Playoffs

I took a break from posting last week as I figured the Riders would have their share of detractors and negative energy. I admit, I would have been one of them.

It was quite evident that the energy and focus had been lost. In particular, the offense.  Darian Durant was struggling with his reads, his accuracy, and overall confidence. The entire offence fed off that and the results, although hard to swallow, not surprising.

While watching yesterday's game it was clear that the offense felt confident....Darian felt confident. His decisions were solid, he showed mobility, and most off all he was accurate. I only noticed one pass that was a bit under thrown (a deep ball to Dressler in the first half). Coach Miller preached ball control and DD did just that. To me, that was the difference in the game. This is the confidence needed heading into the playoffs.

The defence, although not strong against the run, did stop Edmonton when needed and forced two turnovers and a safety. Again, the philosophy of bend but not break here. The D does need to shut down versus bending a bit more often as it is live or die going forward. A huge scare in the game was when Barin Simpson went down with what looked like a bad ankle injury. He walked off gingerly but did not return. If he is unable to go Sunday, that is a huge loss as he is our main run stopper. I'm a big fan of Mike McCollough and he can definitely step in but I'd prefer them both on the field. Ian Hamilton from the leaderpost reported that Barin should be OK for the game this Sunday: http://www.leaderpost.com/sports/football/roughriders-football/Simpson+says+good+after+injury+scare/3790075/story.html

Of major concern is still special teams. Not in the coverage aspect as they did a good job against a strong return man in Armstead. I'm talking about field goal kicking. We have a huge gap here and are at risk for anything outside 25 yards. If we are facing third down from outside the 25, we need to either punt to pin them deep or go for it as we will leave ourselves susceptible to a big return. We missed two field goals yesterday that could have been factors down the stretch if we did not start punching it in for TDs.

When it is all said and done, I'd much rather play BC than Edmonton in the playoffs. Travis Lulay is still a rookie who makes mistakes. He threw for over 400 yards yesterday and they still only scored 23 points. We also have something to prove since they beat us last time.

One game at a time but we have to bring the A game each time going forward. If not, the Riders will be getting out the golf clubs....

Go Riders!