duncan-Busby and Robustelli. 

Turns out that Ouelette on a good hip is a monster. He is chewing up big yards. Since his concussion scare in game 1 he has logged at least 90 yards and a TD in every game. He was averaging 6 yards per carry. We honestly could have just not passed and ran Ouelette and Stevens back and forth and still moved up and down the field on BC. 

After 3 weeks where the talk was primarily about how soft we are versus the pass, the defense came to make noise on Saturday. The caveat is of course that at this point in his career Jeremiah Masoli belongs under centre about as much as me after a bottle of Wisers (or sober). But you can only play the cards you are dealt the Riders were about as mean to Masoli as you can be without saying something about his heritage. That first Campbell pick took any life BC had remaining and dashed it on the turf. Masoli was so generous in handing out picks that he even let Antoine Brooks get his first career one (seriously Masoli, what makes you think that throwing to the shallow sideline is going to turn out well at this point?). Their top receiver was Eberhart. On a team featuring Hatcher, Cottoy and McInnis that’s a resounding win. 

Special Teams also stepped up and contributed in this one. Lauther worked his way out of his funk and nailed all 7 of his kicks. That was also probably the best I have seen Couch punt. In the second half he had two absolute beauties that just took and unfortunate bounces into the endzone. I also am a big fan of him running the Jaime Boreham. For the younger readers, a Jaime Boreham is where you sail a short punt super high and then run down and try and recover it yourself.  

Simply put, the Riders were the better team in all three phases. When you control the ball for over 38 minutes that domination. Injuries still continue to plague us but hopefully a bye week can slow the growth of our injured list. Heading into the bye week the Riders sit a comfortable 4-0. 

Other random thoughts:

-        Even though it went in our favour if that horse collar tackle call was any later from Bradbury it would have arrived by carrier pigeon.

-        They also called a roughing the passer so bad that even Zach Collaros thought it was a soft call.

-        They all missed many offsides by BC.

-        Not a banner night for officiating.

-        I did see Lokombo make one play… and it wasn’t even by accident.

-        That play we ran that was a wide receiver screen with no blocking… let’s just rip that out of the playbook and burn the paper.

Riders vs. Lions: Quarterback Roulette

In the days leading up to Saturday’s game between the Riders and Lions there has been a lot of uncertainty on what the QB match-up will be. It could be Harris vs. Rourke. It could be Maier vs. Masoli or any combination thereof. As of writing this, its looking like Harris vs. Masoli but we may not actually know until tomorrow. 

Even four weeks into the season there is still a lot we don’t know about both teams. The Riders are undefeated but displayed all the killer instinct of a bay deer in the process. The Lions looked like world beater when playing the lowly Elks and looked worse than the lowly Elks when playing the mighty Bombers. I imagine the truth is somewhere in between but who knows? 

Offensively the Riders come into this game with the most TDs scored this season. Ouelette powers a strong run game. The passing attack can be sporadic but when its on its deadly. The Lions have allowed the 2^nd most TDs. They are 2^nd best against the pass but 7^th against the run. Any guesses where we should focus our attack? BC has a good front 4 and it scares me to have Trevor Harris coming off concussion protocol and having to be on the field with serial headhunter Micah Awe (the CFL’s all-time leader in repeated fines that don’t lead to suspensions). Running solves a lot of those concerns. I have Ouelette cracking 100. Expect the pass game to go through Johnson and Myers. This would be a great time for Harris to break his pick per game streak. 

Offensively BC is struggling. 2^nd most TDs allowed. Lowest completion %. Most turnovers. I have all the respect in the world for Masoli as a person but much like Drake, his career peaked in 2018 the years that followed have not exactly been kind, particularly of late. I am more worried about Masoli being pulled and us turning their 3^rd stringer into some sort of phenom than I am about Masoli. What does worry me is that BC’s offense (2^nd in passing yards but 7^th in running) is perfectly suited to counter our D. We won’t let you run but passing yards, yeah we give those out like STDs at Craven. So expect us to follow the Mace formula yet again. Stop the run, let them pass and hope to counter with sacks and turnovers. What we need to do is start better… i.e. don’t give them a TD on the first drive before remembering how to play. And finish better… we have allowed 11+ points in every 4^th quarter this season. 

