Monday Evening Sentimonies: I’m Back

Made it back from the East coast (despite the best efforts of a certain airline to derail my efforts). Trip was wonderful. Yes I kissed a cod. Yes I got drunk on George St. Yes I went to Dildo. So other than use a whale as a surfboard and get a puffin to puff on a cigarette I pretty much hit my checklist. 

I have pretty abbreviated sentimonies today as I only managed to watch most of game on my phone during the reception of a newfie wedding.

-       Our Punter can hit! And apparently do game changing hard counts

-       Must be nice for Hale to not be the worst kicker on the field.

-       Nelson Lokombo made an actual safety play! (probably should have had 2)

-       D-line had a solid game with a lot of pressure.

-       Toronto rushed 4 times in that game. One of those times when for 13 yards. I know we like to talk about the offensive genius of Dinwiddie but his religious opposition to even attempting to run is somewhat baffling.

-       Be nice if Harris could go back o just being good. Not sucking so long he needs to set up a dramatic comeback.

-       Wiebe is a first down machine

-       That was gritty, ugly win that we desperately needed.

Bring on Labour Day!

Riders vs. Argos: East Coast Prognostications

By the time you read this I will on the east coast enjoying all that Newfoundland has to offer (aka pubs, seafood and possibly a jig). Mrs. Prophet and I are off on vacation returning Monday. So I will not be attending the game. I have sent my children to hold down the fort, if we lose blame them for not cheering loud enough. If we win I anticipate a petition to keep me away from further games will be coming (I understand). 

So I wrote a brief pre-game analysis before jetting off to Dildo… it’s a real place that I plan on visiting. Google it. On second thought do not google it, just take my word for it. This was written early in the week without the benefit of any practice reports are anything like that. So if this is all irrelevant come Friday when you read this feel free call the Ombudsman. 

Toronto is a weird team to me. They are simultaneously both better and worse than they should be.  Their offense is very good. #1 in passing, high scoring. They are carrying on their former head coaches deep seeded hatred of rushing (the only team with less rush yards is Dinwiddie’s RedBlacks). And Chad Kelly may throw a lot of TDs but he hands out INTs like they are unwanted passes at female coworkers. This is a team that hung 40 on us last time we played. Their defense is not so great (7^th in points allowed, 7^th in yards allowed, most big plays allowed). They do lead the league in sacks. On special teams the Riders would all be happier if Janarion Grant never touched the football again. He’s just a Rider killer. 

For the Riders it all boils down to health. As of writing this Emilus was just returned to the 6 game IR and there is a legit chance we are forced to play newly acquired WR Shemar Bridges for lack of any other options (other than Daniel Johnson, who we all know will be leaned on to fill the Emilus void). Toronto is going to put up points. Simply put, I don’t think we have the horses to compete in an arms race. Harris will break out of his funk at some point… but I don’t see it happening until we start getting healthier offensively. 

I think the Riders keep it close. Defense will keep Kelly suppressed early. But offense won’t be able to capitalize as much as needed. Eventually D will run out of gas and offense will produce one drive to few. You may be happy that me and my negative energy have been banished many time zones away. 

Better days are coming but we gotta wait one more week. As they say in Newfoundland “Long may your big jib draw”. I don’t know what that means b’y but it sounds nice. 

See you next week

Monday Morning Sentimonies: Sucking It Up On Sunday

Riders 16 – Lions 30

I longingly remember a time where football wasn’t painful to watch. When touchdowns came more that once every 6 quarters. When positive plays weren’t a rarity. And when mistakes didn’t negate the positive plays we had. Well Sunday left no doubt that those days are dead and gone. 

There were exactly 2 good plays in that game:

#1 – Daniel Johnson motioning out to wideout and proceeding to not only make a reception but take it for 17 yards.

#2 – For the first time this season, Jaxon actually played safety like you are supposed to and made an impact play.

That was it. Everything else was either a terrible play, or a good play negated by terrible play.

