The Fooling Around Stage is Over on Thursday

I borrowed the title from Bill Murray as Carl the grounds keeper in Caddy Shack when he went after the gopher plaguing his course with everything in his arsenal including plastic explosive and hi-powered rifles.

The Saskatchewan Roughriders are in Winnipeg Thursday to close out the first third of their schedule with a game that could be crucial to the playoff hopes of both teams. The Riders are coming into this game following an exquisite 38-14 win over the Ottawa Redblacks on a two game winning streak and preparing to hit a meatier portion of their schedule.

The Riders are 3-2 and trail the 5-1 Blue Bombers. The Bombers have benefited from new quarterback, Drew Willy (former Rider) and good coaching from new coach, Mike O’Shea. Considering O’Shea was a candidate for the Riders in the process that ended up with Cory Chamblin as head coach, this will be an interesting game although I don’t think O’Shea cares now that he has his own team.

But, the Bombers, despite their record, are about as solid as a prototype of the Titanic, with holes in their defense and offensive line that makes me curious about this game. The Riders defensive line is on an absolute roll, and in one of the few TSN useful moments, they showed John Chick getting double-teamed an estimated 22 of 28 times in the first half.

The Riders quick strike defense has the pressure coming in and the secondary picking up the slack and the turnovers. If you have been listening to Chamblin the last couple of weeks, he has talked about the defense jumping in to take control of the game and allowing the offense to slowly get caught up.

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With the defense being given their marching orders, the Rider defense will be looking to come hard at Winnipeg, but they had former Rider offensive line coach Bob Wylie as their offensive line coach. Wylie is the dean of offensive line coaches in North America and I have no doubt he will have a few tricks up to toss in the Rider’s direction.
But, Brendon LaBatte went down with an ankle injury as the result of having his leg rolled on. He was able to return to the game if required, but considering how the first quarter went, LaBatte was held back for Winnipeg. The question is how ready is his ankle?

The other question is Dominic Picard, who missed the previous game with an injury and was a game time decision for this one. He seemed to do alright, but the Riders may be wondering about their depth, and Winnipeg may be ready to try pushing our offensive linemen around if they are in less than perfect health.

That may affect our running game, which was OK with Ford running, but he didn’t get over 100 yards, which is how I measure the effectiveness of my running game. Winnipeg’s defense did a good job of stuffing Hamilton’s running game in their game and Gary Etcheverry is a master of throwing the works at opposing offenses and asking them to figure out what the hell he did.

The good news about the return of Chris Getzlaf was the body language shown by Darian Durant. He looked more confident with Getzlaf and while announcers used the expression, security blanket, you can’t argue with that considering the new confidence shown in the passing game. The Rider offense took the pedal off the metal in the second half, which also featured and nasty hit on Durant, but all reports after the game indicated he was walking normally and under no pain.

The Rider return teams looked great, and Tristian Jackson said the injury he appeared to have suffered would not keep him out against Winnipeg. But again, it is a short week, and if Winnipeg is so inclined, why not test Jackson on the corner as well as returning punts?

There will be some interesting moves to be made in the next couple of days, but the Riders made the right decision to stay in Ottawa this week before going to Winnipeg. The lack of eyes makes game planning a bit more important, especially since O’Shea does have a reputation for trick plays from his days as Toronto special teams coach and the Riders may want to explore some new options.

The Riders will have to close down one of the loudest, perhaps the loudest stadiums in the CFL with either a quick start or the aforementioned trick plays. As a matter of interest, this will be my first trip to Winnipeg to take in a game at the new stadium, thanks to former PA Herald Reporter Derek Holtom. I’m curious to see how this stadium looks and operates in comparison to our new stadium in 2017.

I went 2-2 last week with stupid Winnipeg winning in the last minute screwing me up, along with Montreal being an absolute gong show. When I looked at my complex formula figuring out games for this week, my initial Rider-Winnipeg score showed a 24-24 tie, which is maybe one of the few times I have seen that happen. However, if I do a bit of rounding off, I have the Riders up by one point. This works for me as I prepare to go to the last bastion of sanctioned cannibalism in the western hemisphere for our beloved Rider Nation.

We have a double header on Friday with Edmonton at Montreal and then Hamilton at BC. Edmonton is coming off a bye, and Montreal got blown out coming off a bye last week and hiring Jeff Garcia who might even suit up for the Als if they are desperate. And they are desperate. Edmonton should win handily unless they lost their per diems in the strip clubs in St. Catherine’s Street the night before the game.

Hamilton at BC is a match for the truly confused. BC is becoming the ultimate streaky machine, winning two, losing two, winning one, losing one. BC is coming off a big win in Calgary and while Hamilton did play somewhat tough in losing to Winnipeg, they did lose. With Hamilton having their new stadium opening pushed back, this team is in desperate need of stability and Kent Austin may soon apply for his own medical marijuana licence to take away the pain of watching his team flounder through another game. BC wins this one.

On Saturday we have Ottawa at Calgary which is interesting considering how the Riders took Ottawa apart and Calgary finally got rid of the Bo Levi Mitchell opening winning streak by losing. Calgary has done well trying to plug and play, especially with injuries to running backs, but this game will be more about the heart of the Ottawa Redblacks. How well can they bounce back from their first spanking. If they make it close, or even win, they may win the east, if they don’t, well; maybe Balmy Beach can come back into the league to represent the East.