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Can Riders Match Their Three Win Total on Saturday Night?

Sep 23, 2016 | 11:01 AM

It has been a pretty quiet week in Riderville, where the biggest news was the placing of Kendial Lawrence on the suspended list because of an accident in his family that needed him to leave town.

Lawrence did not dress for the Edmonton game, which gave us a chance to see what Curtis Steele could do with some blockers and perhaps a desire to see his contract extended.

Overall the feeling in Riderville is that the team may have turned a corner.

It may be too late to start pencilling in the Grey Cup route, but it seems the revolving door of players that caught the attention of the CFL has come to an end and the offense and defense are learning to play together.

As I write, it is a miserable day in Regina as the University of Regina Rams prepare tonight to face the University of Calgary Dinosaurs and the Prince Albert Raiders invade town to take on the Regina Pats. The forecast is for wet weather on Saturday night which makes it a great day to lay back on the couch, make sure the drinks are handy and see how long the pizza delivery is going to be.

The other topic of conversation, other than the absence of Lawrence, is that negotiations have begun on a new contract for Darian Durant.

While Chris Jones says the team wants him back, it probably wants him back on a contract that has a lowish base salary, but is made up for by incentives for things like games played, touchdowns, wins and Grey Cup spots.

That kind of contract is likely to be offered because it has been over two years since Darian Durant won his last game and the back to back injuries at his age do raise a question of how much money should be invested in a player who had a rotten streak of misfortune. Countering that are the images of Durant’s play the last few weeks where against Edmonton he willed the team to victory and came close twice against Winnipeg.

If the Riders sign Durant before the season is over, that shows receivers like Naaman Roosevelt the club is serious about moving ahead. Roosevelt spent his off-season working with Durant and you would think someone willing to work to get that kind of chemistry would want to continue, considering Roosevelt had 1,000 yards in receptions before going down with an injury.

There would be another reason for this type of contract and that is to provide the team with flexibility to go after free agents and if Durant wants to step on the podium as the greatest quarterback in Rider history, that means winning a second Grey Cup as a quarterback and that means having a surrounding cast to make it happen.

Durant is taking out Canadian citizenship to one day live here after his career and he would likely do well in the business world or whatever he wanted to try. So the money will come, but the opportunity for a championship has a window and he and the Riders will have to find a balance between fair pay and giving the club the opportunity to build on what it has established.

So while the Riders will be doing their best Gene Kelly impersonation on Saturday night, the stars may be aligning for something not seen here in two years – a two game winning streak.

First we have Toronto at Ottawa tonight which takes on the feeling of a playoff game as Dan LeFevour has the reins of the offense in what may be his his last, best effort to secure steady work as a quarterback. Toronto had surprised me in the first half against Winnipeg last week before they started to unravel like a cheap sweater.

Now they go to Ottawa who were spanked by Calgary raising questions about the shelf life of Trevor Harris. Taken in small doses he seems to be effective, but sometimes like the nerdy guy in the corner at the prom, he tries too hard.

Considering Henry Burris is the Prom Queen, perhaps that is understandable because nobody will be able to match Burris for what he has to offer all Canadians as he single-handedly saves franchises in more cities than Kevin Glenn has jerseys.

If Toronto wins, I will not be unhappy because Deadmonton is one step towards to being a dead team walking from Grey Cup champ to chump. But I think of Dan LeFefevour in charge of a CFL offense and I wonder what is wrong with that picture – Ottawa 27-26.

Speaking of Deadmonton Team Walking, the BC Lions visit Schmo city whose team fan pages were full of future sex offenders furious about how the refs constantly give the Riders the benefit of the doubt in Taylor Field and I shake my head and say obviously their bails bondsmen failed to get them out of jail before the Rider Labour Day Classic.

The fascinating thing about Deadmonton losing to the Riders, besides how pretty it was, was how its offense failed to pull off their Golden State Warriors style fast break. Even Adarious Bowman trying to taunt the Rider bench was met with the ball being stolen from his grasp and returned for a touchdown.

The ability seems to be there, the brains less so. On defense it seems the rebuild begun by Mike Benevedes seems to be destined to be continued by Noel Thorpe next year, unless Thorpe already knows how to speak French.

Thorpe was the original choice to be the defensive coordinator, but Jim Popp shot that down and in his effort to destroy everything within his reach, has no doubt alienated Thorpe to the extent that when Dec. 31 comes by, he will be out of Montreal to somewhere that will greet him like the big Kahuna he wants to be.

But I digress.

 Deadmonton has found itself in the position of being 5-7 and seriously looking at a crossover as a valid shot of defending its Grey Cup title. If I was Deadmonton, and fortunately the crayon was removed from my brain at an earlier age than most of northern Alberta who left the crayons in their brains because big government will not tell them what to do, I would see if Winnipeg will crack under the pressure of playing good teams in the last third of its schedule.

I don’t know if BC can catch Calgary, but I know Wally would prefer not having to go to Winnipeg in November for a playoff game if the Farmer’s Almanac is correct about a cold winter. The chance to sink Deadmonton further into the water has to be a good selling point for BC players, but for Wally, he will probably be looking at execution from here to the end of the season so the Lions are peaking for the playoffs instead of now.

Add to that Wally knows how Benevedes thinks, look for BC to win a messy game(rain, locusts and two headed calves being born are in the forecast)  in Deadmonton 29-26.

One possible western final combination takes place on Saturday as the Godless Winnipeg Blue Bombers from Canada’s Crime Capital, invade Calgary hoping to roll a few unemployed rig workers for their severence cheques and prove their seven game winning streak was the result of talent and hard work and not a massive deal with Satan swung by Bomber management.

The forecast for Calgary has rain in the morning and then clearing by the afternoon, so it should be a cold, wet but clear track on McMahon Stadium. This will be a good test for both teams because Winnipeg is looking to prove it should be in contention to break the 0 for 26 streak that is its Grey Cup legacy while Calgary is looking to prove itself as the odds on Grey Cup favorite.

Winnipeg has done some admirable plug and playing, but they will find that Calgary is not Toronto. Nor Saskatchewan. Nor Hamilton. Nor Montreal. But those plucky little Crime Kings from Manitoba will make it interesting as they try to make a statement to their fans. So call it Calgary 27-23.

Finally we come to the game of the week! With anywhere from 26-50 mm of rain in the forecast, I suspect only carpenters looking to build arks will likely want to sit through a cold, wet September night to watch the return of John Chick to Saskatchewan.

On paper the odds favor Hamilton and with good reason. The last time they met, Hamilton spanked the Riders 53-7 in a game that should have featured lighting hitting an outhouse somewhere outside of Tim Horton’s Field.  Or as I understand it, a regular part of the City of Hamilton’s public works projects.

However Hamilton was forced into a trade with Saskatchewan getting Shane Hebert, a Canadian defensive back, in exchange for BJ Daniels, a fixture on the Rider negotion list until his listing was traded to Hamilton in exchange for Jake Waters, who has fallen off the radar in Riderville.

Hamilton is looking pretty beat up and this is a good position for the Riders, considering they will likely be fielding much of a similar lineup that beat Deadmonton. Hamilton strikes me as the eastern equivalent of Deadmonton, brilliant in spots, but with more than enough holes to prevent them from being everything they imagine themselves to be.

It will be a wet, cold, sloppy game and Hamilton will get hurt. The Riders win 30-21.