Our offense has gone MIA. We have 2 total TDs in the last 2 games and failed to get 20 points in either. You simply can’t win with that kind of offensive production. The garbage yards he amassed padded his stats and hide how bad Harris played. He was off for the second game in a row. Making bad reads, forcing balls he didn’t need to, missing passes that were there, throwing INTs that sucked what little momentum we had. Its not like he was getting help from his fellow players. We had a Conley TD called back on a needless penalty. Joey Jojo had an awful game and was responsible for a turnover on one of the rare times Harris made a play. Obviously injuries play a factor but this was an offense that was near the top of the league in scoring and now I don’t think they could find the endzone unless you gave us 13 tries and from the 5 yard line and we only let Tommy touch the ball. Harris and Mueller need to get this sorted. 

Defense actually did not play awful. They shut down a great run attack. They kept it close despite no support from the O for the second week in a row. They were far from perfect but they are not what is holding the team back at this point. More pressue up front and more turnovers would help but they are holding up their end of the bargain for the most part. I don’t like Jaxon Ford. I do think we use our safety weird and some of it is just him doing what he’s told but aside from the INT you just don’t see him make many positive plays (except maybe in run stopping). I do think the roughing penalty he took was way too ticky tacky. If the ball isn’t tipped it would have been a textbook play. Many things can be blamed on him, that wasn’t one. 

As we evaluate where we are at after 10 games, I see us as a good team that is not playing great football and making too many mistakes to overcome our mediocre play. We didn’t play well and probably should have won last week. We didn’t play well and stayed in this game far longer than we should have. We are a good team but until we start limiting the mistakes and doing something… anything, on offense it will all be for naught. 

Other random thoughts:

-       There was clearly a missed holding call on one BC TD.

-       I have no clue why BC was still letting Rourke throw with 3 mins left in the game up 2 scores. Just run the damn ball.

-       There is probably a simple explanation that one of you can provide but I don’t understand something about the clock. In the 4^th quarter BC threw an incomplete pass prior to the clock hitting 3 mins. Despite the incomplete pass the clock kept going until the 3 minute warning. Should it not have stopped on the incomplete?

Riders vs. Lions: Reinforcements

Sunday the 6-3 Riders travel to BC for a match-up with the 4-5 Lions who are riding a 3 game win streak. These teams last met in the season opener where the Riders emerged victorious in a tight game. After that game the Lions had an extended stay in the West basement due to a combination of a flurry of offensive injuries and a defense so bad they couldn’t stop a team that was all on crutches. It was to the point where it was more a question of when, not if, Benevides got fired as DC. But Pierce stayed his course and suddenly with a win BC is just one game back of the Riders. 

Thankfully we finally get some good news on the injury front. We get Canadians back and good ones at that. We could have Saad, Fry, Emilus and Letcher back. For a team that was not far off asking Coach Mace and Mueller to dress so we had enough Canadians, it’s a welcome turn of fortune. 

Offensively I cannot understate how important getting Emilus back is. I think we are in tough for this one but Emilus’ presence upgrades our chances from “Ottawa’s chance of winning” to “my chances winning at the craps table in Vegas” (odds aren't in our favour but its certainly possible). As previously mentioned, BC’s defense started the season looking like they were auditioning for a job on Ryan Dinwiddie’s team. But in the last few weeks they have improved by leaps and bounds. They have allowed the least yards overall and 4^th in points allowed. They have the #1 run D. So our chances hinge on Harris not have back to back crap weeks. Last week he played QB about as well as Trevor Harrison (this is a very clever reference, google it). Thus Emilus is a massive add. With only 1 of the big 3 it was going to be a struggle. But with 2 top end receivers the offense should be firing again. With a guy like Betts out there we need to keep some balance with the run to keep him from just attacking Harris. I don’t expect another 400-yard game from Harris (like we saw in game 1) but I think 300 and 3 TDs is very possible. 