Mario has some good returns that tease us but not TDs this week. Lauther finally breaks out of his funk. BC has averaged 18 points per game in the last 2 weeks.  Our offense have never scored less than 3 TD in a game. So hold them to 20 or less and we win. 

Once again I see us making this way closer than it has any business being but we should not lose to Masoli at home. 

Riders by a Tommy time TD.

Monday Morning Sentimonies: Save Me Mario

Riders 39 – Argos 32

There were two all time great moments to come out of Friday’s win in Toronto. First was obviously Mario Alford. As of Saturday morning he could walk into any house or business in this province and people would give him anything he wanted: food, money, sexual favours from their wife, sexual favours from them, you name it. But the other, was an epic post game press conference from Ryan Dinwiddie.  If you haven’t watched it here the link, I can’t recommend it enough. The best line (probably of the year) was “You know one of our guards is 280 pounds. I don’t know what he did all offseason.” Gold! 

Back to Alford for a second. I hope you all appreciate that we are witnessing all-time greatness in front of our eyes. Alford has already established himself as the best returner in Rider history. He his now knocking on the door of CFL history. He is one away from tying the record for kickoff return TDs and 3 away from tying Bashir Levingston for most return TDs by a guy not named Gizmo.  With 15 games to go this season I don’t think we’ve seen his last endzone call.

There are a number of things that are just guarantees when it comes to Rider football. Our defense will allow a TD on the first drive of the game, that same defense won’t allow any semblance of a run game, and if the Riders win they will do it in the most complicated, heart attack enduing way possible. Just accept it. But as much as I don’t like how we are going about it, I am just happy that the end result keeps on being wins. 3-0 is a great start.

Offensively its amazing what a difference a healthy Ouelette makes. He is leading a strong running attack. He averaged over 5 yards per carry. Between him a Stevens we were able to put together some clock draining drives. Harris was very up and down. In his good moments we were carving through the Argos thanks in large part to a breakout game from Dohnte Myers. This is a team with Bane, Baker and Emilus on the IR and guys like Myers and Johnson are stepping up to ensure the passing attack remains dangerous. While his good far outweighed his bad, Harris did throw a pick for a 3^rd straight game (and could have had 1 or 2 more) which ended up gifting Toronto a TD. For the amount of injuries its dealt with, the O has actually been pretty solid overall. 

Surprisingly the defense is not as solid as we’ve come to expect. To their credit they do lead the CFL in sacks and you can’t run on them. They had a good redzone stand and the turnovers are starting to come. But you can pass all day on us and facing a Bo Levi Mitchell on the downside of his career and Arbuckle you can maybe get away with that but better teams are going to make us pay. Fields is the weak spot and teams are starting to attack it. I still have no clue what Lokombo does. I see him chip in in run support but in passing situations I can’t even tell what he is supposed to be doing. Whatever it is its not making an impact.

This group is allowing 27 points per game but how they are allowing it is really interesting. They allow 15 points per game over the first 3 quarters. And remember they pretty much automatically give up a first drive TD before deciding to start trying. So from drive 2 until the end of the 3^rd they play great. Then the 4^th hits and they allow almost as many points in the 4^th as in the previous 3 quarters (12 points per game). We need to spotting teams a free TD and we need to learn to close games out. 

You can blame me for all the penalties. I commented in my game preview about how much improved we were over last year. Like mentioning a possible no-hitter, I jinxed it. Sorry. The majority of those penalties were deserved and preventable. That said, its not Micah Johnson’s fault that he has tree trunks for arms and Arbuckle ducked his head into them rather than taking the legal hit Micah was trying to deliver.    

