Monday Morning Sentimonies: Flag On The Play

Riders 26 - Argos 30

What you are reading is actually the second version of my sentimonies. I had written a really good post but in true Rider fashion it was negated due to penalty so I had to re-write it and the end result was not as good as the first attempt.

The game was a lot like my love life: lots of excitement but ultimately ended in bitter disappointment. I was left with the same feelings after this game as the first time these two teams met. There was a lot of positive things that happened in that game. Unfortunately, as has been the theme this season, there was too many negative things that happened for all the good we did to be enough. Good teams find ways to win. I've seen many versions of the Riders pull out victories they had no business winning. The opposite is also true. Bad teams find ways to lose. This Rider team just keeps finding ways to lose games that they really should be winning. Toronto's defensive MVP was Rider penalties as it took double digit points off the board and resulted in close to 200 yards in Toronto's favour. A good team would have a hard time winning saddled with that kind of handicap... a bad team like us just had no chance.

Brett Smith looked impressive. He made mistakes like rookies are bound to do but he played his heart out on that field and really looked like he belonged under centre. He extended plays that had no business being extended and kept his eyes down field. He looked like a play maker. After enduring duds like Sunseri and Doege its nice to actually see a back-up come in and play like a pro. It was nice to see us spread the ball around and get guys like Williams and the Space Cowboy involved. It was also nice to see Getzlaf doing considerably less Getzlafing and more catching TDs like the top Canadian receiver he can be at times.

Special teams also gave us a good spark with both Demski and Miller. Admittedly the impact could have been great but, you know, flag on the play.

The defense... well yet again they played a decent game only to collapse late in the game. They allowed two 4th quarter TDs on long passes. We just can't defend the pass... which tends to be a problem in the CFL. We know that none of the Rider defense has a future career as a baker... because they couldn't produce a solitary turnover between all of them. (yes I know that is a bad attempt at humour. I swear I had funnier material in the version of this post that got called back due to penalty.) We did manage to nicely limit Whitaker's production but unfortunately we also pretty much let the Argos get big passing plays on us at will.

There's a lot I could also critic about our coaching but in the interest of not keeping you here all day, I will zero in on one decision that really irked me.

2:51 left in the game, down by 7, 3rd and 5 from the 20 yard line. Now option 1 is to gamble on 3rd down. If you make it great you can keep driving for the tying TD. Worst case scenario you miss it and need a defensive stop and a major score. Option 2 is to kick the FG. Best case scenario you make it and still need a defensive stop and major. We chose option 2 (and done similarly this year) and it made my blood boil. We literally gained absolutely nothing by kicking that FG. Look its not like McCallum is going to catch Passaglia in all-time scoring and since it does not help our odds of winning the game I think its a terrible decision.

The bye week is now upon us and odds are pretty good that chances are coming. I can't say who or how deep the cuts will go but we are a team missing a good chunk of our top players due to injury and starting our 3rd string QB yet neither of those factors were the reason we lost. We are so close yet so painfully far from being a winning team. In 2011 I was embarrassed at how bad we played. This year, the emotion I feel is disappointment (and likely some rye induced rage). We haven't yet proven we are good enough to beat another team... it makes it all the more tougher when you pile on all those penalties and have to overcome yourself as well. The penalty epidemic is getting worse, not improving. At this rate I'm convinced we will find a way to take a penalty and lose a game during the bye week.

Riders vs. Argos: So You’re Saying There’s a Chance?

Saturday the Riders travel to Toronto to take on the 3-2 Argos in their first actual home game of the year (though there were likely as many Argo fans in Fort Mac as there will be at Rogers Centre). The last time these two teams faced off was the thrilling (yet utterly deflating) Week 2 double OT game at Mosaic. Since then we’ve had 7 players who dressed in that game go down to serious injury and parted ways with 3 others. The good news is that our defense has been a model of consistency amid all that turmoil… the bad news is that they have been consistently awful.

