The Saskatchewan Roughriders have pushed down on the handle.
They’ve pulled the chain.
They’ve done … whatever mechanical procedure was necessary to flush their most-recent CFL game.
“I’ve been playing this game for a long time,” Roughriders offensive tackle Thaddeus Coleman said after Tuesday’s practice at Mosaic Stadium. “I know that once you lose a game like that, you flush it and move on to the next one.
“I moved on right after the game. I watched the game film and then I started watching Calgary game film. When you get a loss like that, that’s one you definitely just have to flush and get out of your head immediately.”
Saskatchewan was blanked 31-0 by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Saturday in a game that had playoff implications in the West Division.
The Roughriders could have wrapped up a home playoff game if they had won and the B.C. Lions had lost to the host Stampeders later that night. But neither thing happened — Saskatchewan was shut out and the Lions handed Calgary its first home loss of the season — so no one wrapped up anything.
The Roughriders visit the Stampeders on Saturday with the same thing on the line: A Saskatchewan victory and a loss or tie by the Lions against the visiting Edmonton Eskimos would guarantee the Green and White a home playoff game.
But before they started preparing for Saturday’s contest against the 12-3-0 Stampeders, the 10-6-0 Roughriders had to expunge the game in Winnipeg from their memory banks. That explains that flushing sound you heard coming from Mosaic Stadium.
“You come in the next week, you game-plan for the next opponent and then you go from there,” Roughriders defensive back Ed Gainey said in describing how that process starts. “We’re always on to next week.
“It’s easy (to forget a bad loss) when you’re focused on the task at hand. You don’t think about the future and you don’t think about the past; you just think about what’s right now. That’s how we have to train our minds as professionals.”
Not that it’s a simple task for everyone.
“When you’re first starting out and you’re a young guy, it’s probably not so easy,” Coleman admitted. “But you learn how to do it after a while. It’s all about experience.”
Roughriders quarterback Zach Collaros told reporters Tuesday that it’s not that easy to put games like Saturday’s contest out of his mind.
The Roughriders had just 12 first downs and 170 yards of net offence against Winnipeg and were shut out for the first time in a game since a 24-0 loss to Edmonton on Sept. 26, 2014.
But despite the lingering pain of Saturday’s defeat, Collaros has joined his teammates in flushing it.
“We’re moving on,” he told reporters. “We watched the film, we were critical about it and we’re going to learn and get better.”
Asked what went wrong Saturday, Coleman replied: “There were a lot of things, from every aspect of the field.”
Then the veteran O-lineman noted that he had put the loss out of his mind. He watched the film to see what had to be improved upon and then he started looking ahead to Calgary.
“Every loss is a tough loss,” Coleman said. “No one likes to lose. I don’t care if you lose by 100 points or one point; you lose, you lose. All you can do is move on.”
Roughriders head coach-GM Chris Jones followed the same script Tuesday.
After noting that “some days are like that” when discussing Saskatchewan’s two most lopsided losses of the season — Saturday’s defeat and a 40-17 setback against the host Ottawa Redblacks on June 21 — Jones stressed that he had put those decisions behind him and had started looking forward.
Asked if he was concerned about his offence after Saturday’s showing in Winnipeg, Jones responded: “We’re going on to Calgary and that’s my focus.”
Gainey concurred.
“We’re on to Calgary,” he said. “That’s all I’ve got to say about that.”
The contest at McMahon Stadium will have plenty at stake, just as the game at Investors Group Field did.
Calgary can clinch first place in the West with a win, thus earning the right to play host to the Western Final.
The Roughriders, as mentioned, can clinch a home playoff game with a win and a B.C. loss or tie.
A win by Saskatchewan also would keep alive its hopes of finishing first in the West. A victory would give the Roughriders a 2-1 decision over Calgary in their three-game season series, meaning that Saskatchewan would have the tiebreaking edge if the clubs finished the regular season tied for first in the division at 12-6-0.
In reality, depending on what happens between now and the end of the regular season, the Roughriders could finish anywhere between first and fourth in the West.
But like Saturday’s effort in Winnipeg, the Roughriders are putting all of the playoff possibilities out of their minds.
“The scenarios won’t favour us if we don’t do our jobs,” Gainey said. “At the end of the day, if we come in and we’re focused on the job that we have that day — whether it’s taking extra notes in film, watching extra film, meeting more with our position groups — that’s what it is.
“We’ve got to focus on what we have in front of us right now and that’s Calgary. Everything else will fall into place.”
