The good, the bad, and the dumb of the Saskatchewan Roughriders' 20-13 win over Ottawa

Rider fans’ long national nightmare is over.

Okay, it was only three weeks, but the Riders ended their two-game losing streak in Ottawa thanks to a 20-13 win over the last-place Redblacks.

While the Green and White may have moved closer to clinching first place in the West Division and earning the right to host the Western Final in November, you can’t blame fans if they’re still not exactly thrilled with the state of their football team. The Riders won, but it wasn’t anything close to a performance that would win them a playoff game.

Here’s the good, the bad, and the dumb of the Riders’ 11th win of the season.

The Good

A week ago, the Riders’ defence held the team in it for much of the night in Edmonton, but eventually the walls gave way and it ended up being a rough result.

Against Ottawa, the defence did all of the work to ensure the Riders left the nation’s capital with a win.

Going forward, Ottawa has a lot of questions at quarterback. The defence took advantage of Dru Brown’s miscues with three interceptions, including one that SAM linebacker Antoine Brooks Jr. took 85-yards to the house to give the Riders a 14-0 lead. It was a lead they never surrendered.

They did it in a different fashion than we’ve seen from them, as well. They didn’t have the best game up front, but still managed to keep the Redblacks corralled.

Perhaps the most impressive part of the night was how the defence adjusted to the Redblacks inserting quarterback Dustin Crum into the lineup. Right away, you saw an energy shift from Ottawa, but they weathered the early storm and held Crum to just 99 yards passing. Perhaps more importantly, they limited him to eight yards along the ground.

When Crum gets those legs going in close games late, dangerous things tend to happen. Thanks to the defence, the Riders avoided falling victim to another Crumback.

The Bad

For the second week in a row, the Riders’ offence was stuck in the mud for much of the night. Take out an opening drive touchdown and one 66-yard splash play, and they didn’t do much of anything.

The most troubling thing remains the play of Trevor Harris, who struggled for the second week in a row. The quarterback finished the night with 341 yards passing, a touchdown and, most importantly after last week, no interceptions. However, he never really looked all that comfortable and was again struggling to find or hit his receivers consistently.

I think there’s some growing pains to receivers like Sam Emilus and Kian Schaffer-Baker coming back into the lineup. They are obviously talented players, but are trying to catch up to an offence that has played most of the season without them. But, that shouldn’t lead to this poor of a performance.

The puzzling part of the whole thing is their reluctance to use their best player, running back A.J. Ouellette, a whole lot more. The Ohio native had 18 carries in this one, but that was inflated by the team opting to use him in short-yardage without quarterback Tommy Stevens on the roster.

They should be able to generate more than 87 yards they managed after the first drive of the game and before the fourth quarter began.

The Harris fumble at the Ottawa five-yard line in the game’s final minutes was bad, but he was put in a bad spot by a play call that should have had the ball land firmly in the gut of Ouellette. Strangely enough, the running back ended up making perhaps the play of the game when he managed to chase down Redblacks’ defensive lineman Bryce Carter and saved a touchdown. Ottawa ultimately settled for a field goal, ensuring the Riders would remain a touchdown ahead.

I understand the desire to get Harris and the rest of the offence going, but sometimes you just gotta lean on who’s rolling. Lately, that’s been Ouellette.

The Dumb

I have to give credit to TSN analyst Paul LaPolice. A couple of years ago, the former CFL coach made his debut as a colour analyst late in the season after working with the panel for much of the year.

It wasn’t exactly a smooth transition, as I believe LaPolice struggled to find his character in the booth. We all know he knows the game, but being a good broadcaster requires more than that.

As time has gone on, LaPolice’s charisma has improved dramatically and I think we saw a great example of that during this broadcast when he was included in the read for a promo for an NCAA game on TSN+. With much vigour, LaPolice exclaimed that he wasn’t interested in watching curling, tennis, or hockey. He wants to watch football.

We’ll forgive LaPolice for throwing some unnecessary shade towards the great game of curling, because the read was fun and a welcome addition to the broadcast.

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