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Saturday, July 25, 2009

Explain Yourself Mr. Higgins

First off, let me say that the Saskatchewan Roughriders plain and simple blew it. They should have blown the Edmonton Eskimos out of the water today having led the game 22-0 only to lose 38-33. However, one must ask just what exactly CFL director of officiating Tom Higgins and his sidekick Jake Ireland were doing late in the football game.
It looked clear to me that Weston Dressler had hauled in a Darian Durant pass to keep a potential game-winning drive going, but the refs ruled the pass to be incomplete. Riders coach Ken Miller would have loved to challenge the play, but he can't because in the final couple of minutes, reviews have to be called by the league office. No call came. Why Tom?? A call at that stage in the game certainly deserved a second look. If then you determine Dressler did not catch the ball that is fine, but you owe it to the Riders and the CFL to take a good look at that play. It may have resulted in the Riders putting the ball in the endzone. It may have resulted in Edmonton still preventing the green and white from getting the ball in the endzone for the game winning points, but the bottom line is the play has to be looked at again.
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Just some other preliminary thoughts on today's game. When I saw Andre Proulx was reffing today's game, I did a little eye-roll. It seems to me that this guy and his crew are a lightning rod for controversy and that every week something happens to make this guy look bad. I know there aren't many guys out there to ref a CFL game, but the league has to look at this guy's record and ask some questions.
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Seeing Calvin McCarty and Arkee Whitlock break off some big runs makes me wonder what Joffrey Reynolds could do next week in Calgary. The run defence has to improve and improve big time.
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I'm still at a loss for words as to why this team can't score in the 2nd half. That is now 22 points total in the 2nd half this year. That is not a formula for success.
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A class act by everyone at Mosaic who gave Richie Hall a standing ovation upon his entrance today. A great, great move and a sign that Richie is missed. He was teary upon game's end and with good reason.
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Its still hard to believe it was 20 years ago that the Riders won the 89 Cup. I can still see Elgaard and Fairholm running their patterns on the Taylor Field turf. I can still see Austin and Burgess filling up the Regina air with footballs and I can still see Jurasin and Lowe creating havoc for opposing offences.
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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought old man Miller was to blame for not throwing out the challenge flag, but you have shifted the blame to Higgins. If the CFL office is to review that call, they owe Rider fans an explanation. No matter what though, there are a lot of concerns after what I saw today---especially on defence.

JN

Anonymous said...

I agree with you regaurding Andre Proulx, his crew is the worst, but the officiating this year in general has been simply put, bad.

I was also pissed at Miller for not challenging, but I had forgotten that they cannot challenge in the last 3 min, but then the league needs to protect both teams interest and the integrity of the league in this situation, no challenge on that type of play is simply not in the best interest of a quality product, and the fans do deserve an explanation as to why that play was not reviewed and what is going to be done about that going forward.

CRG

Anonymous said...

I didn't think Dressler caught the ball and that the Riders are just making excuses. 4 games in and some serious flaws are showing. We have no return game, we have no offensive philosophy in the 2nd half, our o-line is terrible(Get back Gene!!), we can't stop the run. It could be UGLY in Calgary next week.

Ron

Anonymous said...

The cold hard fact is we have a rookie o line, with rookie QBs. We are going to see games like this until the guys gel, I have come to the conclusion I will be watching this season in comparison to 2004 when the team never really got rolling until Labour Day vs. 07-08. Just how it is.
Cameron

Anonymous said...

Can we bring back Reggie Hunt to stop the run on Defence?

L.E.