In game 1 we were the beneficiary of anything resembling a receiver for BC being injured. We won’t have that advantage again. But we generally seem to play Rourke well. Ironically I feel more confident facing him than any back-up QB in this league. We also won’t have the advantage of predating the moment in the season where it became glaringly obvious that Zander Horvath is the Lions’ best RB by a wide margin. Butler is not suddenly useless but any game where Horvath doesn’t get double the touches Butler does is a failure on the part of Buck Pierce. So we need to limit the run and put pressure on Rourke. BC is 7^th in sacks allowed so our D-line should have favourable match-ups. BC also has the 3^rd most giveaways so while they will probably put up points, they will take risks in the process. Biggest help defensively would be long extended drives from the O. Keep our D off the field. 

Had Emilus not been healthy this would have been an easy loss to predict. I still don’t feel great about our chances but at least we have the horses to go toe to toe with them now. I see a very close back and forth battle (like our last couple clashes with the Lions). I expect us to play much better than last week a) because we are healthier and b) because although the Lions D is no longer the utter embarrassment they started out as, they are not near the calibre of Hamiton. That said I think we have one more week of misery before we get things back on track. 

BC by a last minute FG.

Monday Morning Sentimonies: Opportunity Blown

Riders 19 – Ti-Cats 26

The best summary I can give for that game was that Alex Hale was legitimately our best player on Saturday. Kudos to him but that tells you all you need to know about the rest of the team. After all the praise our depth got for not missing a beat last week, we got to see how effective that depth is when not playing an absolute joke of a franchise. We did not get blown out, but we looked a lot more human than we have in a while. Offense had to play a rock solid D and looked like a team missing a third of their starters.

As pissed off as I was about that game, the difference was 2 plays given up on D. Harris throws an errant pass that gets tipped up into an INT giving the Ti-Cats the ball deep in our territory. Two plays later they toss a deep pass over top of Lokombo (shocking). Then there was the miracle Ford to Wheatfall throw. Take one of those passes away it’s a tie game. Take both away and Hamilton did sweet FA all game. So I won’t hang this on the defense. Yes they failed to get a sack. Yes they couldn’t make a big play when needed. But through 3 quarters the only play they gave up was because offense put them in a bad spot. And most of what happened in the fourth can be blamed on them being tired from receiving zero help from the O. Defense wasn’t great but I feel they played well enough to give us a solid chance.

Offense was a completely different story. They just sucked. The first quartered featured an offensive game plan based entirely on nothing but swing passes. Curious choice and by curious I mean stupid. The 2^nd and 3^rd we actually managed to grind out a few drives and look respectable. But then to reward themselves for the effort the O just didn’t bother showing up for the 4^th . They literally could have been more effective by not taking the field at all. In the 4^th we had 4 drives: 3 of them were 2 and out and 1 was an INT. We ran 7 offensive plays and one of the gained positive yards. When you factor in the sack given up and the yards lost on the INT we netted a total of -2 yards in that quarter. Like I said, would have been better to just not take the field. Harris had a terrible day. Receivers weren’t exactly helping him out, nor was Mueller’s playcalling. It’s clear you can’t just expect to roll over an actual defense like Hamilton with your practice roster starting. (Seriously though, after watching the Hamilton game how much worse does it make Ottawa look?) 

I’ll try and end on the only positive… Alex Hale. After months of not even being willing to let him try a kick over 40 yards (for good reason) we suddenly were like, screw it, and let him kick from anywhere. Maybe Mace just finally decided either I’m right about you or you’re going down in flames but we need to figure that out now. I don’t suddenly believe Hale has turned the corner and will still hold my breath anytime he lines up but its reassuring that he can actually hit long distance FGs. 

The loss was costly because it should have been a winnable game but instead we let Edmonton reclaim first and BC and Winnipeg gain ground in standings. We tried to win a road game by only putting in 2 quarters of effort. That won’t cut it. Only gets harder from here unless we start feeding our injured list some steroids. 

Other random thoughts:

-       For his first game I liked Star Thomas.

-       Dylan Djete is also growing on me.

-       I am anything but a Lokombo lover but I truly believe our secondary would be better if he went back to safety and Bell played corner.