Offensively, Brett Smith will get his second straight start. He didn’t exactly light it up in his debut but I think he showed enough to warrant a second start. It will be interesting to see how he progresses in his second showing particularly since he will be facing a defense that is nowhere near as intimidating as Edmonton. It would be a novel concept if we could provide him with some run support to ease the pressure on him. I realize Chapdelaine may call this thinking heresy but we are kind of good at running the ball and it was a huge part of our offense part when they were actually putting up more points than any team in the league. The Space Cowboy (Steven Miller for those of who are either new to this blog or too young to get references to great music) will replace Allen this week. Hopefully we can use the combination of Messam’s power and Miller’s speed to get back to a strong ground game. Devin Wilson gets his first game action after we shut down Richardson for the year. Not sure he’ll get many looks as Smith will likely lean on Dressler, Getzlaf and the other Smith but it’s good that we are at least giving a young guy a shot. Toronto's defense is certainly not terrible but they are not among the top D's in the league. They are allowing 27 points per game (3rd worst). They are also 2nd last in sacks... Seems Ricky Foley may may have exaggerated just a bit when calling that line the best he’s ever played for. We need to run lots (including letting Brett Smith run) and start with lots of high percentage stuff to help Smith get comfortable. That said we can't be afraid to let him air it out occasionally (since I'm guess the Argos will cheat up on the run).

Defensively, last week was probably the best they've played this year... sadly it still wasn't good enough but the progress is at least promising. Hopefully we can build on that (minus the ridiculous over blitzing of Brackenridge). Toronto is among the league leaders in giveaways but given that the Riders are on pace for a CFL record low 6 turnovers this season, I sense that tidbit (true story spell check just recommended I change that to titbit... my mind is amused by simple things) of info is as useless my attempts to come up with a funny end to this sentence. Mark LeGree will be back in the line-up and I really liked him last year (my suggestion would be play him at LB and bump Macho back to HB but I realize I'm not a defensive guru like Chamblin). Sounds like we may get Tristan Jackson back too which would be big. Chad Owens may be out but the trio of Gurley, Hazelton and Elliot (aka that idiot who spins the ball after every catch no matter how insignificant) seem to be doing just fine. Not sure how we are struggling to find a solitary receiver when Toronto can find 3 but that's a topic for another day. 

The biggest key will be limiting Brandon Whitaker. In Toronto’s 2 loses, he averaged 41 yards from scrimmage. In their 3 wins, he averaged 124 yards from scrimmage. Any chance of victory will require our D-line playing like they played last week, our tackling being at a level somewhere above blindly flailing bodies at empty air and we will need at least one turnover. We will also need to cut down drastically on penalties. Currently we are the worst in the CFL averaging 14 penalties and 122 yards per game. 

As much as this could be a trap game for Toronto and as much as I think the Riders will be somewhat competitive, it all boils down to this... Toronto has the best passing attack in the CFL and we offer so little resistance to the pass that even Bill Cosby wouldn't feel the need to drug us. 

Is it possible we win? Sure. Is it likely... lord no. 

Argos by 10.

Are You Smarter Than A Toddler - Week 7 Picks

Here are the Prophet Family picks for Week 7

Rider Prophet - Edmonton, Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton
Prophet Jr. - BC, Ottawa, Saskatchewan, Winnipeg
Mrs Prophet - Edmonton, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton
Step-Prophet - Edmonton, Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton
Momma Prophet - Edmonton, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton

Monday Morning Sentimonies: Another Loss

Riders 5 - Eskimos 30

So there were no miracles performed on Friday. Brett Smith could not walk on water, nor could he turn our losing season into something more palatable. But hey, at least he didn't utterly embarrass himself... unlike some other Rider QB that played in that game. The game went pretty much according to script. The winless team with 3rd string QB got pounded by a team with a winning record and one of the best defenses in the league. Predictably as well I had to pour increasingly stronger drinks as the game went on in order to endure it.

Brett Smith actually didn't do too bad given the situation. He had happy feet, he made some mistakes but he also made some good throws (some of which were taken back due to penalty). I would be okay with him starting a few more games to see if he progresses. As previously alluded to I see no reason for Tino Sunseri to have a job as a anything but a hair model. He does not belong on a professional football field. I don't care how little of the playbook Keith Price and Blake Sims know, there is no way they can be any worse than Tino. At this point an empty chip bag would likely be more useful under centre.

