Riders player depth facing challenges against BC

Hey, maybe the Argos were listening to former NFL player Luke Wilson whining on the sideline about how boring the game was and the attendance problems the CFL is facing these last few weeks.

The Riders were down a Canadian receiver in Samuel Emilus who won’t be playing this week so the Riders did not dress running back Ka’Deem Carey. The Riders running game looked good with AJ Ouellette and Mathieu Bertrand-Hudon doing what they needed to give the Riders a balanced running attack.

After the game Argo Head Coach Ryan Dinwiddie took a page out of the Kavis Reed speaking notes about consequences when he said people will be going home following the team’s performance. Which may have been more rhetorical than anything else because no one seems to have left.

The Riders have found ways to win and even though I am a Rider fan, I never felt the team was in danger of losing any of their first three games. On Saturday the Riders will face stiffer competition in the BC Lions who have dropped two to the Bombers and may or may not be without the services of quarterback Nathan Rourke with another week with an oblique injury.

This kind of injury makes it hard to throw or get much velocity on the ball and Rider fans may remember Cody Fajardo had one of those when he was here, played through it and probably made it worse. The usual time for one of these is three to four weeks, so I am confident Rourke will not be playing this week against the Riders.

Apparently neither will Trevor Harris who took a kick to the head from an Argo player and is listed as being out with a head or illness. Harris was out for practice on Tuesday in shorts, did not really throw, and was not out on Wednesday.

Rider coach Cory Mace seems to be taking a page out of the Mike O’Shea book of injury management and be as vague as possible about the nature of the injury to Harris. The use of the word infection by Mace had me thinking and I wonder if Harris doesn’t have side effects from the kick to the head, maybe he has kidney stones and I remember when Kramer had those during a memorable Seinfeld episode.

So we are likely to see Jake Maier against Jeremiah Masoli and Masoli, to be charitable looked old against Winnipeg. With a steady stream of short passes or passes aimed too high, Masoli had problems with the pressure the Winnipeg defensive line was sending and considering Buck Pierce, the BC head coach was the former offensive coordinator for the Stony Mountain Blue Bombers in the Grey Cup last year, where after Zach Collaros injured his finger, he was still sent out to throw interceptions instead of Winnipeg relying on its running game and back up QB, suggests if Masoli goes out and Rourke is not ready to go back in, the Lions are in big trouble.

The Lions should look better with another week of practice under Masoli but if the Riders want to unleash the awesome power of their defense, their rush and speed can make life difficult for Masoli.

Look to the Lions to do the same to Maier, lots of pressure and lots of zone defense to keep the ball in front of them and allow their defense to make some tackles and perhaps some turnovers. While the Lions have James Butler at running back to try to provide a balanced attack, I am thinking the Riders will play around with their ratio to activate Carey and do a ball control pounding attack to drive the Lions into submission.

For Maier this is an opportunity to show he belongs not just this year but next. Rider fans seem to think Tommy Stevens, the former Penn State QB is the best acquisition this year for the team and Jack Coan can roll out, something Maier has trouble with.

If Maier can hand off the ball, game manage effectively and not throw an interception, the battle of the back ups will be entertaining, but the Riders will win 29-24 to head into their bye week with a 4-0 record.

The Argos go to Ottawa and face an Ottawa team that went into a flooded Calgary and came away with a 20-12 win. Maybe Dru Brown comes back for the Redblacks, who played solid defense and showed great discipline in the waterlogged conditions, but the Redblacks with Dustin Crum can do the ball control offense.

The question is whether Nick Arbuckle continues at quarterback or if Chad Kelly returns from his broken ankle to try to spark the defending Grey Cup champs. Missing Kelly hurts the Argos, but the loss of linebacker Wynton McManis is probably the definitive reason the Argos lost.

The Riders ran effectively against the Argos, and since I monitor the Bomber fan site Morning Big Blue, I could hear the gnashing of teeth and wailing at how unfair it was the Riders got to run against the Argos so well and if the Bombers had tried the same thing in last year’s Grey Cup, maybe they too would have blessed.

Anytime you have a team looking to replace eight starters, you sort of suspect things will not go well in terms of continuity, like covering the final kick off return. Dinwiddie read the riot act, did not really follow through as least as of Wednesday, but if the Argos get some of their starters back, they will be a better team.

Ottawa did a great job of putting a lasso around the Stamps offense, although the weather helped. Ottawa showed patience and determination against Calgary and while I suspect it will not be a tropical monsoon in Ottawa, there should be heat and humidity also takes a toll, especially on players returning from injury who may not be quite 100 per cent.

Toronto should win, but I have questions about Dinwiddie’s rant and the effect it may have on the locker room, especially as Kavis Reed once said, there were no consequences afterwards. A team short on starters working in less-than-ideal weather and overcoming a previously undefeated team has some character on its side and for that reason, and probably because I don’t think Kelly will start this week, Ottawa wins this one 26-24.

Consequences as Kavis Reed and John Wick once said.