Riders vs. Ti-Cats: On The Road Again

As a Rider fan I feel qualified to say this do to lived experience, the football gods seem to hate the Ti-Cats. We all mocked Winnipeg for not winning a Grey Cup since 1990. But the Ti-Cats are the new Bombers and creeping up on 30 years without a Cup. The Renegades came and went in the time since they last won. Their fans have long suffered. They suffered through Burris embarrassing himself here in 2013. They suffered through the called back kick return the next year. They suffered. But this year should have been different. They should be competing with the Als for 1^st. They have a Grey Cup caliber roster. But instead Bo got hurt and they are once again suffering. 

You might look at this game and think that due to them starting their 4^th QB of the year this should go the same way as last week. But there is one massive difference between Ottawa and Hamilton (other than Ottawa managing to win a Cup this century). While Ottawa’s defense was dog shit, Hamilton’s is legit. They have a top 3 defense despite having nothing resembling an offense. 

So let’s look at how our offense is going to overcome that formidable D, given that that’s the key matchup in this game. The Ti-Cats allow the 3^rd least points and the 3^rd least yards. They are stingy particularly in the pass game. I would say we should lean on the run but with our backup RB questionable we may be relying on Star Thomas the 3rd stringer. I don’t see us ignoring the run, it will not be a focus and it will be a split between Hudon and Star. This will be on Harris and it will require him to be patient. Unlike Edmonton and Ottawa he won’t have an easy air show. This will be a far more traditional Harris dink and dunk game. Obviously KeeSean is a focus but Hamilton will key on him and unlike Ottawa they are talented enough to be effective. Joey Jojo and Busby will need to play a big role. Need to avoid turnovers and take what we get. Settling for FGs may be required… which regardless of kicker makes me ill at the thought of it. 

Offensively Harrison Frost is an upgrade over Dolegala, who we saw in the first game. But that is a bit like saying a hotdog is an upgrade over manure in terms of food quality. Frost is completing only 54% of his passes so its not like he’s super intimidating. But with a D as good as Hamilton’s he just needs to be okay to give them a chance. Hamilton is 7^th in rushing so keeping them one dimensional should be doable. Lawler and Smith are dangerous receivers if Frost can get them the ball. So D-line needs to make life difficult. Secondary just needs to play solid and limit big plays. The more Frost has to throw the better for us. 

Let’s not forget that we are still a very depleted roster. We are a couple injuries away from me being a viable option as a token Canadian. We are on the road. We are playing a good defense. This is no gimme and this is a losable game. But kinda like I did last game I go back to the QB match-up. Harris is playing some of the best football of his storied career. Frost is playing because he’s the last remaining option after an injured guy and 2 more who were flat out terrible. 

This will be hard and far closer than I’d like (that’s what she said). We will need to grind it out and probably come from behind. 

It will take a late FG (Hale or Hodge), make it we win. Miss we lose. 

I say we win.

Monday Morning Sentimoines: Ya Who?!

Riders 42 – RedBlacks 20

On a night that fittingly started with a fan getting injured in the pre-game relay contest (which by the way, running a gauntlet of ropers in an inflatable suit is diabolically hilarious) I think the first half of Friday’s game delivered exactly what we were expecting… terrible football. On one side you had a team that is literally down to one Canadian remaining because they are so riddled with injury. On the other side a team that hasn’t won in almost a calendar year. But then after halftime one remembered it was good and the other remembered they were still not and the end result was lopsided beatdown despite Ottawa being in the lead early in the 3^rd quarter.

We had to empty the practice roster for this one. Anyone with a pulse and Canadian passport was dressed. Half our roster was rookies including 4 starting players on offense. We tested the limits of our depth and guys stepped up. Mimbs, Djete and Joey Jojo made impacts offensively despite a combined playing experience of 15 games prior to Friday. I feel bad for the long-suffering Ottawa fan because if you can’t even come within 20 points when playing essentially a preseason roster, I don’t know what there is to hope in. Not even Stewart Johnston’s incoming “everyone makes it” playoff format could save them at this point. 