I love Lauther and everything was looking great for him bouncing back after shitting the bed last week. The with a chance to ice the game with a chip shot FG he goes and fires up the mob again. The could have cost us the game and he has single handedly (footedly?) cost us 11 points in 2 weeks. He starts next week but there needs to be a new kicker in town ASAP to push him… and replace him if this doesn’t resolve itself. Lauther won’t blame it but I really think the change from Korsak to Couch as holder is having an impact (at least mentally). Maybe time to try Maier or Stevens to see if that settles him. 

We are 3 and 0 and each week different players are stepping up to get us there. It may not be pretty but at least our Coach hasn’t had to get so mad he threatens to fire someone and singles out one player to mock his weight. Life is pretty good. 

Other random thoughts:

-        Another week, another solid showing by Aubrey Miller on teams.

-        Carney always, always, always goes inside when he’s rushing. Any slightly mobile QB is going to roast him if he can’t fix that very noticeable bad habit.

-        The Riders are playing a 5^th round pick who has dressed for 3 games and 2 American guards and they have allowed just 2 sacks. That just defies all logic on how you build an OL.

Riders vs. Argos: Opportunity Knocks

For the second week in a row the Riders find themselves on the road in Ontario looking to stay unbeaten and keep their opponent winless. This time it’s the reigning Grey Cup Champion Argos on tap. While we are all still very appreciative of how they embarrassed Winnipeg in the Grey Cup I do hope this game goes about as well for them as pretty much any time their head coach actually played.

We should and need to win this game. If we are truly one of the top teams in the CFL like we fancy ourselves then we have zero reason to lose to a team missing their best player on both sides of the ball in Kelly and McManis. Its really that simple.

It has been a rough adjustment for Nick Arbuckle to return to the regular season. Grey Cup Arbuckle looked like Doug Flutie. But it turns out regular season Arbuckle looks a lot like Nick Arbuckle. So far in 2025 he has led the 2^nd worst offensive attack, produced a league low 2 TDs, been sacked a whole bunch and led the CFL in interceptions. He is completing just 28% of his passes over 20 yards, by far the worst in the league. As I said, it’s a fitting homage to his head coaches playing career (only difference is Arbuckle did not epically blow it in the Grey Cup).

Argos really need to get the run game going to help old Arbuckle out. Fortunately that have a talented weapon in Ka’Deem Carey who can lead that attack… oh wait. Awkward. We know that shutting down the run is our specialty. So I don’t expect this to be the game where Toronto rediscovers the run. We do allow an eye popping completion % of 74 in pass D so Arbuckle may put up some stats. But we lead the league in sacks and Toronto allows the second most. And Toronto has the most giveaways. Coxie and Ungerer will get chunk plays but they won’t able to sustain drives. I can see this being a game where Mike Rose shows up on the stat sheet.

Offensively the major concern is how much our depth is being tested so early. We are already down 2 top tier Canadian WR in Baker and Emilus. Best way to deal with that is pound the ball in the ground game. Argos are allowing 125 yards per game on the ground. Ouelette and a returning Hudon should be able to power us to at least that. Cam Judge is a playmaker but without McManis that D is vulnerable. In the pass game look for Harris to rely on Johnson and Myers (pretty much by default) but I expect Duncan-Busby and Picton to contribute important 2^nd down conversions. Toronto allows the most pass plays of 30 yards or more so if there was ever a game for Harris to prove he can still go deep, this it. Toronto has just one takeaway all year.

Brett Lauther will not miss this week and if you want to know why the team loves him and has made him a captain just look at how he took accountability this week for his play.

I also want to point out that we’re are the least penalized team so far this year. Last year after game 2 we had 18 penalties. This year we have just 8 (and one of those was pure BS).

Toronto is a tough place to play but if we can’t beat a roster this depleted then we are in trouble. Guarantee we don’t do it convincingly and find some new ways to make my blood boil as we almost blow it, but we’ll win.

Riders by an Ouelette TD.

Monday Morning Sentimonies: Déjà vu

Riders 28 – Ti-Cats 23

Stop me if you’ve heard this story before. The Riders start 2-0 under Corey Mace, the wins are anything but confidence instilling and filled with many curse worthy plays, offense had flashes of greatness amid long stretches of futility, Brett Lauther is mired in an early season slump. This is just last year on repeat… I just hope we can avoid that whole not winning for a month part.

