The Canadian Press
MONTREAL — The Saskatchewan Roughriders literally started their season on the wrong foot after Tyler Crapigna’s 45-yard field goal attempt with no time on the clock sailed wide. But when the dust clears and cooler heads prevail, Chris Jones’ club should have confidence following Thursday night’s season-opening 17-16 loss to the Montreal Alouettes.
In the moment, the strike in the loss column and the post-game triumph of Darian Durant will hurt the Riders and their fans, but the positives at Percival-Molson Stadium were present.
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From a statistical standpoint, the Riders out-gained Montreal 395 net yards to 331. They ran 64 offensive plays compared the the Alouettes’ 49 and held a three minute edge in time of possession. And they had 25 first downs compared to Montreal’s 16.
Those types of possession numbers are the trademark of a Chris Jones-coached team and will win games more often than not. Just on Thursday night, a few too many things went wrong.
A broken coverage led to B.J. Cunningham’s 65-yard catch-and-run in the second quarter. Jovon Johnson’s 15-yard unnecessary roughness penalty on a late hit on Nik Lewis set up Ernest Jackson’s touchdown grab in the third quarter. Cameron Marshall’s third-quarter fumble surely took points off the board for the Green and White. And after a potential game-changing fumble by Lewis, Glenn threw an interception deep in Alouette territory.
In the end, two costly second-half turnovers and 15 penalties for 113 yards cost the Riders a 1-0 start to their season. Excusable, no — certainly not if you ask Chris Jones — but definitely correctable.
For Jones, the word frustrating came to mind.
“It’s just frustrating with as much as we preach penalties and hanging onto the football that we take 21 penalties and put the ball on the ground,” said Jones. “It’s just frustrating and the guys are really frustrated because they know they’re a good enough football team to have won the football game.”
It was a particularly frustrating night for Duron Carter, who returned to Montreal to face the team he spent three seasons with. Carter was targeted nine times but only hauled in two passes. He dropped his first two targets in the game and when he did beat Jonathon Mincy for what might have been a wide open touchdown, Brandon Bridge overthrew him.
But as disappointing a result for the Riders, they only lost by a point. For a team playing on a short week and traveling across the country with a roster that leads the CFL in turnover, things could have gone worse. Even with all their errors, the Riders were a field goal away from winning.
“That says a lot,” said Glenn after the game. “It says we’ve got some things to improve on, but at the same time, we still only lost by one with doing all that. We’ve just got to band together as brothers in this locker-room and do what we need to do.”
Darian Durant and Kevin Glenn meet following Thursday’s season-opener (Johany Jutras/CFL.ca)
Some positives for the Riders: Glenn was accurate all night, completing 70 per cent of his passes (31-of-44, 298 yards) despite a handful of first-half drops from his receivers.
Nic Demski looks primed for a third-year breakout. Not only did he catch seven passes for a team-high 87 yards but the Canadian wideout looked stronger, more confident and sure-handed.
An offensive line featuring the addition of Derek Dennis and the return of Brendon LaBatte gave Glenn a comfortable pocket and Marshall plenty of holes to run through. That may be the biggest takeaway for a unit that struggled throughout much of 2016.
And finally, the defence, although it failed to generate pressure on Durant and even record a single sack, allowed only 17 points and was stingy outside of Cunningham’s long second-quarter touchdown.
“Right now, we lost the game, I’m not very happy about it,” said Glenn. “I think we fought hard but we’ve got to be a little more disciplined on certain things. We’ll correct those. The mistakes that we made are correctable. It’s not where guys aren’t capable of what they’re asked to do. We can correct these mistakes and we will.
“You’ve just got to give Montreal credit, they won the game,” the Riders’ quarterback added. “We had opportunities and we just didn’t come away with it. We didn’t capitalize on our opportunities. That’s just the way it goes.”
Added Jones: “I was proud that we kept fighting until the end. It’s just unfortunate that we’re down there in position to score and we put the ball on the ground and it’s a big scoring opportunity because that would have been the difference in the ball game.”
For the Riders, it’s three days off before getting back to work in preparation for the first game at the new Mosaic Stadium on Canada Day. And it’s one game down, 17 to go.
On Thursday night it was a step on the wrong foot, yes, but it’s only just a step.
– With files from Riderville.com
