Ugly Win Gives Riders Sole Possession of First Place
It was not pretty by any stretch of the imagination and you could have safely mowed the lawn, walked the dog, read the paper and barbecued some burgers and not have missed anything worth seeing until the last two minutes, but the Saskatchewan Roughriders won in spite of themselves 24-21 over the Montreal Alouettes.
The game should not have been that close. Montreal lost Anthony Calvillio with a concussion in the first half, Brandon London with a concussion, a starting offensive lineman with another injury and their long snapper with what looked like a separated shoulder.
The Riders responded with Jock Sanders fumbling a couple of times a football that looked like it went through a local KFC before it hit the field, Darian Durant fumbled a couple of times and the offensive line looked like it was practising for bullfights with all the matador blocking it appeared to be doing against Montreal.
One of Durant’s fumbles lead to a 54 yard touchdown return by Montreal with two and a half minutes left in the game and giving Montreal a 21-14 lead. Then Durant made up for his amazingly poor play by hitting Taj Smith for a 65 yard touchdown before Weston Dressler took over from Sanders on the kick return team, ran a punt back to set the Riders up in position for 36 yard field goal by Chris Milo into the wind to win the game.