The Bombers handled their rematch with the Lions handily, 27-14, using their defense to keep BCs receivers in front of them and using the speed of their linebackers and defensive secondary to take advantage of BC’s holes in their offensive line and put pressure on Masoli.

The Bombers have a short week, and they host the Edmonton Elk who dropped a 38-28 game to Montreal in a game that was not that close. The most notable thing from that game was Davis Alexander being pulled as Montreal QB after pulling what appeared to be a hamstring.

Montreal did not lose much by inserting McLeod Bethel Thompson at back up while Edmonton was handled easily for most of the game, with the highlights coming from Tre Ford running around and at times hitting a wide-open receiver.

Edmonton brought in a lot of talent, but already there is dissension in Elktown about defensive coordinator JC Sherritt not handling the defensive game calls well and maybe should be replaced. Edmonton replaced its whole football operations staff with Ed Hervey coming back and Mark Killiam learning its is not as easy as it looks being the guy in charge.

As much as I would like to see a Canadian quarterback succeed, I am leaning to thinking Tre Ford is a one trick pony who makes great highlight reel footage but cannot sustain drives or know when to knock a team out. Edmonton has a lot of elements in place, but unfortunately, they are going to have to learn how to play, lost and maybe eventually together before you can judge the Killiam experience a success or a failure.

Stony Mountain should get their track shoes on and work on their cardio this week as they look to rein in Ford. Based on what they did on an immobile Masoli, Winnipeg should be able to run the ball effectively, even without Brady Olivera, and limit the opportunities Edmonton has on offense.

Look to Winnipeg to keep their feet on the Elks throats and maybe in the fourth, give them a garbage time touchdown. Tre Ford wants to play like he’s back on the playground but if you can’t do more than scramble, you are going to lose more than you win until you learn to play more effectively.

Winnipeg wins this one 33-19.

Montreal goes to Hamilton to face the 0-2 Tiger-Cats who can rack up the yards but not in a way that makes them count, like against the Riders.

Montreal has the best defense in the league with a competent but as yet undetermined offense kicking in. Montreal has a better quarterback combination than Alexander and Fajardo last year and Jason Maas still has his passion but lets his brain do the leading and not distracting his team.

Montreal could well be looking at clinching the east by Labour Day and that is when the more successful teams look at the balancing act of resting regulars while providing much needed experience to backups.

Hamilton will be looking to convert all its offensive prowess into points and maybe their bye week will help with their timing, but Montreal has yet to stumble, although to be honest, they are beating the teams they should be beating, and this is a long season.

Montreal has a chance to put away their eastern competitors early with a run and I would rather be figuring out how to spend the last third of the season spelling off regulars than making some sacrifice to the dark forces to get my players off the injury list so I can make the playoffs.

Hamilton can investigate the rules concerning human sacrifice after this game when Montreal dominates them 35-20

There has been a lot of talk regarding attendance this season and the images of empty seats across the league. I won’t blame Calgary for not coming out in that monsoon against Ottawa, but all teams including Stony Mountain have sections which are very empty.

The Riders home opener was on a Thursday and the Riders lost their out-of-town patrons, who make up a third of attendance, for that game. At the Rider AGM Tuesday Rider CEO Craig Reynolds acknowledged the team has challenges keeping their season ticket base considering economic conditions, time constraints and an aging season ticket base.

I asked Reynolds what the current season ticket numbers at the meeting, and he responded with 15,500. That is a drop of roughly 10,000 over the last 10 years but while you could blame COVID and the lost 2020 season, two price increases for a team that was losing was not the ideal optics.

I would rather the Rider executive swallow their pride and get those empty seats sold, even at reduced prices to fill the seats.

About 20 years ago I had a job interview with then GM Roy Shivers for the communications position for the Riders. The Riders were not doing well, and he asked me how I would do things for the remainder of the season.

I told him I would change the focus from trying to make the playoffs to making the game a destination location and selling the fan experience. There is nothing like the excitement of being amid over 30,000 fans enjoying the incredible drama of whether their team can win or not that week.

When you have a shared experience like that, it makes the rest of life look bland. The Riders need to get back to that mentality as they seem to have abdicated being the flagship to Stony Mountain. The Riders made a profit of $2 million with revenues of $41 million and expenses of $39 million.

The big thing was the introduction of the Obsidian jersey which with numbers and nameplates retails for over $300. This Saturday is the First Nations game and they have put some color into their Indigenous logo which I think is cool and I picked up a hat.

Rider fans are paying what I like to call the Rider tax on the merchandize because when I look at other teams’ websites, I can pick up practice rosters, Indigenous practice jerseys much easier and cheaper than I can get Rider stuff, when I can get it.

The Riders say they know they have a problem; the question is how they plan to address it. The on-field side of the operation seems to have a plan, it will be interesting to see if the business operation can learn from their mistakes or keep repeating the same things which have not been working.

If my advice was good enough for Roy Shivers, it should still be valid today.

by Greg Urbanoski

Riders player depth facing challenges against BC

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