My main issue with our offense was how we completely let Edmonton dictate our game plan. Predictably Edmonton run blitzed and dared us to run and while I get that we can't just blindly run into a pile of defenders, that doesn't mean abandon the run completely. We are a good running team, how about showing some balls and seeing if we can run despite the strong opposition? We let Chris Jones take away our run game without even a fight, leaving a rookie 3rd stringer to carry the offense on his arm. Its a ludicrous strategy. We might as well have just asked Chris Jones prior to each series which offensive plays he was okay with us using.

Friday was actually the first time our defensive line decided not to be useless. The main factor was Alex Hall actually having his first good game of the season. Overall the defense was probably the best I've seen all season... not saying they were good, just improved by our low standard. We still can't get off the field on second down, or defend the pass. It's probably the least creative defense I've ever seen. Apparently Chamblin's answer to our lack of pressure is blitz Brackenridge... on every play, the same way every time. The only blitzing philosophy I've seen that was worse was the Scott Gordon safety blitz (aka Gordon disappearing into a pile of players while adding nothing of value to the play).

The bottom line is that 2015 is now officially over for the Riders. If you think I'm being overly pessimistic then you should watch the following Jim Mora rant.



All attention should now be placed on building a team for 2016. We essentially now have a really long preseason. So we should be evaluating all our practice roster players with some live game action. I want to see Keith Price get some playing time. We should also look at cutting ties with anyone who does not fit into the plans for 2016.

Coach Chamblin is one guy I think should stay (I also know that given my luck, 5 minutes after I post this he will be fired). He did not suddenly become a bad head coach. He did just fine in 2012, 2013 and the first half of 2014. He is a good head coach... he is just a really awful defensive coordinator. If he could relinquish that he could once again focus on his actual coaching duties. I bet you would see his game management improve. He's done some dumb things this year but I do not want to see him fired. If you want a scapegoat maybe you should be looking at the guy whose job it is to provide talented players for the coach and build depth.

Riders vs. Eskimos: We’re Screwed

Spoiler alert: I don’t see us winning this week.

Clearly we have angered the football gods and the cost of our wrongdoings is 2-3 of our starting players per week. The only logical thing to do is get out in front of this and pre-emptively “sacrifice” players. So let’s take Steve Miller and Tino Sunseri out to centre field and break a bone of their choosing with a baseball bat. Hopefully that will appease the football gods. It’s really the only rational thing to do at this point.

This is one of the weirdest seasons I have ever lived through… and I’ve seen some pretty crazy stuff over the years. The best way I can describe this is if you took all the injuries from 2008 and combined them with all the sucking of 2011 you’d get the 2015 Riders (just with less Dinwiddie and Bishop… though never say never at the rate we are going). With Glenn out any remote chance we had of winning this week is gone, let’s just be up front about that. The only good thing we had going for us was our offense and now we are sending our 3^rd string QB against the stingiest defense in the league in a tough road match-up… I mean there’ s a chance Brett Smith miraculously leads us to victory but there’s also a chance a bus load of bikini models show up at my house asking if they can have a pillow fight in my house while their only set of clothing is in the washing machine. Let’s just say odds are good that both my washing machine and the Riders’ win column will go unused.

Not to give up on Brett Smith before he really gets a chance but I have my doubts about him. Usually even when they struggle you can “it” in a young QB that goes on to have success. I have not seen “it” from Smith. We did the smart thing last week in rolling him out to cut the field in half and make his reads easier. However on one play he badly missed a short out, on another he damn near ran for a first down before deciding the throw the ball. Tough situation to come into and maybe he looks better now that the initial nerves are gone but I have my doubts. Edmonton is damn good defense. They will know and attack Smith’s limitations. I expect them to run blitz and focus on keeping Smith in the pocket and basically daring us to beat them through the air.  If we are to have any chance of offensive success the key will be misdirection. Esks will be looking for Smith to roll out so fake the rollout and run a reverse the other way. They will be looking for the run so put Messam, Allen and Demski in the backfield and make them try and guess who’s getting the ball. Try some different receiver or tight end screens. Have Smith test the defense with his speed running the ball. High percentage plays that still keep the Esks from pinning their ears back and killing us with pressure. Edmonton has tough run D but maybe we should try something crazy like giving the league’s leading rusher more than 4 snaps.

