Sunday, August 09, 2009

Sunday Morning 'Rider Blogging

So the good news after the 'Riders' loss to B.C. is that they're still tied for first place in the West - albeit a three-way tie at 3-3.

But what about the game itself? For once, let's start with special teams, which went from a slight weakness for most of the season to a catastrophe against the Lions. And once again, the biggest issue was with the 'Riders' punt returns, where Gerran Walker fumbled away a second-quarter touchdown and didn't do much positive on his other opportunities.

Fortunately, there seems to be an easy enough solution even if the team doesn't trust Stu Foord to handle punt returns. And no, I'm not talking about entertaining the kids with Casey McGahee's juggling act, or cycling back to Eric Morris. Instead, the 'Riders' backup option thus far is looking more and more appealing as a primary choice.

At the start of the season, the team planned to use Weston Dressler exclusively on offence after he emerged as the 'Riders' top receiver last year. But if there's been any consistent positive trend on offence, it's been the regular emergence of receiving threats: Rob Bagg and Chris Getzlaf have shown that they can serve as primary targets, while Johnny Quinn (who made a brilliant catch to set the 'Riders up for their last touchdown against the Lions) and Walker have shown more aptitude in offensive sets than on the return teams, providing plenty of depth to go with Andy Fantuz (once he's healthy), Jason Clermont and Dressler. So why not assign Dressler the task of returning punts regularly, rather than sending him back only after somebody else has failed?

Granted, aside from his field-goal return against the Stamps Dressler hasn't done much when given the opportunity to field kicks this year. But at the very least, he'll give the team the most sure set of hands it can get. And there's little reason to think he can't work his way back to last season's form if he's told to prepare to be the 'Riders' primary punt returner.

Given the trade-off of having a slightly less skilled receiver on the field for a few plays a game in exchange for 5-10 yards at the start of every drive (and maybe a few turnovers avoided), I'd have to think Ken Miller would have to be interested in the exchange. And that goes doubly if the best alternative is to keep swapping in and out the same players who have already flopped in the role.

As for the rest of the team, there were certainly some areas for concern. In particular the offence again went dormant during the third quarter, and a switch to Steven Jyles at quarterback in the fourth quarter didn't seem to help much.

Indeed, I'll sound a note of caution about Jyles' passing numbers. For most of the quarter, he showed virtually no ability to find receivers in the face of a relentless pass rush - leading to loads of sacks, along with a few decent gains on scrambles. It was only with roughly a minute to go in the game and the Lions in more of a prevent defence that he managed to put up some yardage - but the team obviously can't count on having that working in Jyles' favour most of the time.

As a result, the better strategy at quarterback looks to be the one the team used against Calgary - giving Jyles a chance relatively early on so that Darien Durant can get a different view of the game, but making sure that Durant is in the game when it matters most.

Meanwhile, the defence allowed Buck Pierce to put up a disturbingly high completion percentage and control the ball for much of the second half. But it does figure to be the unit with the most to be proud of in the game, particularly since the Lions turned the tables on the 'Riders by parlaying 16 yards of offence into 21 points thanks to turnovers.

Next up for the 'Riders will be a contest against the resurgent Tiger-Cats following a long week. And given how regularly CFL teams coming off poor games have redeemed themselves the next week, I'd be hesitant to pick against Saskatchewan this time out. But there isn't much room for doubt that the 'Riders' problems are staying in place or worsening from week to week - and by a third of the way into the season, there can't be much excuse if the team isn't figuring out how to fix problems that have been apparent from day one.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

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