In the aftermath of Saturday’s game I would like to remind people that the Riders are 2 and 0. Have their wins been so ugly that even a paper bag and case of beer could not make them pretty? Yes. Do I care? Not really. We found a way to win and that’s all that matters in the end. We haven’t won the West since 2019 and haven’t made it to a Grey Cup since 2013. I would endure 14 straight 3-2 rouge-fest victories in the rain to end either of those droughts.

People will tend to focus on the negatives after that game. Yes Lauther cost us 9 points in a one score game and year after year treats the summer CFL schedule like it’s the preseason. Yes our defense consistently left receivers so open that it looked like we were consciously trying to avoid them. Yes our offense is about as consistent as cell coverage in remote northern Saskatchewan. Believe me there are many things to criticize and the walls of my house were bathed in curse words for a large portion of that game. But in spite of all that we still won. We overcame. We battled through. We found a way.

I am dubbing 2025 the year of the Johnson. KeeSean is our best receiver (yes I even give him a slight edge over a healthy Emilus). The passing offense should run through him because he makes things happen. Daniel Johnson was a 5^th round pick making his first career start at tackle and did not look out of place. Micah Johnson remains a leader on and off the field and sets the bar for effort ever week. I dare say we need more Johnson. I love Johnson. I just can’t get enough Johnson. Give me all the Johnson I can handle. 

There are also a couple players who think that the rumours of their demise have been greatly exaggerated. AJ Ouelette (who many assumed would never again leave the IR) finally showed us the player we hoped we were getting when we signed him. I know it’s a big if but man, oh ma if he can stay healthy. Maro Alford was all but replaced in fans' minds coming into the season and just keeps making impact returns and justifying his ongoing spot on our roster. 

Offensively we need to find a way to start faster. Until that Ouelette run there was a whole lot of nothing going on. Some great things happened in the second half but we need to get going early. I am as big of Hudon fan as there is but Ka’Deem Carey got 6.5 yards per carry in his first appearance. I would be hesitant to take him off the roster.  Last week I cut Harris a break on his INT saying it was contact and not a lack of arm strength that led to it. This week it was a lack of arm strength. If he threw it further it’s a big completion and maybe a TD. Teams are going to start taking away short stuff if we cannot establish some kind of deep game. KeeSean is a stud. Myers continues to impress and Duncan-Busby is making the most of his opportunities. 

I will cut the D some slack because they received pretty limited offensive support. Through 3 quarters they held Hamilton to 10 points and added 6 of their own. They held up their endof the bargain. The struggled to hang on in the fourth though. I think Milanovich had an awful game plan. In the first quarter it was quite apparent that DeMarcus Fields was a liability and ripe for getting taken advantage of. Yet in the second half Lawler and White spent a lot of time lining up on the side of the field with Milligan and Sayles (aka the only good part of our secondary). I know that schematically we are built to give up passing yards but Saturday was a bit too soft even for my liking. Not pretty but enough to get the job done. 

Other random thoughts:

-        Our discipline is hugely improved over last year. We barely took any penalties in this one… and the one on Emilus was a Shamockery. It was a sham and a mockery. The only softer than that call was our pass coverage.

-        Some day people will start giving O’Day credit for his drafting. As just a small example go back and look at what he did in rounds 3-7 in 2024: Duncan-Busby (starting and improving every week), Straker (solid special teams player), D Johnson (starting offensive tackle), Mimbs (depth WR) and Ajou (in the NFL).

-        If you are a gambler (and I know many of readers are) always take the over on Lawler receiving yards when he plays the Riders.

-        Aubrey Miller is very noticeable in a good way on special teams.

-        Lauther will be fine… but just to be same someone program his phone so it shows September. Fall Lauther is infinitely better than Summer Lauther.

