On a day with the most sunlight of the year, the Roughriders and Argonauts treated their fans to a game that felt like it might go all night. In the end, the Riders somehow came away with a 39-32 win.
Saskatchewan found a balance between feeling like they should have won by 50 while also feeling lucky to have won the game at all. One of these weeks, this entire story will just be a shoulder shrug emoji. But this week, I have many thoughts.
So, let’s try to make any sense of this game, shall we?
Super Mario to the rescue
There was talk that kick returner Mario Alford was in danger of losing his job during training camp. Those conversations seem like they were a lifetime ago.
Alford was fantastic throughout the entire game, and he saved his best for last. Alford’s 99-yard game-saver was an exclamation mark on a night where he was constantly setting the Riders up in good field position.
In the first quarter, the Riders started their drives on their own 40, the Toronto 45, and their own 53. He finished the night with 172 return yards. As this team continues to find itself on both sides of the ball, Alford has been so important in flipping the field, and he is at least part of the reason why this team is 3-0 to start the year.
Special teams giveth, and special teams taketh away
As for the rest of the special teams group — yikes.
Last week, Brett Lauther missed three field goals and an extra point in the Riders’ win over Hamilton. This week, it wasn’t about how many kicks he missed; it was about the importance of what he missed that stood out.
Lauther’s missed field goal at the end of a pretty productive drive allowed the Argos to tie the game, setting up the dramatic finish. I said last week that I don’t believe there is a kicking problem in Saskatchewan, and I still don’t. But that miss almost felt inevitable, which is the opposite of what you want when your kicker heads out onto the field.
By the end of the season, Lauther will probably have made many more big kicks than he will have missed. That turnaround needs to happen soon as the Riders move into a more difficult part of the schedule.
You gonna finish that?
Lauther’s missed FG wasn’t the exception; it was the norm. For the third week in a row, the Riders had a lead that, given game flow and how the sport of football is supposed to work, seemed pretty secure. But just like the two weeks before, every Rider fan had a moment of realization that this game was a lot closer than it felt.
Right when the game feels in hand for the Riders, they get stuck in the mud, and the defence will alternate between looking unstoppable and looking like there are nine players on the field. Three times the Riders extended their lead to double digits. Each time, the Riders turned into a completely different team right after.
You can get away with that when you start your season against teams that are now a combined 0-7. That kind of inconsistency will not do them any favours as the schedule gets more difficult.
Harris was bad…
At the head of that inconsistent play in this game was Trevor Harris. It feels weird to criticize the QB in a game where his team puts up 39 points, but this was not a good performance. He went just 13-of-17 for 234 yards, which is actually a flattering line when you consider 70 of those yards came on one play.
Harris threw for two TDs in the win with just one interception. But that was a bad interception, and he was lucky not to have a couple more on the statline before the night was done. It is wild to see that he only attempted 17 passes because it felt like they threw that slant pass 84 times in this game, with Toronto getting a good read on it on a few occasions.
We know what Harris is at this point in his career. He is going to take what the defence gives him and he is going to do so with incredible accuracy (usually) and put up enough big plays to keep you honest. To call him a game manager feels a little demeaning, but he certainly had game manager-esque tendencies for large stretches of this game. Harris was the frustrating combination of out of sync while also being predictable, and it almost cost the Riders this week.
…Until he wasn’t
All of that being said, Harris made a couple of dynamite throws in this game that should have put it away. With the Riders up 31-24 in the back part of the fourth quarter, he delivered a fantastic pass to KeeSean Johnson to convert on second-and-17. He held the coverage with his eyes and put the ball right on Johnson with the perfect amount of touch to extend the drive.
A couple plays later, the Argos blitzed on second-and-seven, and he hit Johnson for a first down while getting absolutely drilled. That is what makes Harris still so good at this stage in his career. On both of those plays, he did every single thing he was supposed to do down to the most microscopic detail.
If Lauther hits the FG the way he is supposed to, we are talking about a gutsy Harris performance to lead the Riders to another win. If nothing else, the time that drive took off the clock set up the exciting conclusion.
