Sunday, bloody Sunday

We exchanged some stories about Riderville, how the Edmonton Police were great sports and posed with a picture of me with my hands against the wall, looking back in fear, wearing my Steve Earle Revolution Starts Now hat while one of Edmonton's finest was holding a flashlight as if to subdue me.

There is a saying, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Well, let's say the same principle applies to Grey Cups.

Montreal was looking for any sort of edge with their hotelgate complaining and how the CFL loves the Saskatchewan Roughriders more than they loved the Montreal Allouettes. Well, have you seen the merchandizing dollars the Riders bring in?

We went on our way, and made our way to Commonwealth Stadium, where high in the corner of the end zone, we had a pretty good view of proceedings, including a brisk wind.

Montreal took the wind and moved the ball well, but I noticed something on that first drive. The Canadian cornerback, Derion Mitchell, was leaving a 10 yard cushion to the Montreal receivers, so if you include his back-pedalling, this meant Montreal had relatively easy first down yardage whenever they wanted.

The Riders played pretty good run defense for the most part, and got back into the game and a half time lead, but they lost the game in the third quarter.

Montreal put together a drive against the wind that took time off the clock and left the Rider offense hopping on the sideline trying to keep warm. Much has been said about leaving points off the board when the Riders opted to punt instead of making field goals, but the Rider special teams have given up two missed field goal returns for touchdowns against Montreal, so I had no problem with the decision to punt.

You could say it was vote of non confidence in our kicker Warren Kean, hell, I'll say that, but I honestly don't think that was reason for the punts. If the Riders pinned Montreal deep and perhaps got a turnover or sack, the way the defense was playing, that would have worked in our favor.

The Riders lost the game when Montreal did the direct snap on their punt and continued to move the ball. When you go against a brisk wind in the tricky wind conditions of Commonwealth Stadium, anything resembling a ball control offense would be great.

I have heard it said Darian Durant had a hamstring injury and that limited his mobility. Which could be possible. But what didn't help were the drops by Chris Getzlaf, who has suffered from periodic attacks of the dropsies this season.

The pass Durant threw for an interception, he was trying to throw out of bounds, so again, with four guys on his back, you could make the case that he could have eaten the ball and gone second and long, but Durant is a competitor. Not everything can go our way.

So if I had to put goat horns on people, I would put them on our cornerbacks. They were not aggressive and gave too much territory up to Montreal receivers, which explains why Jamal Richardson walks away with the MVP award.

This was not as devastating as last year, which was weirdest crowd reaction I have ever seen. It was like we were all shot and had to leave quickly.

I've been going to Rider games since 1976 and there are times when you look at them and know when they are going to be sharp and when they are not.

I didn't see that from them Sunday. I saw a team that matched its longest winning streak of the year just to get to the Grey Cup, and I saw they were out of gas.

Perhaps they bought into that redemption revenge angle, and were waiting for the football guards to reverse themselves from last year. If so, that was a mistake.

There were players who played with heart. Keith Shologan was a monster on the d-line, Jerrel Freeman, who I met at the airport last week, may get an NFL look. Along with Weston Dressler.

But that supposes there will be an NFL season next year. And from I have seen, there will be a lockout. So I don't think they are going anywhere.

The weird thing is the Riders seemed to be stumped by the cold weather. And after what we saw in Calgary last week, I was trying to get my head around it.

So that's why I am going with the “they ran out of gas” theory. They had a good sophomore season with Durant, and now they have to meet the challenge of making necessary changes and moving on to clinch the deal next year.

Which ironically enough, will be the subject of my column next week.

If you'd excuse me for a minute…I really need to get some sleep

by Riderville

Sunday, bloody Sunday

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