Riders vs. Lions: I Smell A Sick Day Coming On

Thursday the 4-2 Riders take on the 1-5 Lions in front of a sell-out crowd at Mosaic Stadium. Hopefully you are like me and have taken the liberty of taking Friday off work. Barring that you should either be laying the ground work for a sick day (a cough here, a sniffle there, subtle comments about your throat beginning to feel soar) or be working on one heck of an excuse as to why you will be absent from work. Now the Rider Prophet does not officially encourage abuse of sick leave or lying to your boss… but since you are probably going to do it anyway I would recommend going with one of the following… religious holiday (i.e. the 3^rd day of Ramadan or International Left Handers Day), some sort of bowel or digestive problems (people tend not to ask many questions about that) or just tell them you could come to but you can’t seem to locate your pants so it would probably be in everyone’s best interests for you to stay home until you do.

Anywho, onto the game.

The Lions come into this game on a 5 game losing streak. They have not won since they beat the equally as inept Eskimos in week 1. Their losing streak started off with beat down at home by the Riders and their list of problems has seemed grow each week since.

Topping their list of problems is the fact that they have thusfar fielded a collection of failures at QB. They started off with a guy whose amazing athleticism and mobility was supposed to compensate for his idiocy… but he lost his mobility when he got hurt and was left with just his idiocy. So they tried going with a young prospect who was supposed to be the 2nd coming of Dave Dickenson… but he was more like the 2^nd coming of Jimmy Kemp and was so comically inept that he was deemed to be a bigger failure than the idiot cripple he was supposed to replace. So now they have to resort to the same thing they do every year at about this time… Jarious Jackson. As I’ve said in the past, I consider Jackson to be only a slightly more intelligent Michael Bishop. He’s mobile, has a cannon for an arm but his intellectual capacity is only 3 steps above what is considered functionally retarded (hence why he is slightly more intelligent that Bishop).

Compounding their issues at QB is the fact that they are fielding a poor excuse for an O-line. They keep trying different combinations but the result is always the same… pass protection that is next to non existent (no one has given up more sacks) and a run game this is slipping further and further into oblivion (close to half of BC’s rushing yards came in the first game).

Not surprisingly a carousel of poor QBs and a sad excuse for an O-line has led to the least potent offense in the CFL. Seriously, people who play Dungeons and Dragons in their mom’s basement score more often than the Lions. But to Buono’s credit he is taking action to address his lack of a credible QB and terrible O-line… by cutting his second leading receiver (Derick Armstrong). Seems about right.

Despite all that is going wrong with BC, we can’t afford to take them lightly. They actually have fairly decent defense overall. They are the 3^rd best against the pass and have allowed the 3^rd least points. They feature ball hawks like the ever dangerous Korey Banks as well as Ryan Phillips and Dante Marsh. They lead the league in sacks… though their pass rush won’t likely be as powerful now that Aaron Hunt is on the 9-game. Their major weakness on D is stopping the run where they are 2^nd worst in the league.

Key to the game offensively is limit mental errors. We have offensive weapons galore and talent to burn, we just haven’t been executing consistently. We should have walked all over the Als D last week but the combination of ill advised passes and key drops hurt us. BC has playmakers on D but we should be able to move the ball on them. Cates should have a big game and be the engine that drives our offense. Provided our O-line can buy him some time, a healthier Durant should be able to attack the BC secondary like that undercooked chicken attacked his intestines.

Defensively we need 2 things. 1 – pass rush. BC’s O-line is terrible so there is no excuse for not getting constant pressure and disrupting Jarious’ passes. 2 – Defend the pass. Jackson has a strong arm and good receivers (Simon, Arceneaux, other Jackson) which is somewhat unsettling given that we currently boast the worst pass defense in the league. The good news is that unlike the other QBs who have shredded our secondary (Calvillo, Ray, Glenn), Jackson is not now, nor has he ever been, known for his accuracy. If our coverage is tight we should see a pick or 2, particularly if Patrick is on his game. Robertson doesn’t really scare me except for the fact that he is a scoring machine on those rare occasions where Lulay fluked out and managed to get the ball into the redzone.

While switching Lulay for Jackson does improve the Lions, it’s not going to be enough to overcome the myriad of issues facing this team. The Riders make a bunch of bad mistakes in Montreal and still almost beat the league’s best team. The Lions are nowhere close to as good as the Alouettes so I expect a dominating performance from the Riders much like when they met in week 2. It won’t be a complete blow-out but…

Riders by 14.

