Questions that haunt the Riders

So when they went to Winnipeg, I suspect the locker room felt that OK, we are good because even when we didn’t play so good, we still won. The Riders felt they got their bad game out of their system and would prove themselves to be a first place team.

Well, from almost first to third. Thank Jebus the Edmonton Eskimos are imploding following being swept by the Calgary Stampeders. Trevor Harris may have thought a change of scenery would do him good, but while Harris can roll up the numbers, short five and dime passes are not what wins Grey Cups and Harris may have a Grey Cup ring, but that was as a back-up.

When Edmonton lost Mike Reilly, they did well from a public relations perspective picking the pocket of the Ottawa Redblacks, but one wonders if Edmonton has a less combustible coach than Jason Maas, would Edmonton have maybe reverted back to a winning formula and identified and developed their own quarterbacks like they did in the 1980s when they operated outside of any salary cap restraints?

If you want to play a game of what-if in Edmonton, maybe the Eskimos might have taken a few growing pains this year with a young QB, but surround that QB with the right supporting cast, they could have easily hoisted the Grey Cup in Regina in 2020. Now the Eskimos are finding out that sometimes they can be too smart for their own good.

The Eskimos could probably book their rooms for Montreal for the Eastern Semi-Final where unlike Edmonton, Montreal finally went to a young quarterback and finally showed the right sort of patience with Vernon Adams Jr. Montreal will not be an easy out after finding their way through the tire fire that was the Kavis Reed Experience

The Eskimos did catch a break this week when the number 3 overall pick in the 2019 CFL draft, Mathieu Betts signed a three year with the deal after trying his options south of the border. Betts on paper gives the Eskimos the ability to build a really impressive Canadian defensive line which is what current Eskimo GM and former Ottawa assistant GM Brock Sutherland did when helping to build the Redblacks in 2014.

I wonder what Sutherland is thinking of his old mates in Ottawa as they dropped a game to the Toronto Argonauts and seem poised to take the mantle of worst team in the league. Of course Toronto and BC have in the standings worse records, but those two teams are at least being competitive in their games.

Ottawa rolled the dice and gambled on Dominique Davis and then when Jamie Elizondo was denied permission to talk to the Riders about a coaching position and then left Ottawa for greener pastures just before training camp, Ottawa was left with a quarterback with impressive biceps and another quarterback who was dismissed by his previous GM as coasting through his stay with the Lions.

The results have been, uh, a 3-8 record so far with no upsides like being seen in Toronto and BC. For a team with a rabid fan base, this is a new experience and I wonder if the fans or ownership have the patience to work through this mistake and move on.

In Toronto, the play by the Argos over the last month did not have the results hoped for, but the competitiveness of the team lends hope to the underground of Argo fans that a corner has been turned. McLeod Bethel-Thompson at 31 may not be anyone’s textbook ideal of a quarterback to build a team around, but the guy works hard, completes balls and more importantly, competes.

Bethel-Thompson seems to recognize the opportunity he has been given and unlike, say, Jon Jennings or even James Franklin, he is determined to make the most of it which especially includes putting in the time in the film room. The Argos have five quarterbacks under contract and with teams dressing three this year but only two next year, the team will have to make a decision about which direction to go in and get something for two to three quarterbacks this year.

Part of the problem in Toronto, and probably Ottawa and other teams as well is that the football adminsitration salary and numbers cap has limited the ability of teams to bring in coaches or replace those coaches who are not performing. The cap was brought in to fend off the Canadian Football League Players Association who felt too much money was going to coaches and GMs and not enough for players.

Let’s be honest, the cap was brought in as well because other teams were pissed at the Riders a few years back who heisted almost the entire coaching staff of the 2015 Eskimos who won the Grey Cup . The Riders also make more money from merchandise than the rest of the CFL combined and have turned the money back into the team to improve operations.

So the Argos, like every other team, have to back away from the quick fix of firing and then hiring to cover a multitude of sins. The problem is with Milennials having such a short attention span, there may not be the understanding or patience for a rebuild that provides sustained excellence.

That is also a problem in BC where the team is looking for new owners, while coming to grips that while Ed Hervey paid top dollar for Mike Reilly, Hervey had chump change left over for an offensive line to keep Reilly upright The Lions fired formner offensive line coach Bryan Chiu and replaced him with former Lion Kelly Bates and the initial results were encouraging as Reilly was kept upright for most of the game and the Lions could have won if there was a fair and just universe

As Rider fans have found out, the universe is neither fair nor just. The Lions have to operate within the hole they have dug for themselves and the news they signed former Saskatchewan Roughrider and #1 overall pick offensive lineman Josiah St. John came as no surprise.

St. John will be on the practice roster, but this year the Lions under rookie head coach Claybrooks is discovering there is more to this coaching thing than wearing a cap at a different angle. St. John was a Chris Jones mistake because Jones thought if a player went to a big school, he would know how to operate in a big league way.

I would put more faith in what Bates can bring the Lions offensive lineman than in selecting a guy who has under-performed for most of his three years in Riderville. There are no quick fixes when you are 1`-10, but if the Lions rookie head coach can learn from his mistakes, there is room to grow.

This Friday Ottawa goes to BC and when it comes to say, Ottawa versus the Miami Dolphins, you would have to think the winners would be the drug companies who could bottle that as a sleep aid. The real question is how is Mike Reilly still the only starting quarterback still standing this season despite being beaten up more often than Santa Claus at Dollarama Field in the City Where Dreams Go To Die?

These questions haunt me. I think Bryan Chiu took one for Ed Hervey for managing the salary cap like Andrew Harris manages his “protein” supplements, but I like Kelly Bates, the ex-Lion from Humboldt who also got jobbed by SFU but got some consistency in the BC offensive line which added former Number 1 draft pick Josiah St. John, whose barely worn game worn jersey I still have.

St. John is a project, but if BC has turned the corner in keeping Reilly upright – then I have to think BC wins this one 26-25. And merely for surviving the beating he has taken this year, Mike Reilly is the true outstanding player in the CFL this year.

Hamilton goes to Calgary on Saturday and the big development this past weekend was not Winnipeg beating the crap out of the Riders, but Calgary with Bo Levi Mitchell sweeping Edmonton and serving notice they are back.

Consider this CFL fans, while BC and Edmonton went all in on the free agency market, Calgary under John Hufnagel has rarely gone with the high profile signings and prefers to develop from within. Even their coaching staff is consistent and the job they have done this year is amongst the best I have seen in recent years.

In Hamilton Dane Evans is a placeholder or game manager type of QB and Tyrell Sutton being signed by the Cats is an indication they are going heavy into the ground game for the stretch run. But even if Jeremiah Masoli was in for the Cats, I would still have to pick Calgary because unlike Evans, Mitchell knows how to win. Calgary wins this one 27-24.

Finally we have Montreal at Saskatchewan to wrap up the weekend.

Montreal is on a roll but one could argue that if BC Head Coach DeVone Claybrooks had more experience, he would have thrown a challenge flag in the fourth quarter when Reilly threw a ball into the end zone that could have been rule interference and BC wcould have won.

That being said, you have to love how Montreal has come together and the Riders and the Als are very much like mirror images of each other. The last time they met was the rain shortened 17-10 win that I thought was bogus considering all the other rain delays I have personally survived, and this game should be another defensive battle with offenses looking like Dad Dodge eating a Walbyburger or three at Dollarama Field in the City Where Dreams Go to Die.

So let’s say the Riders win this one 27-24 and go into their bye week w

by Greg Urbanoski

Questions that haunt the Riders

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