Something To "Mitch" About

Is this going to be given away at the next Riders home game or do enough members of the Rider Nation already have one and are pushing it frantically!!!

 

Ask anyone in the CFL if they thought the Saskatchewan Roughriders would start the season at 0-4 and they would say no.  Yes, the football team has now lost four games by a combined total of 12 points, and yes, you could say this team should have a better record than what they do, but the fact is they are 0-4 and you don't get anything for moral victories.  It is made worse by the fact all other teams in the West have two wins and the Riders don't have any with a game against the team that I think is the best on paper coming up Sunday. Needless to say, it is not a good situation around Riderville.  New president and CEO Craig Reynolds must be wondering if he has gone back to his days as the starting quarterback with his high school in Foam Lake when they went 0-6. (With tongue firmly in cheek), IT MUST BE HIS FAULT!!!!!  Craig has a good sense of humour, but you know he and the rest of the organization don't find any humour in what is happening at all.

Go back to last year and this team is now 2-13 counting playoff and exhibition games since last year's Banjo Bowl when Darian Durant went down. Some are very quick to point that stat out when they sharpen their knives on Corey Chamblin, but do you really think this team would have only won twice in the second half of the season with Durant at the helm? That stat is so skewed it is ridiculous, but admittedly it does not reflect well on the guy who took this team to the 2013 championship. He is a better coach than the record indicates. You might not like that statement, but unlike others in this town I am not calling for him to be on the first train out of town.  Injuries can't be and won't be used as an excuse by the football team, but they have certainly taken their toll on the green-and-white. To win a championship, you have to avoid major injuries to key players. You can get by with one or two, but the amount the Riders have had is unreal.

At the end of the day, it comes down to defence and the Rider "D" isn't getting the job done. This is a Rider defence that gave up 100 yards rushing to Travis Lulay for gods sake. Travis Lulay??? Not to pick at a sore from Week 1, but this is not the defence Chamblin envisioned. Injuries have had a part to play in that with Shea Emry, Weldon Brown and now Tristan Jackson out of the lineup, but they just haven't done what has been done in Chamblin's tenure here and that is play good sound football. Lulay got the Lions started on the right foot when he drove the team for a touchdown on the first series and it seemed whenever Lulay wanted to engineer a scoring drive he did so.

The offence sputtered as well and by the time they got things going, they couldn't play catch-up. One Rider told me after the game when the mike was off, that if they get all three phases of the game going they will be dangerous and I couldn't disagree with that, but I asked him when that will happen and he shrugged his shoulders. Another Rider also told me he didn't think the refereeing was as atrocious as we all thought it was and has been. I fear this player is hiding a concussion, but I digress.

The bottom line is you can sit there and say what you want about the football team, but the bottom line is they are 0-4 and that is the biggest surprise out of the first four weeks of the season. 

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Other odds and ends:

 --A gentleman stopped me while I was out and about Saturday afternoon and proceeded to rail on the football club with his target being Chris Getzlaf.  He then went on to say how much better this football team would be if Eric Tillman was still the GM. ??????? Nothing against Tillman who has maintained shop in Regina since being jettisoned by the organization, but have we forgotten that the team has gone to three Grey Cups and won one with another one that we should have had (sorry). I think this team has done just fine in the post-Tillman era. That isn't to say this team would have and could have won Grey Cups had E-T been allowed to continue after the much-publicized incident with his baby-sitter, but I think this organization has done quite well in the post-Tillman era. Change continues to be difficult in Saskatchewan for some I guess. 

  --Take this for what you will. The defending Grey Cup champs have won three games---two of them by one point and one by 5. The Riders have lost all 4 by 12 points combined. One play and one play there and the Stampeders could be in the same boat as the Riders and one play here and one play there and the Riders could be in a lot better position. You make your breaks and you seize your opportunities. One team is doing that right now and the other isn't.

 --The hue and cry over the "new" CFL continues not just here, but across the league as fans are starting to say they are losing interest in what is going on. Is that what the league wants? As I said to someone on the weekend, the league panicked after a season where defences ruled the roost and points were down. The league did not consider they had a new franchise with many new players to this league and they had a league where the experience at the game's major position was fresh. Zach Collaros and Drew Willy were in their first years, add that to the likes of Troy Smith, Alex Brink, Tino Sunseri, Jeremiah Masoli, Seth Doege and a receiving group in Ottawa which was terrible.  What did you expect?  There was a reason why scoring was down. That fact was staring the CFL right in the face and they ignored it and now give us this product in an attempt to "improve" the game.  By the way, we are now 7 1/2 weeks from the NFL season starting and I am hearing more and more people say they can't wait. Yes, the 0-4 record has something to do with that, but so does what we are seeing on the field. One fan said to me Friday night he did not watch the Hamilton-Montreal game and he did not watch any of the Edmonton-Ottawa before going to Mosaic. I am guessing this person didn't watch the Calgary-Winnipeg game either.

-- I will give the league credit though and that is they did do something about the automatic convert. I am surprised to see so many guys missing from 32 yards as I thought the percentage would still be very high, but the PAT is no longer a reason to get up and go to the bathroom or go to the beer stand. I wonder what the percentage will be in the NFL seeing their PAT's will be longer as well.

--The British Open has been fantastic and I expect it will be a fantastic finish with many of golf's top names at or near the top of the leaderboard. It is too bad golf fans who have to work tomorrow won't be able to put their full attention to the final round seeing weather delayed things.  One player you won't watch is Tiger Woods. It is the second straight major in which he has failed to make the cut. Is this what will prompt the networks to start focussing on the stars of today who are getting it done and keeping the PGA relevant or will they continue to show Tiger hack and whack his away around courses showing every shot he takes. It is time for the Tiger lovefest to end and the concentration to start showing us the likes of Spieth, the Johnsons, Dustin and Zach, the McIlroy's and those who will be the stars of this game for the next 5-10 years and beyond. For what its worth, I don't think Jordan Spieth wins this one, but he is right there. My money is on either Louis Oosthuizen or Padraig Harrington. The Europeans know what that course is like and they have an advantage.

--The first list of NHL fantasy rankings for the upcoming season have come out. At least, its the first ones I have seen.  Connor MacDavid is ranked at 62 which is well behind his Edmonton teammate Taylor Hall (32) and just ahead of Jordan Eberle (66). The top 3 are Ovechkin, Sid and Stamkos which should come as no surprise. Where do you take McDavid in your hockey pools this year? Is he considered a Tier 2 player or is he going to be one of those guys at the bottom end of the Tier 1 players.

--Canada won gold in mens baseball at the Pan-Am games with the winning run coming from Pete Orr who wears number 4. There's something ironic and oh so Canadian there. It really is sad the game was not shown on television and instead had to be seen online. Who makes these programming decisions?

--The video of the surfer getting attacked by the shark that made its way around this weekend is incredible. The guy doing the p x p really had no clue what was going on? Look at the monitor and go HOLY F**** like we all did buddy!

--WWE fans, the Undertaker?? I didn't see that happening at the Lesnar-Rollins match last night. I'm OK with it though!!

--Let there be happiness and let there be joy. Fuddruckers is returning to Regina. The only loser here is the Saskatoon establishment because now Reginans going to Saskatoon will go somewhere else before they go home knowing they have a Fudds at home. I think most of us do make sure a Fudds stop is on the agenda when going to Saskatoon don't we?

--That's all I got. Have a great week!!