Around the CFL…

The stadium debate in Hamilton is taking some very interesting turns. Faced with the mayor’s insistence on a location for a new proposed stadium that the Ti-Cats think is stupid, owner Bob Young has pulled out of the process completely meaning that unless something changes, the Ti-Cats will have nowhere to play once their lease at Ivor Wynne expires after next season. Rumours have since popped up that the Ti-Cats have a deal with Quebec City in the works. I would hate to see the Ti-Cats leave Hamilton, I mean Les Quebec Chat-Tigres just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Plus adding a beret to the cat on the logo would kind of eliminate all the toughness that used to be attributed to the team from Steeltown.

Reminder

Just a quick reminder that if you are thinking about going to the Banjo Bowl this year you should talk to the guys at Major League Tours. Why go through all the trouble of making travel arrangements when these guys do it for you?

Monday Morning Sentimonies: Très Proche

Riders 26 – Als 30

Friday’s loss to the Alouettes surprisingly didn’t induce the rage filled rantings that normally fill the Prophet household following a Rider loss. Part of that may have been the fact that I was drinking beer instead of rye like I usually do… I don’t know I’m not a doctor (though I have claimed to be one a time or two). But I think the main reason I wasn’t the angry ball of rage-ahol I normally am was that overall, I don’t we played all that bad. We went toe to toe with the best team in the CFL, on their turf, with a QB at less 100% and had a chance to win it despite spotting them a big lead early. Sure there was numerous bad decisions and boneheaded plays (seriously the pitch to Cates’ back that got picked was something to behold) but we showed that we are good enough to contend with the top team in the league and at the end of the day, I can live with that.

When the game opened with a 2 play, 89 yd TD play followed by a bad INT two plays later deep in our own end, I was mildly concerned. And by mildly concerned I mean I had visions of a blowout beginning to take shape. But to their credit, the Riders rallied and made a game of it. I mean when you look at it, we completely dominated the Als defensively in the second half. If it weren’t for the fact that we keep spotting them big leads I think we could have had 2 convincing wins over them this season.

For me the TSN turning point (that ironically was not TSN’s turning point) was the missed FG that was returned for a TD. That was a 10 point swing and if Congi makes that we win. A 42 yd FG should be very makeable (screw up spellcheck! It’s a word if I say it is). I like Congi but he needs to step up. He’s automatic inside the 40 but when he gets beyond that you’d swear Alexis Serna snuck his way onto our team. He’s already missed 4 from beyond 40, two of which have been returned for TDs. He needs to get better… and grow a moustache. I will not give up my Congi moustache campaign until he caves.

Another area we need to improve on is mixing up our play calls. I expected a more aggressive, passing based attack with Berry calling the shots but I think the pendulum swung too far that direction. I know we were playing catch-up early but even when the game was close we tried long passes almost exclusively. We only gave Cates 5 rushing attempts (despite the fact that on 2 of those 5 attempts he busted it for 15 yds) and rarely attempted any short to medium passes (especially in the red zone). I like being aggressive through the air but there needs to be some balance.

Some other random thoughts on the game:

- I think the Als retro jerseys are awesome. They look very dapper.

- Eddie Johnson’s moustache is outstanding! (Congi… take notes)

- Cates had a couple uncharacteristic brain farts. One was the penalty he took for hitting the Als defender (which ultimately led to the missed FG that cost us the game). He probably would have got away with the first swing but the second one sealed his fate. The other was that drop in the dying seconds of the game. That was heartbreaking.

- I thought our D-line (especially the interior) had a good showing. Shologan looked pretty impressive on a couple of his bull rushes.

- Defense stepped up big time in the second half… now if they could only do that in the first quarter, we’d be set.

- If that’s what Durant can do while dealing with bad intestines I think we’ll be fine.

- That said his decision to throw that ball that eventually led to his 2^nd pick was a bad one. To be fair, even though it was a bad decision, Fantuz should have caught it.

- How gruesome was Calvillo’s finger when (in a move fitting for the venue) it tried to separate from the rest of his hand?

