Note: By the time you read this, the CFL may have already made their big announcement which may render much of what I am about to say irrelevant or old news. I blame the CFL for not giving their old friend Rider Prophet a heads up on things or at least being more mindful of my schedule.
Hope you enjoyed the by week. I did not. With the Riders off I was forced to watch MBT suddenly rediscover how crappy he is a week too late; Vernon Adams be bad VA and throw picks and get hurt (again a few weeks too late); and one of the most disgraceful football games I have ever seen (and I watched every Michael Bishop start). After losing to a Bomber team that completed 3 passes Ottawa should miss the playoff not only this year but the next 3 years as well as punishment.
But enough about my rantings…
With 5 games to go, the path for the Riders is relatively simple. 1 win (or 1 loss by BC and Winnipeg) and we get a home playoff game. But we have our eyes set on a bigger prize. The magic number is 4 wins or Calgary losses to secure first place in the West. Our remaining schedule is as follows: @Edm, @Ott, Tor, @Win, BC.
The perfect scenario would be winning our next 2, Calgary losing one. Then it’s a Friday night obsidian home game with 1st place on the line. Oh baby!
But after a putrid outing before the bye, obviously some improvement is needed to reach the ultimate goal. So what is that?
Defensively we just need to get healthy. Sayles and Campbell back on the corners changes things in a hurry. We need at least one of Ford or Lokombo back to at least gain some semblance of Canadian depth back and avoid any scenario where Exume Is ever forced to play corner in a meaningful game. The front 7 I think will come back refreshed from a week off. It will be interesting to see how Ray is health-wise as he appeared to get hurt bad last game.
Offensively we need a spark. After working himself into the MOP conversation early in the season, Trevor Harris has been just OK over the last few. Obviously at 10-3 he’s getting the job done but the offense has been sputtering. I look for a spark in 2 places. One, hopefully we get Emilus back. Two, hopefully that gives us enough ratio flexibility to get Bane on the roster. Obviously Johnson and Myers are ahead of him and we needed Robustelli’s size at the time but if we are looking to jumpstart the offense I think Bane is a guy that can do it.
Special Teams we need bodies. We lost Korte-Moore for the season. Hudon has been out. Normal special teamers like Oneyka, Exume and Nield have been forced into starting roles. We are dressing a second fullback because we literally have no other Canadians to dress. Same with DeShawn Stevens. If we can get guys like Emilus, Campbell and Ford back it would ease the pressure on special teams. I would also love to see Hudon back because a Canadian back-up RB opens up a ton of ratio flexibility we have been missing since he went down.
We also need bums in seats. I know it will be getting colder but we gotta take advantage of this as fans. I don’t know if you have followed Rider history buts is basically decades upon decades of heartache and misery with brief fleeting moments of hope. This is one of those moments. We have had very few legit chances at first place in my lifetime. Come cheer on a winning team before the window closes and we suck again.
My only hope is that we don’t leave our chances at first up to the fate of a freak wind gust again. I’m still very bitter about that.
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