As the Riders get ready to play their first home game of the season, they are in a familiar situation being 0-2 with an uncertain quarterback situation.
Over the previous five seasons they have started 1-1 in 2014, 0-2 in 2015, 1-1 in 2016, 0-2 in 2017 and 1-1 in 2018.
The last year they started 2-0 was in 2013 when they won the Grey Cup.
It is a perpetual frustration why their starts are bad to mediocre. In a highly competitive West Division, they are already at a disadvantage.
They are tied with BC for last in the West at 0-2 and have lost twice to eastern teams.
For the third week in a row they play an eastern team when they take on the Argonauts on July 1 at Mosaic Stadium.
They should be favoured based on the Argos getting crushed 64-14 by the Hamilton Tiger Cats on Saturday afternoon. The Argos were whipped in every area of the game.
Yet it reminds me too much of last year’s Canada Day Weekend game against the Alouettes.
The Riders had split a pair of games (winning over Toronto and losing to Ottawa) before playing Montreal. The Alouettes were already clearly the worst team in the league and bound for a bad season.
Yet Montreal won the game principally because of a pair of long passes to Chris Williams over Duron Carter and below average quarterbacking by the Riders David Watford and Brandon Bridge.
Carter told me after the game he did not think he had played poorly as he had given up only three pass completions to Williams and two penalties. However, a cornerback who gives up 130 yards in passing and incurs 25 yards in penalties is not having a good game.
I knew the Alouettes team expectations for the season were minimal by the reaction in their locker room after the game. You would have thought they had won the Grey Cup rather than a game early in the season. They were taking selfies and group photos as the celebrated the win. They knew few celebrations were ahead.
At quarterback last year going into the Alouette game it was already clear that Chris Jones lacked confidence in both quarterbacks. Neither Watford nor Bridge looked ready to lead the team.
In this year’s pre-season Watford looked no more ready to lead the Riders than he did last year. He appeared tentative on the field.
In the Riders pre-season game in Regina it was rookie Isaac Harker who created a positive impression. He made quick decisions and threw the ball accurately short and deep.
After the game he projected the confidence you want to see in a quarterback. He sounded ready for the challenge of professional football.
Ty Gangi was the fourth Rider quarterback in this year’s pre-season. He was out of place upon the field. No one watching the game expected him to be staying in Saskatchewan and he was cut after the game. Craig Dickenson summed up Gangi’s game by saying the game seemed a bit fast for him.
Going into Monday’s game I have more confidence in Cody Fajardo than last year’s pairing of Watford and Bridge. Fajardo played well against Ottawa. Even if he does not play as well against the Argos there will not be the quarterback carousel Jones conducted in the fourth game last year where he switched quarterbacks 6 times in the game. I do not see the quirkiness of Jones in Dickenson. The new Rider Head Coach displays the same even temperament as his brother, Dave, in Calgary.
Fajardo faces the test of consistency on Monday evening. Against Hamilton he was below average. Last week he was above average. I would like to think there is a progression in his game but he has not been a starter long enough to know.
And in the last six years the Riders are 2-4 in their third game of the season.
Bill Selnes, who’s based in Melfort, has written about the Saskatchewan Roughriders since the late 1970s. He was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, Football Reporters of Canada wing on Nov. 24, 2013.