Offense had 3 big things going in their favour. First was the O-line. The only sack they gave up was by rookie Darius Bell when he lined up at TE. Otherwise the starters (including rookie Erik Andersen) gave Harris time to operate. The second thing was Trevor Harris. Other than that one ill-advised pass to the RedBlack LB he was rock solid and kept the offense rolling despite most of his normal starters being on the 6-game. Offense could have easily gone to hell but he trusted in the new guys and kept rolling. The final thing is of course Tommy Stevens. Here's the telling stat of the day: Tommy had more rushing attempts, rushing yards and points than all off Ottawa combined. KeeSean Johnson should only be targeted on hooks or outbreaking routes going forward. He’s solid on those. But give that man an easy slant and he displays all the receiving prowess of a box of Cheerios. 

Defense played solid, almost boringly uneventful, but solid. Thurman has really stepped up his game these last couple weeks. Not that he is even “bad” but I felt he had a slow start to the season by his standards. But these last 2 weeks he has been back to his elite form. Jonathan Edouard might be the steal of the season. For a guy we picked up partway through the year he has been a solid starter. Why on earth was a Canadian with his abilities unemployed? (Thank you Argos). He became the first DB to get a pick for us this season. Liam Hoskins is a guy who keeps making plays when he gets a chance. That game for me encapsulates Jake Maier. He didn’t play bad. He had one turnover and threw for over 300. But despite that he produced very little points. Now his coach could help him out by even occasionally trying to run the ball. Dinwiddie seems to hate running almost as much as he hates punters who wuss out on making tackles. But what we saw Friday was Maier’s ceiling… mediocrity. I did have to chuckle about Bethel-Thompson (at age 63) being sent in for mop-up duty only to get killed. 

Two final things I need to address. 

First, that BS roughing the long snapper call. The intent of the rule is good, to protect the snapper when he is in a vulnerable position. So you can’t line up over top of him (we did not) and you can’t engage him when his head is down (we did not). Adams went after the gap between the guard and snapper and it was both guard and snapper who initiated blocking with him. I feel bad that their snapper got injured but that was a legal play. We were robbed of a TD and yet again I am left wondering what the purpose of the Command Centre is. They seem to be willing to randomly intervene and impact the game at will except for when something egregious has happened to us. 

Second and most importantly, if you did not attend the game in person you missed the greatest halftime show possibly ever. By greatest I mean it was so lame/bad that I was almost in tears laughing at it. If you missed out, they had a trick roper who also told jokes. The best way I can describe it is that I think this guy was legitimately a top end act in 1970 and based on that has changed nothing about his act since. Highlights included making a “yellow rope of Texas joke” that 4 people understood, making an Amway joke (how could that possibly not get laughs?), playing a plunger with a rubber chicken (that is not a typo, that’s what actually happened), all building to the big finally where he had to end the show because he got a call on his iphone (a fake toy phone with two giant eyes on either end). I think we need to make his signature joke a fixture going forward:

Knock-knock

Who’s there?

Ya

Ya Who?

Yahoo!!!!!!!

Is beating Ottawa anything to brag about? No. But a beat up roster managed to not let a winnable game slip through their grasp. A massive win in light of Edmonton and Calgary both losing. We are now back in first place. Hopefully we spend the coming week either airlifting in a bunch more back-up Canadians, or injecting all our current injured Canadians with the best steroids you can find (they can’t randomly test all of them). 

Other random thoughts:

-       My current conspiracy theory is that we have rigged the coin toss at home. Hear me out. The Rider logo is always tails, pretty much guaranteeing an opposing team will never pick it. The coin lands on tails a very disproportionate amount of the time leading me to believe it’s a weighted coin.

-       The anthem singers are extremely talented and have great voices but they took way too many creative liberties with the anthem and I thought it was bordering on O Christmas tree-levels for how much they wandered from the actual song.

-       Kudos to Hale for not sucking this week (maybe its his new tinted lenses). It’s sad that we have so little confidence in him that we punt from the 42. But as much as I hate that we have to it was the right call to punt and I loved the play call with the onside guys.

