If you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to give life-saving CPR, there are two popular songs you can choose to hum in order to find the correct rhythm for chest compressions: Stayin’ Alive by The Bee Gees or Another One Bites the Dust by Queen.
Identical tempos. Vastly different levels of optimism.
With their playoff hopes already in cardiac arrest and no defibrillator in sight, the Saskatchewan Roughriders chose the musical act that matched their city’s nickname. Their 29-26 loss to the Toronto Argonauts on Saturday hit many of the same notes as a heroic season rescue but finished with no flourish and a predictable lack of heartbeat.
It will now be the members of the Riders’ coaching staff and front office who live up to the song title, toppling one by one as major changes rip through the organization this offseason. This column should get you acclimatized to new faces, as the task of dissecting the death of the Riders’ season falls to an outsider with all of our local writers otherwise occupied tonight.
Here is the good, the bad, and the dumb of Saskatchewan’s seventh straight loss.
The Good
Full credit to the Riders’ offence, at least they saved their best for last.
Jake Dolegala had arguably the finest game of his young career, as the passing attack came flying out of the gate. A dart to Kian Schaffer-Baker on the opening drive gave Saskatchewan an early lead and the home side had racked up 292 yards through the air by half-time. While that production slowed considerably in the second half, Dolegala still finished 30-of-45 passing for 429 yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions.
Both of those picks were poor decisions from the quarterback and had massive consequences for the game, with Qwan’tez Stiggers taking points off the board and Mason Pierce delivering a dagger on the penultimate drive. However, a tremendous amount was placed on Dolegala’s shoulders in a game where Jamal Morrow rushed for just 21 yards on 10 carries and the positives far outweighed the negatives.
Shawn Bane Jr. and Samuel Emilus both went over 100 yards on the game while cracking 1,000 yards for the season, proving there are at least some building blocks for the future in this receiving corps. It was heartening to Schaffer-Baker snag seven catches for 90 yards as well, the first time he has really looked dominant since returning from injury.
Dolegala and his crew probably should have capitalized a few more times, but it wasn’t an offence spinning its wheels that killed the Riders’ playoff hopes on this night. Despite losing Trevor Harris and turning away from Mason Fine, that unit actually improved from 2022 and Saturday night was solid proof.
The Bad
If you wanted to lay out a dream scenario for a defence looking to close out a must-win football game, you might imagine a rookie quarterback coming in cold off the bench — ideally someone from a school so small and obscure that even the most obsessive football analyst can’t point to it on a map.
While Cameron Dukes trotting out on the field at some point in the game was hardly a surprise, the Riders essentially got that scenario and took every opportunity to waste it.
Of course, the defensive mistakes didn’t start when Dukes entered the ball game and Chad Kelly was nearly as productive as Dolegala in the first half. That was punctuated by a 50-yard touchdown catch from a wide-open Damonte Coxie, turning cornerback Nic Marshall from hero to goat after he logged a brilliant red zone interception on the previous drive. Still, you expect to get beat every now and again by an M.O.P. candidate with a rocket strapped to his right arm.
You don’t expect to allow a kid from Lindsey Wilson College in the NAIA to go 10-of-15 for 113 yards in a little over a quarter of action, including a game-winning drive. You don’t expect to let Richie Sindani — a man who has already been cut twice this year by teams in two different leagues — head-top you for 27 yards on third-and-10 with the game on the line. You don’t expect to let Coxie loose a second time along the sideline and you don’t expect to let a third-string running back run you over for the deciding score.
After three hours of fans waiting for the other shoe to drop, Jason Shivers’ defence collapsed at the most inopportune time against players who normally wouldn’t be on the field in those scenarios. While you can argue it mercifully put an end to another embarrassing Riders’ season, there was no kindness in this execution. It was ugly, and slow, and brutal — much like the decline of this flagship franchise.
The Dumb
The spirit of this column is to focus on the Riders but sometimes an opponent does something so incredibly dumb that you have to bend the rules. That’s the case with the Argonauts’ management of Chad Kelly.
I can understand the difficult situation that Toronto has been placed in, forced to play out a third of their schedule with no stakes. The high-wire act between rest and rust is certainly not for the faint of heart but after initially demonstrating appropriate conservatism by resting his star quarterback against Winnipeg, head coach Ryan Dinwiddie has skewed increasingly dangerous with his decisions. Kelly has played longer each week and it might have dire repercussions after he was forced to stand in against a desperate opponent.
The second-year sensation had already endured a hellacious hit from Bryan Cox Jr. that forced a fumble early in the game but the play that ended his night was exactly what you fear in these scenarios. Pressing late in the third quarter, Kelly stepped up in the pocket and got rid of the ball with the Riders’ Anthony Lanier wrapped around his ankle. A full beat later, the quarterback went down as the defensive lineman unnecessarily rolled and torqued his leg.
No flag was thrown despite an understandably livid Kelly but it was an undeniably cheap play from Lanier, one of those dirty tricks that hides in the gray area of the rule book. Make no mistake though, the resulting hobbled quarterback pulled from the game with a minor injury was entirely the Argos’ own fault. It was a painfully predictable scenario that played out exactly as everyone expected.
Toronto now has three weeks to ensure that Kelly’s limp isn’t a major issue in the East Final — just so long as they correct course and bench him for the regular-season finale. At least Saskatchewan will have the thrill of knowing that they had an impact on the CFL playoffs this year, even while squandering their chance to participate.