- How funny was it that shortly after the camera showed us Calvillo’s mangled finger, we get Sara Orlesky telling us that Calvillo has a suspected injured index finger? That’s some quality reporting Sara.

Despite the fact that we lost a game when we had the chance to win, I still think you have to look at the bigger picture. We are 4-2, only 1 game back of first, managed to split our season series with the best team in the league and played well in a losing effort. That all bodes very well for the rest of the season.

Riders vs. Alouettes: Je Te Plumerai

Friday the Riders are on the road for a battle of 4-1 teams in Montreal… or Frenchland as Rob Murphy refers to it… or the land of poutine, poor hygiene and surrender as some bigoted prophets refer to it.

The game will be a rematch of the epic double OT shootout in the season opener which featured more scoring than your average brothel (you know, so I’ve heard). They are the top 2 teams in scoring, passing yds and takeaways. While I don’t expect anything close to what we saw on Canada Day, these are 2 of the best teams in the league so you can expect a hard fought battle that will likely further reduce my life expectancy by a few years.

Since losing to us on opening day the Als have been on a tear, rattling off 4 straight wins and reestablishing themselves as the dominant force in the East, not that that is anything to brag about. They come into this game with a potent passing attack, a RB who suddenly remembered how not to suck last week and having committed a league low 5 turnovers. They also have the # 1 run defense and have allowed the 2^nd least points. None of this is very surprising since the Als have been robotically good for many years.

Some things that I do find surprising about the Als is that they have the 2^nd worst rushing attack, the 2^nd most sacks allowed and are the most penalized team in the CFL. A poor ground game, a porous O-line and an undisciplined team are about as characteristic of Montreal as politeness and obeying traffic laws.

Given all the issues the Riders have been having this year (pass defense, special teams, red zone) it’s almost hard to believe we are talking about a 4-1 team. How easily we forget that overall this team is playing well and in some areas of the game playing extremely well.

One area is running the ball. Week in and week out Wes Cates is proving his detractors (including myself) wrong. He is running with authority, chewing up yards and most importantly putting up points (he leads the CFL with 5 TDs). The Cates we came to love in ’07 and ’08 is back. We are also stopping the run way better than we were last year. Now that might be a product of allowing teams to pass on us at will but I will get to that in a minute. Another positive thing was the improvement of our specials teams. This unit started out as an embarrassment and pretty much a ready made example of everything you can possibly do wrong on special teams. But I give our coaches full credit, they made some personnel changes and did what they needed to do to improve our greatest weakness. Now we have a unit that should actually be able to benefit us in this game.

Of course the match-up everyone is talking about is the league’s best and most accurate passer in Calvillo against the most porous secondary in the league. It’s as if someone gave our secondary rufies given how easy it seems to be to make a pass on them and eventually score. Alexander is out with a tender hammy (which sounds like a delicious name for a meal) and Leron Mitchell is nursing his annual knee injury so Tad Kornegay will get the start on corner. I actually think we will do fine with him there. He’s a talented player. And hell, short of physically misplacing his pants it’s not like he can do worse than Alexander did on opening day.

Offensively the key will be getting the passing game going. The Als have allowed the 3^rd most passing yards in the CFL so its not like their secondary is that great. If Durant overcome his infected intestines and once again get on the same page as Dressler, Fantuz and Bagg (I’d say Rodriguez but my hatred of him is well documented) they should be able to move the ball all day. Our O-line will have another tough test as they will be the dangerous duo of Bowman and Stewart. Durant and his sensitive tummy need all the protection they can get.

Defensively it’s pretty obvious, stop something through the air… anything. This will be an extremely tough task as Calvillo is the best QB in the league and has a cast of dangerous receivers and a resurging Cobourne at his disposal. A big key to this would be getting Lance Frazier out of this funk he is in and get him back to being an elite DB as he has been in the past. Our D-line (or whomever Etch sends at the QB… LBs, DBs, Congi at nose tackle, Frennette on the end) will need to help out by disrupting Calvillo. The Als O-line has been struggling so it should be doable.

If you are a betting man, you would bet against the Riders. They are on the road against one of the best team in the league, their QB has digestive problems and they are sending the worst secondary against the best passer. Logic says take the Als.

But for some reason I have the feeling that this is one of those games that the Riders will step up and play like great football. I see a close fought battle featuring a ton of passing yards. In the end the Riders will come from behind to take the lead late and…

Riders by a missed Duval FG.

