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.