Riders vs. RedBlacks: Wounded

Under normal circumstances, a home game against a winless team (particularly when you just took down a first place team) should be as close to guaranteed win night as it gets. But these are far from normal circumstances. To say our depth is depleted is an understatement. We are running out of back-ups. Particularly Canadian ones. We are dressing Darius Bell, not because we have a pressing need for a 7^th OL but because he was one of 2 remaining Canadians to choose from… the other was also an OL. So next injury means either we dress 8 OL or that new kicker we finally brought in is lining up at receiver. We have no fullbacks. Our “big 3 receivers” now include Busby and Djete. I am actually happy Lokombo is back. Things are dire. We are probably currently inquiring into just how retired Mitch Picton is. If this trend continues, we may start testing how retired Getzlaf and Elgaard are. 

So suddenly a very winnable game is a big question mark. My level of doubt is not quite at “the strait of Hormuz will open soon” levels but it is well past “a semi won’t hit a Saskatoon overpass today” levels. But I keep coming back to the fact that Ottawa just isn’t very good. 

Let’s start on defense because that’s where we are the closest to normal. Ottawa has the least offensive points… yes less then all the teams who have been reduced to playing their 3^rd string QBs. They are 8^th in yards. Maier has been playing better of late… but by better I mean better than crappy Jake Maier, not good. He is completing a very respectable 70% of his passes but has the lowest yards per attempt and an abysmal 8 TDs to 9 INT ratio. Is Maier the only reason Ottawa sucks? No. But his ceiling is mediocre. Defense need to keep him below that ceiling. They will be without one of the best OL in Desjarlais so that could open things up for the front 4. Disrupt Maier and he will default to harmless checkdowns or reckless long bomb INTs. Oddly enough our defense has been getting it done without the benefit of turnovers. They have just been generally solid (most days). This could be a chance to boost our turnover numbers as Ottawa leads the league with 23 giveaways. Ottawa could help Maier if they had any desire to attempt to run but they average a negligible 59 yards per game. 

Offense will need to deal with a new D-Coordinator in Jeff Reinbold. He inherits a defense that allows the most points and most yards… nowhere to go but up I guess. Expect him to simplify the D to hopefully get them playing looser and faster. RedBlacks have the 8^th best run D so I would lean on Conley early and often. As much as I don’t love our depleted WR-core I still like Trevor Harris and believe that he will adapt just fine to whatever Reinbold throws his way. It will take him one quarter of offensive futility to figure it out but as long as the D doesn’t dig us an early hole we will be fine from there. Logic says this should be a big KeeSean game (two sweetest words in the English language: De Fault). But Ottawa likely keys on him so look for Joey Jojo to play a bigger role and possibly another Busby game. They key is not turning the ball over. I trust our D to keep Ottawa under 25 (given that they have score 25 or more just twice this season, I like those odds). So we don’t need Harris to be a world beater, just steady. 

One thing to watch as our Canadian depth hits records depths, is special teams. We are losing special teams guys and special teams guys are being called on to play more starting reps. Ottawa has a dangerous returner in Pimpleton and leads the CFL in kick return average. I see them scoring on a kick Friday, as I curse profusely.

We barely eked out a win in Ottawa when we were much healthier, so winless record aside this is a losable game. In fact, I think we will try hard to do so. But I think we barely grind out another ugly win and stave off the wheels falling off the bus for one more week. 

Riders by a Conley TD.

Enjoy the "whatever the thesaurus told us was an altenrative for Country night so we could make it seem like we were being creative" night.

Monday Morning Sentimonies: Evening the Score

Riders 28 – Elks 26

Happy Saskatchewan Day! Its a holiday that celebrates invented days so we have to work less.

The Riders were certainly celebrating on Saturday. A rain delay made us all wait longer (and likely spending the time refreshing ourselves on when the CFL can call a game and just award it to the team currently in the lead) but we were rewarded with a win. 

I am quite certain that if you told us going into the game that Duncan-Busby would be our top receiver and it would be another game where we lose multiple starters, we probably would have all turned it off at half. It was an unconventional, scrappy win that took everyone stepping up to make plays, but we pulled it out. Partial credit to the Edmonton defender who got ejected without ever hitting a Rider. I would have to guess that there has never been (and never will be another) hitting a ref/embellishment combo leading to an ejection. 