Banjo Bowl Trip

If anyone is thinking about going to the Banjo Bowl this year, here’s something you should consider.

The guys at Major League Tours are running a tour to Winnipeg for the Banjo Bowl weekend. The trip includes the bus trip, 1 night hotel accommodation and a ticket to the game. They also have a bunch of fabulous prizes to raffle off during the trip.

So if you are looking for a fun trip or are just too lazy to make your own arrangements (be honest) you should give them a call. The even poster is below or you can check out their website www.majorleaguetours.com

Rider Prophet Remembers Danny Maciocia

Over the weekend, the Edmonton Eskimos abruptly ended their 8 year relationship with Danny Maciocia by firing him. From decent offensive coordinator to comically inept head coach to borderline retarded general manager, the Rider Prophet has watched the progression of Maciocia’s career with great interest. Mainly because it provided such fantastic comic relief but also out of pure curiosity. Maciocia was a rarity in the sporting world in that his position in the organization seemed to increase proportional to the decrease in his performance. That kind of inverse correlation is unheard of.

And so as I remorsefully bid adieu to one of my perennial punch lines, let’s take found look back at some of my favourite Maciocia memories.

Top 8 Maciocia Memories

8 – Refusing To Run

For whatever reason, Maciocia had a huge aversion to running the football. The Esks almost always had the worst rushing attack in the league. The culmination was in Maciocia’s final game as head coach, the East Final in 2008. With a chance to play for the Grey Cup on the line, Maciocia’s Esks managed only 3 yards rushing. Outstanding!

7 – Secondary Concerns

In his time as coach, the Esks never had a decent secondary… but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Each year, Maciocia would go out and acquire the top DBs available (Omarr Morgan, Stanford Samuels, Jordan Younger), generally paying top $ for them. Despite their all-star status they would all end up having terrible years and get released to following offeason in favour of the next high priced DB whose career they planned to ruin.

6 – Pulling a Homer

Definition: To succeed despite idiocy.

In 2005, Maciocia was named Head Coach in Edmonton. He inherited a team that was so full of talent that even an idiot could have coached them to a Grey Cup win… and he did. As evidence of the Esks succeeding despite Maciocia’s idiocy, I submit this video of Maciocia dancing in celebration because he thought the game was over… it was not, there was still one play left.

5 – Drafting Genius

2007 was Maciocia’s first year as GM. One of his first official acts as GM was the draft. In a move that defied all logic and common sense, he proceeded to select a kicker (Warren Keane) with the 2^nd overall selection. Keane went on to play 0 games for the Eskimos and was eventually cut. It remains one of the biggest wastes of a draft pick in recent memory.

4 – Final Play Meltdown

In terms of Rider memories of Maciocia, one will always stick out in my mind. In 2006, a game between the Riders and Esks came down to the final play of the game. All Maciocia and the Esks had to do was keep the Riders from driving 55 yds for TD to secure the win. This almost proved to be too difficult for them.



3 – Brokeback Maas

The one thing I always found oddest about Maciocia was his relationship with QB Jason Maas. It’s not uncommon for a strong bond to develop between a QB and his coach but Maciocia and Maas took it to a whole new level. A disturbing one. Take the following comments made by Maciocia while Maas was playing in Hamilton…

"I miss him. I care for him. I love him a lot. I try to talk to him only once a week. There's days where I think about him. I want to call and then I tell myself, 'No, I just talked to him yesterday. Just don't bother him.' "

That’s just downright creepy.

2 – Final Play Meltdown Part 2

'06 was a bad year for the Esks, in a game against the Bombers they had another late game meldown. Yet again it came down to the final play of the game and yet again all Maciocia and the Esks had to do was keep the Bombers from scoring a major. This time the task was even easier since the Bombers were 100 yards away from the goal line. This time however the task proved to be too difficult.

1 – Broken Record

Despite all that I’ve mentioned above, Maciocia will forever be remembered as the guy that broke the playoff streak.

Between 1972 and 2005 the Eskimos never missed the playoffs, setting a North American professional sports franchise record. It seemed like the streak would never end. I mean only 2 teams in the CFL don’t make the playoffs and at the time Hamilton was the laughingstock of the CFL so all the Esks had to do was be better than 1 team not named the Ti-Cats to keep the streak alive. But Maciocia wasn’t up to the task. Under his guidance the Esks missed the playoffs for the first time in 35 years, forever cementing his legacy as a loser in the City of Champions.

