The Saskatchewan Roughriders’ offensive showing through the first seven games of the 2018 regular season reminded Thaddeus Coleman of something.
Unfortunately …
“It’s almost like it was in 2016,” the Roughriders’ veteran tackle said after Thursday’s closed practice at Mosaic Stadium. “We weren’t scoring anything. We couldn’t even get in field-goal position. It was bad.”
The 2016 Roughriders scored 350 points en route to a 5-13-0 record.
They scored 137 points in their five victories (an average of 27.4 points per game) but only 213 in their 13 losses (an average of 16.4 per game). During a seven-game losing streak midway through the campaign, Saskatchewan averaged 13.5 points per game.
Now, the 2018 Roughriders are 3-4-0, but that’s thanks largely to a stingy defence. The offence has had its difficulties.
Saskatchewan enters Sunday’s game against the visiting Calgary Stampeders with eight offensive touchdowns this season and an average offensive production of 16.7 points per game. Defensive and special-teams TDs bring the team’s scoring average up to 21.6 points per game.
Coleman knows his group is struggling — but he also sees the light at the end of the tunnel.
“Trying to get the offence together as one, there are growing pains you have to go through,” he said. “You can’t click it on just like that. I wish it worked like that, but I’ve been playing ball for a long time and it does not work like that.
“Hopefully we can come out this week, get that excitement back and get about three or four in the end zone.”
Over its first six games, Saskatchewan’s offence was run by three different quarterbacks (Zach Collaros, Brandon Bridge and David Watford). The offensive line had its issues protecting that trio and the members of a youthful receiving corps were trying to get used to the CFL.
That led to inconsistency which hampered the offence’s effectiveness.
“We’ve got to all click at the same time,” tailback Marcus Thigpen said. “We may have the line block well but the backs may mess up or I may fumble or the receivers may run the wrong route or drop a ball. We’ve shot ourselves in the foot a lot of times.
“We’re close. We took some big steps in practice today and yesterday, so I feel like we’re going to get things turned around this weekend.”
“We’ve got to mesh together and be on the same page. If we do that, I feel like we’ll be one of the best offences in the league.”
Saskatchewan entered the week ranked seventh in the CFL in net offence per game (309.9 yards per game). The Roughriders were a solid second in rushing yards (117.6 per game), but they were ninth in passing yards (201.0 per game).
Five of the team’s eight offensive touchdowns have come via the pass, tying the Roughriders for last with the Montreal Alouettes. Saskatchewan’s three rushing TDs were the fewest in the league.
Saskatchewan has committed a total of just three turnovers in its three victories but has lost the ball 13 times in its four losses.
“We know what we have to get better at; it’s the little things, the little details,” Collaros said. “Obviously, getting some continuity will be good for us. But we came back after this bye week, everybody looked in the mirror and said, ‘It’s on us.’
“There are a lot of good football teams in this league starting with Calgary, but we really feel that if we don’t make the mistakes that we’ve been making, we would have won or been in a lot more of those games.”
Thigpen has an interesting view of the Roughriders’ statistics: He hasn’t looked at them and therefore doesn’t know where the team ranks in the league. That said, he knows the offence has to improve.
“The first seven weeks have been frustrating, but at the same time, we know what we’re capable of doing,” Thigpen said. “We just have to execute; that’s it.
“We’re close. We took some big steps in practice today and yesterday, so I feel like we’re going to get things turned around this weekend.”
The turnaround may have started during a 26-19 loss Aug. 2 in Edmonton.
After missing four-plus games due to head and neck issues, Collaros returned to the lineup and threw for 261 yards — the highest yardage total for a Roughriders quarterback this season.
As well, Saskatchewan’s total of 351 yards of net offence was the second-highest such number for the team this season.
“We felt a lot better as an offence after the Edmonton game,” Coleman said. “We were like, ‘OK, maybe we can do something now. We’ve got our quarterback back, the offensive line is coming together, we’re getting the run game going again and the receivers are catching the ball.’ Once we get it all going, we can bring back a little excitement like we had last year.”
The 2017 Roughriders scored 510 points, tying the team for third in the CFL. Bridge and Kevin Glenn combined to throw a league-high 35 touchdown passes and the offence finished second in the CFL with 48 touchdowns.
The 2018 Roughriders would be ecstatic to get back to that level.
“Coming into this season, we definitely didn’t think we’d be one of the offences at the bottom of the (statistical) list,” slotback Naaman Roosevelt said. “We know what we’ve got to do. We watched film with Coach (Chris) Jones and he showed us certain things that we need to work on. It’s just execution.”