Defensively, Shaqir Bell will run all over us like pretty much every RB we’ve faced. You can count on that. I personally don’t think Matt Nichols is very good (never have) and I think Chris Jones is slowly coming around to that conclusion as well. If we can somehow keep things close I could see Franklin making a second half appearance again. Nichols is slowly being phased out of the picture in Edmonton. I actually expect our defense to keep things close for the first half of the game but a lack of offense will keep them on the field and wear them down late in the game. Any remote chance of us winning also likely requires either our defense or special teams to score a TD. Though given that our defense struggles to even get a turnover the aforementioned pillow fight is probably more likely.

Short of Edmonton defaulting the game due to all their players being placed under quarantine for a suspected deadly disease, I don’t see any scenario that results us winning on Friday.

I will still watch and cheer and pray for some kind of miracle but honestly if we can keep it close and lose less than 2 people to season ending injury that’ll be doing alright.

Eskimos by at least 2 scores.

Monday Morning Sentimonies: Same Old

Riders 21 - TiCats 31

Stop me if you've heard this one before... the Riders play 3 pretty quarters of football only to go to hell in the 4th and lose. Throw in the usual injured starting player and we've pretty much seen the same thing 5 times now. Each time it ends in a loss and a collective decline in the health of liver's across the province.

I actually thought the defense played not bad for a large part of the game. They we far from perfect (far, far, and then go a little further yet) but they showed glimmers. Even late in the game when Glenn threw that pick inside the redzone (which was a terrible decision, not sure what his read was there but he read wrong) they held the Ticats to a FG. But numbers don't lie and we gave up 130+ yards along the ground to Gable. They also managed to go another game without a turnover and a single solitary sack. Have they been worse? Yes they have. Are they even close to good enough? No they aren't. Alex Hall has been a massive disappointment. I even noticed him on the sidelines late in the game on a fairly key down so obviously the coaches are seeing it to. We can't seem to generate much pressure and Hamilton is far from being one of the upper echelon O-lines.

Offensively you pretty much knew we were screwed when a white dude with the #16 sauntered out into the huddle instead of a black dude wearing #5. I'm sure we all frantically checked to down and yardage wondering what the hell Brett Smith was doing out there for anything but a plunge. He's way too raw at this point to be effective. Prior to Glenn checking out I liked what I saw from the O. As expected, the Hamilton D is a very tough opponent so production was down but we found ways to move the ball in spite of that. It took us a while but by the end of the first half we were hitting a stride.  I really liked how we actually put some faith in our short yardage unit and drove straight instead of trying all that WR sweep crap. I did think Glenn was way too locked onto Dressler. I mean I get that he's our best receiver but you can't key on him that much against a D as good as Hamilton.

In order to win you need other phases to help out when another is struggling. Thus far it has been our O trying to carry the D. This week our O had some struggles and our D could not compensate. We already proved you can't win when only one phase of the game is going well so could we really expect to win when no phase performed all that good? Simply put we are not a good enough team at this point. And there is no miracle cure on the injury list that can save us. Emry and Green might help but I still don't think we win even with them in. You can tell just how defeated I am because normally this space would be filled with anger, ranting and cursing but all you see before you is a defeated man. I unfortunately see this getting worse before things get better.

Other random thoughts:
- Whatever happened to Glenn did not look serious but if he misses any time then there goes about the only glimmer of hope we have this season. Tino Suneri may soon make his not-so triumphant return to the field.

- I was impressed with our special teams unit. Coverage was pretty good all day.

- Dressler is such an amazing guy to watch because of the little things he does. On that play where he ended up throwing an incompletion, most receivers would not have had the presence of mind to jump on that live ball and they definitely would not have thought of throwing it away to preserve yards.

- The unnecessary roughness call when Hall walked Collaros out of bounds was beyond ridiculous. No way they make that call if that is a receiver and I'll go as far as to say no way Durant would get that call.