For some odd reason, for this historic failure, Maciocia was actually rewarded with a promotion to General Manager of the Eskimos.

And so we bid adieu to Danny Maciocia. Your contributions to the comedic content on this blog will be greatly missed.

Monday Morning Sentimonies: 4 and 1

Riders 37 - Ti-Cats 24

Saturday the Riders got back in the win column with a victory over the visiting Ti-Cats. The game left me with fairly mixed emotions. Of course a victory against a talented roster (I firmly believe the Ti-Cats are a better team than their record would indicate) is exciting… especially when it leaves you with a 4-1 record. But the game featured such a mixture of great things and bad things.

The good things:
- Our O-line - after getting embarrassed in Calgary that put in a solid performance.

- Wes Cates - he is back to the powerful workhorse he was in ’07 and ’08. He is running very consistently, chewing up yards and moving the chains. Not to mention that amazing catch he made. We also continue to limit opponents’ rushing fairly effectively.

- Special Teams - I was most impressed with this group. Our kicking was outstanding. We were forced to put our chances for victory in the hands (or leg) or Luca Congi and he responded with a perfect outing. Eddie Johnson was very impressive also. He’s got some work to do on his placement but he showed that he has the booming leg we’ve been missing. That one punt he kicked didn’t look like it was ever going to drop (much like Man in the Bush’s left testicle). Lastly our return game actually looked good for once as opposed to the retarded group of lost souls stumbling around the field that we had become accustom to in the opening games.

- Andy Fantuz - When your face ends up on cereal box there’s a certain amount of pressure on you not to suck… Fantuz continues to live up to the hype. There’s good and then there’s cereal good. I just wish he’d take off that ridiculous wig.

- Luck was on our side. Bad hands on catches and snaps by Hamilton (as opposed to any great defensive play) led to 2 INTS and a blocked kick for us. I guess you have to be good to be lucky and lucky to be good. That said the hands Mullinder showed on his were pretty impressive.

The bad things:
- Ineptness on the goal line. We repeatedly made our way down to the goal line only to produce failure after failure and be forced into settling for FGs (and nothing at all in the case of that INT). You are not going to beat many teams with only FGs… well since we play in a division with Edmonton and BC we probably could but the point remains we need to find a way to score majors.

- Pass defense - actually pass defense might be the wrong term since that would actually imply stopping something. How about pass observance or pass allowance. I realize that Arland Bruce is one of the best in the game but at some point after the first 8 catches you think maybe we could have clued into their game plan and done something about it. Seriously what was the conversation among our secondary? “Hey I’ll take McDaniel. You take Bauman and you take Mann… he’s thrown to Bruce the last 10 times so odds are good he won’t be passing to him anymore today”

- This as been a recurring problem. Overall we seem to do okay but each week there seems to be one receiver we just can’t handle. Watkins in week 1, followed by Simon, Stamps, Bryant… all put up huge yards and all but Stamps scored multiple times. Its as if Etch is designing his pass D around American offensive formations.

Now I’d feel a lot worse about these things if it weren’t for the fact that we keep winning. I mean really, Etch can allow Bruce to break all the records he wants as long as we keep winning. That said I don’t victories will keep coming so easy if we don’t fix our porous pass D, especially if our offense continues to be hit and miss. Oh well for now we can enjoy the win and begin to work on our obvious areas of weakness ahead of a tough Friday road game.

Of course the big story around the league this week as the firing of Danny Maciocia in Edmonton. Now the move itself is hardly surprising since Maciocia has single handedly been responsible for the worst run in the history of the franchise. This move was about 4 years overdue. But the timing was a big surprising since they chose to fire him after a win. But I guess its fitting that after getting repeatedly promoted for losing, that Maciocia got fired for winning. I will have a special salute to Maciocia later in the week.

One name being floated around for the vacancy is of course Eric Tillman. Now that would be a great move for the Eskimos and bad news for the rest of the division. It would also completely throw the Argos’ succession plan out the window as they are currently waiting out the last year of Adam Rita’s contract so they can bring in Tillman when it expires. How funny would it be for the Argos to preemptively fire Rita and hire Tillman before the Esks get a chance?