Selnes: Hard to see how to stop slide for Sask. Roughriders
In professional football, teams are rarely static. They get better or worse, said columnist Bill Selnes. The riders are on an incline and it’s hard to see how the slide can be stopped.
The “not very good” Hamilton Tiger Cats defeated the inferior “not very good” Saskatchewan Roughriders 18-14 last Friday night. My low expectations of the game were met.
The game on October 7th, where basic stats related to offense and defense lines decided the game.
Added seven more sacks to the Riders League’s worst sack totals. The riders have now handed in 66 sacks. They give up just over four sacks a game.
I thought the Rider offensive line would be bolstered by the three returning linemen, but their presence made no difference.
On the other side of the ball, the drivers had one sack to bring the season total to 39 sacks, or 2.4 sacks per game.
Most notable for the pass rush is the lack of sacks from the line. They haven’t recorded a sack in the past two games. Linebacker Darnell Sankey’s only sack came on Friday.
However, the Riders ran the ball 10 times for 29 yards. The newest Rider running back, Shaq Cooper, had seven yards on five carries.
Early in the game, despite appearing reluctant to run the ball, the Riders were actually third in the league with an average of 103.6 yards per game.
With Cooper, the fourth running back, I could understand some of the driver’s issues. At the same time, I saw little space for him created by the line.
Hamilton ran 31 times for 136 yards, averaging over four yards per carry.
On defense, the Riders were sixth in the league, giving up 97.9 yards per game. What was discouraging was that the Riders knew Wes Hills was coming their way and they couldn’t stop him.
Jason Maas took the heat for the Rider offensive. It’s time to worry about the other “Jason” coordinator, Jason Shivers, for Rider Defense.
In terms of crucial plays, Shaq Evans dropped an easy pass in the fourth quarter to kill a drive that would have given the Riders a real second-half chance to score. The best receivers on good teams don’t drop this pass. It was his second drop of the game.
In Rider’s last offensive game, Cody Farjardo threw up to Kyran Moore. While Fajardo makes no apologies, I thought he was under pressure again in the game.
In professional football, teams are rarely static. You get better or worse.
The riders are on an incline and it’s hard to see how the slide can be stopped. I remember the 2021 BC Lions. They had a great quarterback in Mike Reilly, but he’s been beaten from behind a bad line all season. They lost seven straight games before winning a meaningless game to end the season against Edmonton.
Sankey said after the game, “All we can do is pray.” Unfortunately, losing teams get few spurts from Jesus.
Bill Selnes, who lives in Melfort, has been writing about the Saskatchewan Roughriders since the late 1970’s. He was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, wing of the Football Reporters of Canada, on November 24, 2013.