I gotta start on defense. Given that I spent most of the previous week ripping our pass coverage and comparing its effectiveness to a couple squares of one ply toilet paper on Taco Bell night, I should be as quick to praise a bounce back performance. Way less busts. Way less miscommunication. Way less open expressways to the endzone. I know its not Milligan’s fault and its coincidence but we seem to play better without him for some odd reason. Edouard is a pretty solid player. Burgess looked good replacing an injured Campbell. Ford is still a liability in any non-running situation. He runs away from the middle of the field like a deadbeat dad going for cigarettes. On the last Luther TD it was him leaving his responsibility in the middle that left it open. D-line stepped up and created pressure. We have something in Derick Roberson. Not only did he have a sack and a few pressures in his debut. He also had 2 special teams tackles. I very much look forward to a DE rotation of Vaughters, Evans and him. We once again kept Rankin as largely a nonfactor. Though after watching his production and how often Leake subbed in over the past few weeks I am convinced Rankin is not fully healthy. There’s no way he doesn’t get more reps and touches if he was actually fully good to go. 

Offensively it was a true group effort featuring a ragtag group of people I don’t think we ever expected (or wanted) to make an impact on the game. I already mentioned that Busby led the way. Our second best receiver was Joey Jojo (Johnson the 3^rd). Mimbs even contributed a key catch. Yes on a team with a Big 3 of Emilus-Baker-Keesean we were forced to rely on a Big 3 of Busby-Mimbs-Joey Jojo. This was mainly due to Baker getting hurt and Keesean spending most of the game looking like he thought he was playing volleyball. Keesean did redeem himself in a big way in the end. Conley had a pretty solid game. His pass blocking is improving. It was a mixed bag in pass game where he made some key plays but also dropped a gimme. He ran pretty solid including a highlight reel reverse hurdle that you will be seeing for years. Not near the height that Saquon got but still a damn impressive move. With due respect to Ouelette, I think Conley adds an explosive element to our offense that actually improves us. The day belonged thought to Tommy Time. Just a workhorse for us. Even hobbling on 1 good leg at the end he still got his job done. 

I still really don’t understand how we played better on the road with a severely depleted roster but its clear that there is not much separating us and the Elks. We are the top 2 teams and this time enough plays went out way to eke out a win. That said, despite the close score we were the better team in that game and Edmonton was playing chase the whole time. It was a true team effort (except Alex Fale, screw that guy!) and a product of a winning culture and never say die attitude. We are now 3-1 against western opponents, which is an important stat. I just hope the victory didn’t cost us so many injuries that we follow up a massive win over a first place team with a dud against a winless one. 

Other random thoughts:

-       I hate went Glen Suitor invents a narrative and then spends 3 hours beating that fake narrative to death. Saturday his invented narrative was that people have called Cody Fajardo a game manager. At no point since becoming a starter has anyone (Suitor included) previously called Cody a game manager.

-       If you want a good laugh go back and watch Fields on that last Luther TD. He ends up on the ground simultaneously holding his dick and butthole. I honestly don’t know what he hurt.I also don’t think he knows because upon watching the replay the only part of his body involved in any contact was his head. 

-       The only reason I can see for having Trevor Harris on the field when Tommy is lining up under center is that there is a play somewhere deep in the playbook that involves lateralling it out to him. Unless Harris is secrectly a deadly blocker.

-       It was really interesting to watch how we used Daniel Johnson. He was starting at guard in place of Fry but anytime we went to tight end set with an extra OL he bumped out to TE and Andersen came in at guard. I get the thought process because Johnson normally is the TE coming in. Its just not often you see a rotation at guard.

-       Starting to think our special teams coach deserves a raise. Johnson III becomes the 4^th Rider this season to have a massive return. Whatever we are running for blocking is working.

-       But about the time I think he deserves a raise I remember that placekicking is one of his coaching jobs. I know you can’t make chicken soup out of chicken shit but we gotta figure something out.

-       The Elks have a guy whose last name is Djabome. Me being the mature guy I am I can’t help but hear Djablome and assume his first name is Haywood. (say it out loud).