Bye now.
The CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders are headed into their first of three bye weeks during the 2018 regular season — and they’re going into the week off in a good mood.
A defence-first, 18-13 victory over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Thursday at Mosaic Stadium snapped Saskatchewan’s two-game losing streak and got the team back to .500 at 2-2-0.
“It’s a heck of a lot better (hitting the bye on a winning note) because I’ve gone into the bye with a loss and it’s forever until you play again,” Roughriders head coach-GM Chris Jones said after Thursday’s victory. “It’s better than the alternative.”
That was the predominant feeling inside the Roughriders’ locker room, where players were preparing to scatter across North America for a few days of rest and relaxation.
“We’ve got a good feeling going into the bye,” defensive end Charleston Hughes said. “A lot of people were starting to doubt us and think negatively about us. But it’s so early in the season that you’ve just got to be patient and keep battling as a team.”
“It has been pretty gloomy the last couple of weeks, so it feels awfully good to get things turned around and give ourselves something to build off coming back,” added guard Brendon LaBatte. “Guys are going to ride this wave over the bye week, go home, reset their minds and come back physically better than the way we’re leaving.
“This team should continue to climb the stairs up.”
Saskatchewan opened the 2018 regular season with a 27-19 victory over the defending Grey Cup-champion Toronto Argonauts on June 15, but then dropped two straight games.
The Ottawa Redblacks thumped the Roughriders 40-17 on June 21 and the Montreal Alouettes surprised the Green and White 23-17 on Saturday.
After just three games, the Roughriders were four points back of the first-place Calgary Stampeders in the West Division standings. A victory Thursday was vital.
“The monkey was on our back a little bit,” slotback Naaman Roosevelt admitted. “We were kind of stressing and pressing. To get this win is definitely big.”
According to defensive end Tobi Antigha, there wasn’t any doubt among the Roughriders that they would get back on the beam.
He suggested the overriding emotion in the locker room had been frustration — because the Roughriders weren’t playing as well as they believed they should be.
Some people may have been preaching patience after the team’s first three regular-season games, but the notion of starting the season 1-3-0 did not appeal to the Roughriders.
Over the previous four seasons, Saskatchewan had records after four games of 2-2-0 (2014), 0-4-0 (2015), 1-3-0 (2016) and 1-3-0 (2017). The Roughriders eventually missed the playoffs in both 2015 and ’16 and had to go on the road in each of the 2014 and 2017 post-seasons.
“(The victory Thursday) is something we needed as a team,” said defensive back Ed Gainey, who signed with Saskatchewan in 2016. “Since I’ve been here, we’re always teetering around .500 and, more times than not, we’re putting ourselves behind the 8-ball by being under .500.
“Going into the bye at 2-2 is big for us because now we’ve got something to build off. We can’t go back from here. We’ve got to keep looking forward, moving forward and building on this.”
In spite of Thursday’s victory, the Roughriders are well aware that they have things to correct.
The offence has produced only four touchdowns to date, just one more than the defence has recorded.
Neither Brandon Bridge nor David Watford has seized the No. 1 quarterbacking job in the absence of starter Zach Collaros, who sustained a concussion against Ottawa.
Jones said Thursday that the QB situation “is what it is until we figure it out.” After Bridge and Watford took turns running the offence against Hamilton, Jones said the best way for the quarterbacks to stay on the field is to have success on the field.
Bridge (101 yards passing, 30 yards rushing) and Watford (47 yards passing, 50 yards rushing) combined to produce just 12 first downs Thursday.
Saskatchewan also has to address its discipline issues. The Roughriders were flagged eight times for 107 yards against Hamilton — the second time this season they’ve eclipsed the century mark in penalty yardage.
But taking a victory into the bye could be what Antigha called “a motivating factor” for the Roughriders.
“We know what type of team we can be,” he said. “We know (the Tiger-Cats) are a very good football team. It was a dogfight (Thursday) and we proved to ourselves that we can stay in dogfights with good teams and come out victorious.”
The bye could give injured players another week to recover as they look to potentially return to the lineup for Saskatchewan’s next game, July 19 in Hamilton. But healthy players also have to be careful during the time off to make sure the momentum generated Thursday isn’t blunted.
“That’s something we’re going to have to see about,” Gainey said. “Hopefully we’ve got guys on the team who are mature, who are going to take care of themselves during the week off and get a couple of workouts in and who, when we come back, are ready to work.
“We’ve got to be on our P’s and Q’s from here on out.”
