What is important now?

A rough weekend for my beloved Riders. An embarrassing second half performance against the Stampeders  thus eliminating the thought of first place in the West. Not to mention, some serious injuries and questions about the defence.

But, does it really all matter? Yes, the loss was painful but we really gave first place away when we lost to Toronto. The injuries are the most significant, in particular losing Luca Congi. Now, I'm not a huge Congi fan because he seems to miss at the worst time and big plays result (against us). You may not know what I mean. Well, two incidents come to mind and amazingly both against Montreal in the Grey Cup and the season opener. In the first half of the GC, Congi missed a 42 yarder in the first quarter and it gets run back to the 30. 3 points here, means Sask 30 - Als 28. In the season opener, Congi misses a FG that gets returned 100+ yards for a TD. However, the Riders pulled out a victory. Regardless, Congi will be missed as we have no one to kick long field goals which will have a big impact on the Riders success.

The injury to Robb Bagg is significant but we have Grice Mullen and Cetoute to step in. I'm particularly excited about Grice-Mullen as he has tremendous speed so we'll be fine there.

But really, what is important now?

What the team needs to focus on is building momentum. First place is not as important as being "hot" leading into the playoffs. The Riders have shown that they can hang with anyone. They beat both Montreal and Calgary this year who are the best teams right now. But they also stunk it up against many this year. Thus, they need to focus on generating a run game for the bad weather that is coming, shore up blitz protection, work on tackling, and practice new special teams scenarios.

Back in 89, we were 9-9 leading into the playoffs and took out three good teams on route to winning the cup. In 07, we were better by record but still had to travel to get the job done. So first place is not the most important thing.

For the Centennial edition of the Riders, they need to be feeling positive heading into the playoffs and leverage the home crowds at Mosaic, McMahon, and Commonwealth. After all, who needs first place when every game you play is like a home game?

Go Riders!