The Saskatchewan Roughriders suffered their first loss of 2025 after what felt like the longest game of football in history.
A game that was supposed to kick off at 7:00 p.m. local time on Friday didn’t begin until 2:00 p.m. on Saturday afternoon because of smoke that lingered over Regina due to an extremely rare lack of wind.
After suffering the uncertainty of where they would be spending the night, no one would have blamed the Calgary Stampeders if they had packed it in and just tried to get out of this one unscathed. Instead, Calgary was by far the better team, and the Riders looked like the team that had to deal with a night of chaos.
On Friday evening, team president Craig Reynolds praised the dedication of Rider fans for sticking it out through a nearly four-hour delay before the game was eventually postponed. The team repaid them with their worst effort of the season, a 24-10 loss that didn’t feel that close.
Here’s the good, the bad, and the dumb of the Riders’ first loss of the season.
The Good
On the field, there was one Rider who had himself a game. That was receiver Joe Robustelli, who reeled in 11 catches for 191 yards and a touchdown.
However, the truly good thing to come out of this game was the fact that it was played on Saturday and not Friday night.
This was far from the first time the Saskatchewan Roughrider — or any team in the CFL –has dealt with wildfire smoke. Unfortunately, it won’t be the last either, as this has essentially become the new normal.
Over the last couple of seasons, many questioned — yours truly included — just how real the CFL’s policy around air quality was. There had been a few games that continued on despite the air quality index appearing to be above the acceptable level of eight.
At its best, the AQI on Friday night reached a high nine before eventually climbing to as a high as 14 before the game was postponed. Perhaps the levels were simply too high for the league to ignore or maybe this rule now has some teeth. Either way, the correct decision was made.
Could both the league and teams like to do things better? No question, most notably on the communication front, as fans weren’t kept well-informed about what was going on and why.
I would have liked to have seen the decision to play on Saturday made sooner for the sake of the fans, but I can understand the desire of everyone to get the game in on it’s scheduled day for a variety of reasons.
Despite all of that, the right decision was made. Kudos to those who made it and everyone who came together to ensure this game could be played on Saturday.
The Bad
It was an afternoon to forget for the Riders, who were clearly outclassed. This Calgary Stampeder team should be taken seriously after beating the Riders and the Bombers in consecutive weeks.
Perhaps we should have seen this coming. After opening the game by intercepting Stamps quarterback Vernon Adams Jr., the Riders responded with a rather uninspired two-and-out that netted them seven yards and a 47-yard field goal.
Given everything that Calgary had gone through on Friday night, that felt like the perfect time for the Riders to take a shot downfield and try to put their opponents on their heels. Instead, it was more or less a non-event.
The Riders would recover a fumble on the next Stamps possession, which was also met with a two-and-out.
Following a punt that netted the Riders 70 yards thanks to a miscue by Calgary returner Kaylon Horton, the Riders committed their worst offence of the day when they allowed a conversion by Adams Jr. on a second-and-15 at his team’s own 17. That big conversion sparked a drive that ended in a touchdown and a lead that the Stampeders never relinquished.
Some people may talk about some decisions by head coach Corey Mace in the second half or the 81-yard touchdown from Damien Alford, but it was that series of events that allowed the Stampeders to get off the mat.
The Riders had every opportunity to seize control of this game early on and botched every single one of them.
The Dumb
It’s not every day you see a weird play that would have ended with the same outcome no matter what, but we got that on Saturday afternoon at Mosaic Stadium.
With just over two minutes to go in the second quarter, Riders’ linebacker C.J. Reavis intercepted Adams Jr. in the end zone. Instead of staying down with a swarm of Stampeders around him, Reavis inexplicably got up and tried to run the ball out of the end zone.
He was far from successful, as Reavis ended up fumbling and a mad scramble ensued to recover the ball. A Rider defender and Stampeders’ receiver Dominique Rhymes were on their bellies reaching out for the ball in a dash to either recover it or knock it out of the end zone. Rhymes would eventually punch the ball out of the back of the end zone ahead.
In the end, it didn’t really matter if either player pushed the ball out. It would have been Rider ball at the 30-yard line regardless.
A whole lot of chaos for essentially nothing.
