The good, the bad, and the dumb of the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ 26-19 loss to Hamilton

Photo: Bob Butrym/RFB Sport Photography / 3DownNation. All rights reserved.

Death, taxes and the Saskatchewan Roughriders having a bad time in Hamilton.

It’s not unusual for teams from the West Division to struggle when heading East and vice versa, but for the Riders, Hamilton specifically has been a house of horrors over the years. I don’t need to get into the history too much, as I don’t want to trigger any Rider fans — just ask them, it’s a thing.

Saturday night at Hamilton Stadium was yet another chapter written in that horror story, as the Green and White suffered a 26-19 loss to a team they were favoured to defeat.

Is it anything to panic about? Probably not. These things will happen over the course of an 18-game season. What matters is how the team responds next week.

Here’s the good, the bad, and the dumb of the Riders’ third loss of the season.

The Good

Over my years of writing for 3DownNation, I’ve never been afraid to give credit where it’s due.

A lot went wrong for the Riders against the Ticats, but one thing that finally went right was Alex Hale’s kicking. I’m not breaking any news here when I say that Hale has been one of the worst, if not the worst, place kickers in the CFL this season. He’s missed far too many kicks, and his head coach has opted to make some questionable decisions because of an obvious lack of confidence in his kicker.

That changed on Saturday night in Hamilton.

The Riders’ Global kicker went four-for-four, including hitting kicks from 48 and 52 yards. Both were kicks he previously wouldn’t have gotten the opportunity to attempt. Mace had an opportunity to let Hale attempt a 48-yarder last week and opted to punt instead.

This week, Hale was given the chance to prove if he could do it, and he made the most of it. He was arguably their best player in Hamilton.

Will one game give Rider fans more faith in Hale? Probably not, but it’s certainly the first step on the road to recovery.

The Bad

Of all of the games in Trevor Harris’ career, that was one of them.

The likely future Hall of Famer had a game to forget against the Ticats, finishing the night with a pedestrian 207 yards on 23 completed passes over 35 attempts. He threw just one touchdown and had two interceptions, but easily could have been picked off more if not for some luck.

In what’s been a bit of a concerning trend of late, Harris once again started the game slow and threw an interception on his team’s second play from scrimmage. It wasn’t an interception that’s easy to shrug off either. Harris had two better options underneath instead of trying to push the ball a little further downfield as he stepped up in the pocket to escape pressure.

For a few weeks now, Harris hasn’t exactly lit up the scoresheet early in games. In previous weeks, Harris would eventually find his rhythm and be the quarterback we all expect him to be. Against the Ticats, other than a brief stretch toward the end of the first half, we never really saw it.

Does this mean Rider Nation should be concerned about their starting quarterback? Of course not. Everyone is going to have bad games from time to time. This was one for Harris. It’s just unfortunate the rest of the team couldn’t pick up the slack for their pivot in this one.

The Dumb

I’m not going to lie, I struggled with this one.

This wasn’t a very interesting football game. That’s not to say that it was necessarily poorly played, but as an agent of chaos, at this point you know I’m looking for something wild or fun that happened throughout the course of the game to write about in this space.

I thought I was stumped. I even said in the group chat featuring the members of this fine website that I had no idea what the dumb was from this game.

Until I finally got something to work with.

TSN play-by-play man Rod Smith had an excellent slip of the tongue when discussing Hamilton’s quarterbacks Harrison Frost and Tre Ford, accidentally calling Frost by the name Harrison Ford.

If there’s another thing many people know about me, it’s that I am not one to know much about pop culture, especially movies. That said, I am aware of who Harrison Ford is, as obviously Smith is as well.

Smith even admitted he knew he’d make the mistake eventually and then joked, we should see Harrison Ford quarterback in the CFL. I don’t know if I’d go that far, as there’s no question that the 84-year-old would definitely be far past his prime to quarterback at just about any level of football, let alone the professional ranks.

But in his prime? I mean, maybe.

OK, probably not. I’m working with what I’ve got here; give me a break.