You get a penalty, and you get a penalty, and you get a penalty
One of the main stories of this game was the officiating, with a total of 29 penalties being called for a combined 307 yards. It was the type of game where fans from Saskatchewan might claim that the fix was in, and the big bad CFL was out to hurt the little guy by propping up the team in the league’s biggest market. Meanwhile, Argos fans might swear that the league was out to get them and were favouring Saskatchewan because of the passion for the league in that province.
Of course, both are wrong, and this was all about a series of sloppy plays and poor decisions. The tone was set for this when Kenneth George Jr. was carted off the field after an illegal block from Dhel Duncan-Busby. On the ensuing play, Jordan Williams popped Harris on a hit that was as hard as it was late. Instead of each team accepting that they each had their moment and retribution was had, this started a string of penalties that never seemed to end.
At one point, Glen Suitor on the TSN broadcast felt the need to tell the kids watching at home that playing hard doesn’t mean taking dumb penalties, and that the real hard players are the ones who play well within the rules. It did hit a little bit like your parents telling you, “No, really, the cool kids are actually the ones who don’t drink at the party,” but the point still stands. It was beyond ridiculous, and both teams need to shut that down right away because it almost cost each of them this game.
Groundhog Day
For the third straight week, the Riders’ strategy of not telling their defence what time kickoff is failed them.
Toronto’s notoriously strong offence — insert laugh here — came into the week averaging just 14.5 points per game, but completely carved up the Riders’ secondary on the opening drive. Obviously, things would settle in from there, but it’s baffling how Saskatchewan’s worst drive of the game every week is the first one.
A quick response
The Riders found their way onto the scoreboard in the first quarter for the first time this season. A.J. Ouellette fed into the revenge game narrative by running all over his former team on the opening possession with a drive extending catch and a 25-yard TD run to the right side to cap it all off. The Riders have taken a few drives to find their groove this year, so it was a wonderful surprise to see at least one side of the ball ready to go to start the game.
Revenge, thy name is Thor
A lot of the focus on this game was on A.J. Ouellette’s return to Toronto. Clearly, he was focused, too, as he put together another strong week for the Green and White, going for 91 yards on 17 carries and one trip into the end zone.
There was definitely something extra in his step this week as he seemed to embrace the chippiness of the game. He likely won’t get to the level he was at when he was on the other sideline at BMO Field, although this version of Thor is a nice step forward for the Riders’ offence.
Here to stay
At this point, I just need to stop being surprised when this offensive line plays well. For just the second time this season, Harris was sacked, but aside from that, the big boys up front held up their end of the bargain.
They gave Harris time and presented Ouellette with a few strong running lanes. Even honorary right tackle KeeSean Johnson got into the act, sealing the edge for Tommy Stevens on his 19-yard QB sneak. There are a lot of holes you can poke in this team’s performances this season. But, so far, there are no holes in this offensive line.
Campbell bounces back
Back in Week 1, Tevaughn Campbell took on some well-deserved criticism after he got beaten badly on a couple of occasions in the Redblacks’ failed comeback attempt. Well, he seems to have learned his lesson, as I thought he was quite strong tonight.
Campbell came up with a big pick after a roughing the passer call put Toronto in position to take a shot at the endzone. It’s not his fault that the offence gave it right back a play later. He also had a fantastic tackle on Kevin Mital to force a third-and-two that the Argos barely converted on.
You don’t love giving up 32 points to Toronto after they only had 29 total through two weeks, but Campbell was at least one positive you could take away from the defensive side of this game.
He did what?
Argos kicker Lirim Hajrullahu took a personal misconduct penalty before the Riders’ opening drive. There isn’t much of a thought here; I just think it’s hilarious. Could you imagine your kicker getting booted from a game for multiple misconducts?
Final thoughts
When you looked at the schedule this year for the Riders, it looked like an American College Football slate. A couple of less-than-threatening non-conference games to start the year that hopefully allow you to get a few wins and get everything figured out before you play your conference schedule.
Well, the Riders did the winning part of that equation. I still don’t think Saskatchewan spent their flight back to the prairies thinking about how locked in they are and how everything is clicking.
Riders fans have to hope that with a step up in competition comes a step up in consistency from the guys in green and white. The first test of that will be next week, back at Mosaic, against the B.C. Lions.
