TORONTO — Chris Jones went to the bullpen Saturday and it paid off handsomely.
Backup quarterback Brandon Bridge was summoned with 8:10 left in the second quarter and sparked the Saskatchewan Roughriders to a 27-24 CFL victory over the Toronto Argonauts at BMO Field.
Bridge replaced starter Kevin Glenn on Saskatchewan’s fifth possession of the game with the Argos leading 13-3. Glenn had completed just three of eight pass attempts for 29 yards before departing.
Bridge went 20-for-28 for 292 yards with two touchdowns the rest of the way as the Roughriders posted their sixth win in eight games.
“In professional baseball, if somebody has a little bit of slow time during an inning, what do they do? They call in relief and that’s all we did,” Jones, the Roughriders’ head coach-GM, said after his team improved to 8-6-0.
“(Glenn) wasn’t feeling it tonight, wasn’t seeing it, and they were getting to him. We’ve got to protect him. We’ve talked about it before. If they’re getting to him early in the ball game, that’s not his cup of tea.
“But he’s a great leader and he will still be our starting quarterback. We just have to move on to the next game (Friday against the visiting Ottawa Redblacks). Y’all can debate about that all you want to, but that’s what it’s going to be.”
Bridge has produced in all of his appearances this season, but he wasn’t ready to say Saturday that he deserved the starting job. He credited both the offence and the defence for the come-from-behind victory and gave Glenn a nod for his support during the contest.
“Every week, I’ve always gone in like I was the starter,” Bridge said. “I try to prepare as if I was the starter throughout the whole week.
“We’re all like one group. Whoever’s out there, we’re going to support them and that’s exactly how it was on the sideline. Kevin Glenn supported me, I was supporting him. He wasn’t sulking. He’s a true pro and I have so much respect for him.”
The deciding points Saturday came from Tyler Crapigna, who kicked an 18-yard field goal with seven seconds left in the fourth quarter to break a 24-24 tie.
The last time the Roughriders were two games over .500 was Nov. 8, 2014, when they beat the Edmonton Eskimos 24-17 to finish the regular season with a 10-8-0 record.
Saskatchewan didn’t get over the .500 mark in 2015 (when it finished 3-15-0) or 2016 (5-13-0) and its rollercoaster start to the 2017 campaign kept it from getting two games over until Saturday.
The Roughriders opened the scoring at 5:06 of the first quarter on a 34-yard field goal by Crapigna, but the Argos answered at 8:59 on a 42-yard three-pointer by Lirim Hajrullahu.
Toronto took the lead 20 seconds into the second quarter when Ricky Ray connected with Martese Jackson for a 31-yard touchdown. Hajrullahu’s convert put the Argos up 10-3.
The touchdown came four plays after Jeff Knox Jr., collided with Hajrullahu on a punt. The 10-yard penalty gave the Argos a third-and-one, which they converted with a four-yard run by Cody Fajardo.
The Argos added to their advantage at 6:50 of the second quarter on a 16-yard field goal by Hajrullahu. That was preceded by a pass from Ray to Armanti Edwards that just eluded the Argos’ receiver in the Roughriders’ end zone.
Hajrullahu connected from 18 yards out at 12:56 to make it 16-3, but Saskatchewan rallied with a nine-play, 75-yard drive that culminated in an eight-yard touchdown pass from Bridge to Naaman Roosevelt with 12 seconds left in the second quarter. Crapigna’s convert completed the first-half scoring.
The Roughriders got on the board first in the second half on a 23-yard field goal by Crapigna. The drive, which was set up by a Henoc Muamba interception, featured a 45-yard pass from Bridge to Bakari Grant that gave Saskatchewan a first down at the Toronto 15.
The Roughriders tied the game 16-16 at 10:32 of the third quarter on a 27-yard field goal by Crapigna. Bridge again was solid on the drive, completing three of five passes for 42 yards.
One play after the Argos got a 73-yard punt single from Hajrullahu at 14:43, Bridge hit Caleb Holley across the middle and the Roughriders receiver raced 75 yards for a touchdown.
Bridge connected with Grant for the two-point convert and Saskatchewan led 24-17 after three quarters.
The Argos tied it with 3:41 left in regulation time, as Ray found S.J. Green with a 19-yard touchdown pass and Hajrullahu booted the convert. Toronto drove 85 yards in 10 plays for the game-tying points.
Crapigna then won it with his fourth field goal of the game.
Holley had two receptions for 86 yards, Grant caught seven passes for 85 yards and Roosevelt had eight catches for 77 yards (putting him over the 1,000-yard mark for the season).
Ray completed 29 of 39 pass attempts for 341 yards for the Argos, who got 72 yards rushing from James Wilder Jr.
After sweeping their two-game road trip to Ottawa and Toronto for the second straight season, the Roughriders are two points up on fourth-place Edmonton (7-6-0) and four points ahead of the fifth-place B.C. Lions (6-7-0 entering Saturday’s game against Ottawa) in the West Division.
“We’re feeling good,” said Bridge, whose team beat the Redblacks 18-17 on Sept. 29. “We know that we control our own destiny. We’re two games up on B.C. We have one more game against Edmonton (on Nov. 4) which will decide the tiebreaker, so the main thing is to keep on winning.
“If we win, then nothing else can happen.”
