August 3, 2018

The Roughriders’ offence knows more is needed

EDMONTON — The Saskatchewan Roughriders’ offence showed some promise Thursday.

There also were repeated problems, though, and members of the offensive unit promised to address those issues at their earliest opportunity.

“There will be things to watch (on film) with Coach Mac (offensive co-ordinator Stephen McAdoo) and Steve (Walsh, the quarterbacks coach) and things to clean up and to get better at,” quarterback Zach Collaros said after the Roughriders’ 26-19 CFL loss to the Edmonton Eskimos at Commonwealth Stadium.

“I feel like we’re very close to becoming who we want to be on offence. Really, we have to pay attention to detail, clean up some missed assignments and obviously (eradicate) procedure calls. But the buck starts with me and I’ve got to do better.”

Collaros was making his first start for the Roughriders since June 21. The veteran quarterback left that game against the Ottawa Redblacks in the second quarter and missed the Roughriders’ next four games with head and neck issues.

Brandon Bridge started those contests and, in three of them, rotated with David Watford. The offence had problems generating consistent production in those games, but Saskatchewan was able to win two of the four.

Collaros was activated off the six-game injured list Monday despite having two more games left as the Roughriders looked to spark the offence with the insertion of a proven CFL starter.

On Thursday, he completed 22 of 34 pass attempts for 261 yards (a season-high yardage total for a Saskatchewan quarterback) with a longest completion of 41 yards (the second-longest for a Roughriders pivot this season).

The Roughriders also scored two offensive touchdowns, matching their highest single-game output of the season.

Head coach-GM Chris Jones said Collaros “wasn’t perfect,” noting the QB missed some reads in the zone-read game. Those lapses could have been a result of his six-week layoff.

“I would like to have had more days of practising with Zach, but unfortunately that’s what we were dealt with,” said Jones, whose team had just two full practices leading up to the game. “I think he handled the pressure pretty well.”

The Roughriders accumulated 351 yards of net offence in the contest, their second-highest total of the regular season. They had 394 net yards (including 218 along the ground) in their 31-20 victory over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on July 19.

Slotback Naaman Roosevelt thought Collaros did a good job during Thursday’s contest, but there were some things that required adjustments.

“This being his first game back, it was definitely new,” Roosevelt said. “Even with (timing up) our waggles, he’s different than the other guys.

“It’s on us to come back after this bye week, go to practice and get to work. That’s all we can do. We know we’ve got a good team. We’ve just got to stop killing ourselves with pre-snap penalties.”

The Roughriders’ offence was penalized three times for being offside, only one of which was accepted. Duron Carter, who started at slotback after playing the previous five games at cornerback, was assessed two offside penalties that were declined.

Carter made an impact in his return to the receiving corps, catching a 41-yard touchdown pass from Collaros. It was Carter’s first TD of the season and his first since combining with Kevin Glenn for an 88-yard pass-and-run major against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Sept. 9.

Carter wasn’t overly happy that he had only three catches for 59 yards Thursday, but the former wideout also admitted he made his share of mistakes in his first game as a slotback.

In his mind, offensive improvements must be made.

“The defence did an amazing job of holding a very good offence and locking them down,” Carter said. “We’ve got to do better on offence.”

That especially holds true on quarterback sneaks. The Roughriders attempted four of them during the contest and failed to generate the requisite yard on any of them.

Watford was stopped on back-to-back attempts from the Edmonton one-yard line in the first quarter. Tailback Marcus Thigpen bailed out the offence, powering in for the major on a third-down gamble.

In the third quarter, Collaros fumbled the snap while attempting to sneak into the end zone on a second-and-goal play from the Edmonton one. He recovered the fumble and, on the next play, was replaced by Watford for the third-and-goal attempt.

The Roughriders thought Watford scored on that sneak, but a video review deemed he was down by contact before breaking the plane of the goal line. That allowed Edmonton to retain a 17-14 lead.

“We’ve had the toughest time since we’ve been here of not being able to get in on quarterback sneaks,” said Jones, who took over the Roughriders’ football operations in December of 2015. “It has always been such an automatic play.

“We’ve tried to work on it, but it’s tough to work on it (in practice) without pads.”

The Roughriders are headed into a bye week — their next game is Aug. 19 against the visiting Calgary Stampeders — so they won’t have a chance for a while to work on quarterback sneaks or any of the other issues that arose out of Thursday’s game.

Collaros admitted he’s looking forward to seeing family and friends over the bye, but he knows that things have to change for the better after the Roughriders return from the break.

“We’ve got to get rolling,” he said after his team fell to 3-4-0. “These next (11) are kind of back to back to back to back to back until that last bye week.

“I’m excited for it, though. You get used to the game speed even more so when you’re playing games six, seven days apart as opposed to having these long layoffs.”