Riders vs. Ti-Cats: Bo Knows Sacks

Saturday the Riders go on the road for the first time in 2025 looking to stay unbeaten and keep the Ti-Cats winless. The Ti-Cats went out and brought in talent in free agency to bolster their team but have yet to see the fruits of that. The Riders are just generally happy to be able to find 45 guys healthy enough to dress in any given week.

In theory, an offense featuring Lawler, White and Bridges should be intimidating. But with the Ti-Cats it all hinges on Bo Levi Mitchell. You can buy a Porsche but if you pour urine in the gas tank it ain’t gonna perform. I am an unabashed Bo doubter. Great, hall of fame worthy career but it took an abrupt nose dive starting in 2019. Yes, last year was amazing. Full props to him for one of the best statistical seasons of his career. But let me ask you this… which is more likely? That Bo has abruptly ended a 5 year decline in performance and physical durability and found the fountain of youth… or that 2024 was an outlier and he continues to be on the downside of his career? Watch game 1 and tell me. 

His stats and the score are wildly misleading. Through 3 quarters he produced 154 yards, 11 points and no TDs. Then proceeded to pad his stats as the defense protected a 3 score lead… and still finished with a lowly 62% completion percentage. Can we take Bo lightly when he has Lawler at his disposal? No. But 2024 Bo ain’t coming back. 

Defensively, the biggest news of the week is that Milligan is good to go. Thanks to those of you that prayed to your deity of choice. When he went down I assumed he was done for a while. Him not missing a game is massive. You can bet Hamilton will be looking to get RB Bell going after not even cracking 50 yards total in week 1. Good luck. If you haven’t figured it by now Mace’s defensive philosophy is stop the run, let them pass and hope to derail drives with sacks and turnovers. Had our DBs been able to catch, game 1 would have gone perfectly to script. Hamilton has really good interior 3 O-linemen but relatively inexperienced tackles (22 total starts between them). Bo is probably about as big a risk to run as I am to break one of Summer McIntosh’s swimming records. So our front 4 should be able to focus on stopping Bell and pressuring the QB. They need to be disruptive and not wait until the 3^rd quarter to do it. Expect another 300 yard game from Bo that hides how not great he was yet again. 

Last year Hamilton’s D was awful. Their QB threw for 5000 yards they had the second most TDs and still missed the playoffs. Why? Because their defense was as about effective at stopping them from getting scored on as a ruffie. So they got rid of Chris Jones and brought in some free agents to shore that up. And the new look defense in game 1… proved to be worse than last year. 38 points allowed (and that’s despite getting 3 takeaways, it could have been worse), 158 rush yards allowed. Meet the new Ti-Cats, same as the old Ti-Cats. 

We need to attack that, preferably without waiting the standard 1-2 quarters before our offense decides to start doing something and preferably without stopping 15 minutes before the end of the game. Ouelette seems to be good to go (for now) and Ka’Deem Carey looks to suit up as well because Hudon is hurt (no doubt a sore back due to carrying this team). We need to pound those RBs at them. Expect Emilus and Johnson to be focal points this week. Also expect Picton to just keep doing Picton things. This will be as close to our desired starting OL as its gonna get so they should be able to keep Harris clean.

Discipline could play a factor in this. Hamilton took 11 penalties last week, the Riders took just 5. 

I don’t think Hamilton is as bad as they looked in Week 1. But I also don’t think their defense is very good and I don’t think Bo has another magical season in him. We should win. We will find an overly complex and stress inducing path to that victory. Ouelette about the score the game sealing TD collapses on the 1 due to heat exhaustion. Hamilton returns for a TD with 15 seconds on the clock. We recover the onside kick but some obscure rule you’ve never heard of (card rule) gives Hamilton the ball. Hail Mary bounces off 8 different players before getting inadvertently stuck in Lokombo’s facemask to end the game. Something like that.

Riders by a Lauther FG.

Monday Morning Sentimonies: The Rider Experience

Riders 31 – RedBlacks 26

The following statements are all true:

-        The Riders gave up over 400 yards passing

-        They lost the turnover battle 3-1

-        The lost the time of possession battle by 10 minutes

-        They lost their best player and 3 additional offensive starters to injury (3 of them before the midway part of the 2^nd quarter)

-        For a large part of the game their best punt was a 12 yarder off their placekicker’s left foot.

