For the first time since 2021, the Saskatchewan Roughriders will be hosting a playoff game.
The Riders earned that right thanks to a 39-8 beatdown of the lifeless B.C. Lions in front of 28,683 at Mosaic Stadium on Saturday night.
We won’t know if the Riders will be hosting the West Semi-Final or the West Final until the final week of the regular season as that’ll depend on the outcomes of Saskatchewan and Winnipeg’s games in the final week of the regular season.
For now, here’s the good, the bad, and the dumb of the Riders’ ninth win of the season.
The Good
A week ago, we wondered about the Riders’ ability to put away a game. For a few weeks, they let some teams like Calgary and Edmonton hang around when they should have found a way to end things earlier.
Putting a team away comes in many different forms and the Riders put the Lions to bed in the second quarter not long after the Lions made it a one-score game.
The Riders turned a fumble from Justin McInnis into a touchdown and a 23-8 lead.
On the very next play from scrimmage, C.J. Avery intercepted Nathan Rourke, which led to a bonus chipshot field goal from Brett Lauther and a 26-8 Rider lead at the half.
The Lions opened up the second half with an onside kick attempt from Stefan Flintoft that sailed right out of bounds. Lauther added another three points off that mistake and the rout was on from there.
Harris hit Kian Schaffer-Baker for an eight-yard touchdown following a Lions’ two-and-out for good measure, which gave the team a 36-8 lead before the third quarter was even over.
When you have an opponent on the ropes, you have to be able to throw them over and out of the ring. The Riders did that on Saturday night.
Odds are they won’t get a game like this in the playoffs, but regardless, we saw some killer instinct from a team that was previously lacking it.
The Bad
The B.C. Lions. Their defence, their quarterback, their offence, their coaching — everything.
That’s pretty much what it comes down to. The Riders are certainly full credit for the win but the lopsided nature of the affair rests solely on the Lions. However, I’ll let my colleague JC Abbott handle that side of things.
If there’s one thing the Riders did wrong in this game, it was keeping quarterback Trevor Harris in a little too long. When you’ve got a 31-point lead in the fourth quarter, your starting quarterback probably doesn’t have to be in the game. That decision nearly cost them too, as Harris took a high hit on what ended up being his final play of the game before being removed by head coach Corey Mace.
Harris is OK, but that could have been much worse.
The Dumb
This game started off on the right foot for the Riders — literally.
On the Lions’ second play from scrimmage, Nathan Rourke tried to complete a pass to running back William Stanback that turned into a wild pick-six for linebacker A.J. Allen that’s difficult to describe. Instead, I’ll let you watch it below.
As you may remember from a previous edition of this postgame column, we’ve discussed the in-game “The Stats are Right” contest before.
In honour of Darian Durant being inducted into the Riders Plaza of Honour, the question was how many yards Durant threw for in 2010 when he led the league in passing.
I assume someone misheard the question because they answered 31,740. This would be an impossible number for a regular season’s worth but it just so happens to be exactly Durant’s career total.
That person didn’t win the game, but they should have been given a prize regardless for getting that number correct.