- Chris Best led our team out of the tunnel... that to me just seems wrong. I miss the days of Kitwana flying out of there or Kornegay making his X signs. We need some more fire in the bellies.

Riders vs. Ti-cats: Make It Stop

Sunday the Riders host the 1-2 Ti-Cats looking to end a winless start to the season and finally give the fans something to cheer about at Mosaic Stadium rather than just covering the stands with our tears… and curse words. For all the lamenting about the start to our season, if we win (and that’s a big if I realize), Hamilton (aka the unquestioned superpower in the East coming into the season) will drop to 1 and 3. Bottom line is the post-game news conference will feature one of Angry Kent Austin or Angry Corey Chamblin (good time to be a reporter I guess).

It will be an interesting match as the Riders and their #1 ranked offense face off against the Ti-cat defense which has allowed the least yards of any team. They are allowing a microscopic 68 yards/game rushing and are #2 against the pass. It will be interesting to see how that holds up against the powerhouse combo of Messam and Allen which is chewing up over 160 yards per game. What I’ll be curious to watch is how Orlando Steinhauer game plans for the Riders. He likes to send a lot pressure and do it frequently. That would likely be unwise against the quick release pass game of Kevin Glenn and the ability of Messam catching out of the backfield. Will he dial back the pressure and force us to make plays or will be play his game and hope we buckle?

We finally get some good news on the injury front as both Ryan Smith and Nic Demski will play. Depending on your opinion of Taj Smith you may also view us shutting him down as good news (also curious to see if his December court date suddenly gets moved up). As good as that defense is (and it is damn good), I don’t think we should try and get fancy. Our offense it built on running the ball well and spreading passes around to everyone (including the RBs). It will likely be very tough running for Messam/Allen (I don’t see us getting close to our 160 yd/game average) but we need to remain committed to it. We may need to use quick passes to Dressler/Smith/Getz to open up the run lanes. One thing we do need to fix is our slow starts. We have only 1 first quarter TD and 2 FGs so far this season… given our ability to epically collapse defensively late in games, building a large lead early would be helpful.

Our defense is a perennial concern a) because I’m never sure if we will be able to find enough healthy people to actually field one and b) because even our relatively healthy D has been horrible. We are now down 3 of our 5 starting defensive backs, replaced by Hollins, Tisdale and Pep Suber. Zach Collaros leads a potent passing attack but if you look closer at things you will find that strong defense and special teams are masking a lot of offensive issues in Hamilton. The Ticats defense and special teams have a combined 5 TDs… the offense has just 4. Part of the offensive struggles are due to the fact that they have no run game (ranking dead last with 62 yards per game). In fact their running backs have a total of just 27 carries this season (by contrast ours have 72 carries). Their offense is simply way way too pass-centric (I find typing these last couple lines ironic given the preseason concerns over Chapdelaine being too pass-centric). They do get CJ Gable back this game which should jump start that run game (at least until he gets hurt again).

We really need our D-line to step up if we have any hope of winning. Hamilton’s O-line is not that great (allowing the second most sacks thus far) and if they want to keep throwing way more than they should our D-line needs to make them pay by harassing Collaros. Assuming Hamilton is aware of the existence of game film I imagine they will try to test our ability to contain with Collaros running the ball (we had some minor issues there last game). I imagine they are also smart enough to test Pep Suber (likely with Bakari Grant). We have just 2 turnovers in 4 games… if we can’t generate at least a 3^rd we will be dropping to 0 and 5.

If goes without saying also that Brandon Banks is dangerous. He has 2 kick return TDs and has had 2 more called back due to penalties. Our cover teams better be rock solid in their assignments… and we should probably find ways to no kick the ball in Banks’ direction.

I have gone back and forth a lot between thinking we will lose and thinking this will be the game where things finally go right. My head says take Hamilton. They have a great D and are getting healthy (Gable and Norwood will be back). By contrast we have a terrible D and have had so many injuries they are considering adding a hospital ward to the new stadium.

But my heart says that despite all logic we will find a way to win at home. The return of Smith and Demski will give us a boost (though the boost would admittedly be bigger if they played D) and we have been so close week in week out. I wouldn’t wager any money on this but I’m going with my gut.

Riders by a rushing TD.