-        They did not register a solitary offensive first down in the fourth quarter

-        They won the game

If you recall how the first few games of 2024 went, the rollercoaster than was the home opener should come as no surprise. The “Rider experience” is essentially finding the longest, most improbable path the victory and not securing that victory until the absolute last second (to the detriment of the cardiac health of those in attendance). Get used to it.

Thursday was really a play in 3 Acts with a humorous intro. The intro was Ottawa taking a delay of game on the first play of the game. At that point the fun ended and Act 1 began. It was pretty much every awful thing imaginable. Ottawa carves through the D to score an easy opening drive TD. Pass rush is non-existent. Every positive play (such as a big return or completing pass) was followed by a negative one such as a fumble. Then of course the injuries started piling on. It had even the calmest Rider fans thinking the sky was falling… and Saskatchewan is not known for having the calmest fans.

Then Act 2 began. It was wonderful. Two straight quarters of Trevor Harris finally taking advantage of a god awful Ottawa secondary. As we all expected, the sparks to the Rider offense were Picton and Hudon. Defensive line started making their presence felt. We entered the 4^th quarter with a 17 point lead. 

Act 3 was entitled “hold on”. The offense completely quit. 21 total yards over 5 drives, one first down purely because of penalty and another turnover. I don’t particularly like that our defense started gving up points but consider Ottawa is loaded with talent and considering the offense was not just providing zero support but actively working against them I think they did alright. Those 2 sacks they came up with were game savers. Gotta give the D big prop though, not only did they allow zero points off turnover, after that opening TD they did not allow another point until over 10 minutes into the second half. The only bigger gap I can think of is the many decades that past between Marcus Crandell being done playing and officially retiring. 

But hey, a win is a win. They found a way. Our offense put up 30+ points despite only playing three quarters of the game. Our O-line (featuring a solitary guy playing the position we intended him to coming into the season) allowed zero sacks. We were very disciplined (something that cost Ottawa). Other than that long Campbell PI we played a very clean game. The defense lost the best defense in the CFL and still held it together. That’s a gutsy win with lots of positives. Not a sustainable way to win but it got the job done this week and that’s all that counts. 

By the way… I would just like to point out that my game preview contained this quote “Offense will struggle out of the gate. Defense will give a TD on the first drive and then wake up and lock things down. Come the second quarter offense will pull us back into in” 

Other random thoughts:

-        That half time show is exactly what I would expect if you told me they found the performer in a bar in Weyburn. Country song into Rage Against the Machine (when his mic conveniently had technical issues just when they were getting to the lyrics), Hinder, Creed, back to country. Wild ride. Anything involving Rage gets thumbs up from me and much better than “Mosaic” four hundred times.

-        At least 3 passes should have been intercepted by the defense. We can’t miss on opportunities like that. Though I will forgive one of them. Yes a mildly competent DB would have intercepted that gift of a pass rather than knocking it down but that is the first time I actually noticed Lokombo make a play in the regular season. So I was not mad.

-        Demarcus Fields took a helmet square in the nuts. That poor man.

-        In real time I assumed that Harris INT was because of his old man arm. It was a great play call and the right read but he did not get it far enough downfield for what would have been a TD. But upon watching it again I think the pass was impacted by him getting hit more than any arm strength issues.  

-        What did we do to get so injury cursed here? Two straight seasons of hard earned yards week after week in Toronto and Ouelette’s fine. Signs in Saskatchewan, can't make it to halftime of game 1 in either season before getting hurt. Collaros couldn’t order McDonalds here without getting concussed. Leaves the province and becomes the model of durability.

-        The Riders have been up to my section exactly once since the stadium opened, so we started a new tradition this game of doing our own in game contests. Game 1 was trivia for lotto tickets. If you want in on the fun come on up to the west side second deck every game we will have contests and prizes.