Has it only been three years since the Saskatchewan Roughriders were last in the playoffs? It seems much longer.
2022 and 2023 were such agonizing seasons with well documented failures to win after Labour Day. Both seasons wound down with the Riders playing their worst football each year in the final six games of the regular season. This year with a three-game winning streak they are playing their best games in the final third of the season. I say better than their first third of 2024 because playoff pressure has been on them since the Banjo Bowl.
The Oct. 5 game was a game that non-playoff teams lose. The Edmonton Elks were at home. They were desperate to win. They lost 28-24.
The Riders had a slow start to the game. On defence they had committed to stopping the run but McLeod Bethel-Thompson was slicing them through the air. The offence was limited to short runs and short passes and short drives.
When the Elks scored the opening touchdown I thought the game was at a turning point. If the Riders could not respond I saw the Elks building momentum as they did in their previous win over the Riders.
I believe Trevor Harris’s 88 yard touchdown pass completion to Sam Emilus was the pivotal play in the game. The Riders do not go deep often. They had not yet thrown a long pass 20 minutes into the game.
On the play Harris told Britton Gray from CJME that the Eskimos took away his primary target and safety, Loucheiz Purifoy, who stayed in the middle with a Rider receiver running a diagonal route from right to left. Emilus broke past Darius Bratton. Harris said the defender was late. He made a perfect throw and Emilus was gone.
With that play the Riders reversed the Elks momentum and I was confident it would be a good game.
The Rider defence continued to stop the Elks running game for the whole game. Riders Head Coach Corey Mace said Edmonton did a “good job schematically” knowing the Riders would have a plan to stop the run and the Elks went “on top." The Elks schemes got them 24 points while giving up two interceptions. Mace declined the chance to give me details of the Riders plan to stop the run.
C.J. Reavis said the Riders were adding more guys to the box. He went on to say they talked every day of the week about stopping the run. Reavis said it was also a matter of pride to defend the run. While the Rider approach stymied the run it meant the Elks were able to pass behind the linebackers.
Run defence was also simpler on Saturday night because the Riders did not have to defend against Tre Ford running the ball. Bethel-Thompson did not rush the ball at all.
Rolan Milligan probably cemented his selection as Most Outstanding Defensive Player in the league with his eighth interception. He looked to come off his receiver to step in front of Kurleigh Gittens Jr. I do not expect he will get many chances for interceptions in the final two games of the season.
The most important defensive play of the night was Amari Henderson punching the ball free from Gittens with two minutes to go in the game. Henderson’s season has been up and down. It is likely he would not have been on the roster for the game had Deontai Williams not been suspended. On Saturday night it looked like the Elks went after him often. With the game on the line he perfectly timed his punch from behind.
Returning to offence, where Harris declared the fourth quarter Mitch (Picton) time early in the season when Picton caught a pair of passes to seal a victory over the Argos it is now KeeSean (Johnson) time. He caught the pass with just over a minute to go that let the Riders run out the clock.
Harris said Johnson was actually his last resort on the play. He said his primary target was to the field side. He worked his way left to Johnson on the sideline. Harris said he spoke with offensive co-ordinator Marc Mueller after the game who said it was the first time they had ever made the throw back on that play. (I do not think there has been enough recognition that the Stampeder offensive woes of 2024 came after Mueller left Calgary.) The play reminded me of the late fourth quarter throw to Picton on the sideline against the Argos.
Harris was proud the Riders were aggressive and played to win the game with the pass rather than settle for a run that would probably have been stopped and then have to punt to the Elks.
The football gods generally balance out over the season. Rider fans have been justifiably resentful of the Command Centre through most of the 2024 season. Saturday night was a game to be thankful for the Centre. They reversed an Elks touchdown completion to Javon Leake to an incompletion observing Leake had to use the ground to help catch the ball. Later the Centre agreed with Mace’s challenge for defensive pass interference. That decision kept the Riders game ending drive alive.
While Jarrious Jackson and Mace are both rookie head coaches it was Jackson who wasted a challenge by attempting a challenge that could not be made so that he was without a timeout as the game wound down.
I will not be in Regina next weekend as we are going to Calgary to visit family for Thanksgiving. It will be interesting to see how the B.C. Lions react to the pressure of needing to win to gain a home playoff game.
Bill Selnes, who’s based in Melfort, has written about the Saskatchewan Roughriders since the late 1970s. He was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, Football Reporters of Canada wing on Nov. 24, 2013.
