The Saskatchewan Roughriders’ D deserves an A, based on recent results.
The Roughriders’ defence has allowed only one touchdown in each of its past two games, entering Sunday’s CFL collision with the Ottawa REDBLACKS (5 p.m., Mosaic Stadium).
“We’ve been getting progressively better every game,” Defensive Co-ordinator Jason Shivers said. “We’re sticking to the process and the flow of doing our jobs and trying to do it at a high level.
“The guys are coming in and doing extra work in the meeting rooms and they’re doing extra film study.
“Kudos to them for doing it, but we’ve got a long way to go. We’ve got to keep going.”
The Roughriders’ roll on defence began on July 22 against the B.C. Lions, who recorded a 19-9 home-field victory. B.C., which now has a 6-2 record, was held to 12 first downs and 231 yards of net offence.
One week later in Halifax, the Toronto Argonauts (now 6-1) managed just 13 first downs and 200 net yards while winning 31-13.
Toronto’s only offensive touchdown was set up by an interception return to Saskatchewan’s 26-yard line.
With the defence playing at such a high level, is the onus on the Roughriders’ offence to simply play error-free football?
“We’ve got to start fast,” Head Coach Craig Dickenson replied during Saturday’s pre-game media-availability session. “That’ll be something we talk about tomorrow. We’ve talked about it all week.
“We’ve been playing from behind too much. When you play from behind, you can’t make any mistakes or else you get further behind.
“So that’s going to be a point of emphasis. We want to start fast and we want to put points on the board first and hopefully get into a rhythm.
“It feels like the last few weeks, we’ve been playing a lot of catch-up, and you don’t play your best ball that way.
“It’s going to take all three phases. It’s a good team out there (on the visiting side). I think they’re favoured to beat us, so our guys are motivated by that and ready to go out and show that we’ve got a decent team.”
Saskatchewan enters a matchup of 3-4 teams without having scored a first-half offensive touchdown in five consecutive games.
Even with that being the case, quarterback Mason Fine isn’t fussy — as long as the bottom-line result is achieved.
“It just comes down to getting the win,” he said. “That’s all that success is, no matter how we get it done.”
The preferred scenario, of course, would be for the offence to be a major contributor toward a victorious effort.
“Us as an offensive group, we’ve got to do our job,” Fine said. “We’ve got to execute.
“For myself individually, I’ve got to get the ball out and not take sacks. Sacks are a drive-killer. Get first downs and don’t turn the ball over.
“We have to just be efficient on first down, put ourselves in second-and-manageable, and make the play on second down.”
Over the past two games, the Roughriders have a decided edge in first downs (35 to 25) and net yardage (704 to 431).
As well, Saskatchewan has won the time-of-possession battle in both contests, repeatedly owning the football for 32-plus minutes.
“We’re right there,” Fine said. “We’ve just got to translate the practice into the game.
“I feel like we lose a little bit of the translation from having great practices but, when it comes to game day, maybe we just miss our assignments here and there and don’t quite execute.”
Dickenson knows that the time for a turnaround is now, with the Roughriders not even a week shy of reaching the halfway point of their season.
“It’s a big test for us,” he said. “I’ve pulled no punches with our team and I’ve pulled no punches with you guys (in the media). We know this is a big game for us.
“We’re near the midway point of the season where, if we expect to be a playoff-calibre team, we’ve got to start stringing a few wins together.
“I hope we come out loose and ready to go. I feel like we’ve had a great week of prep, but we’ll see.
“This is one of those games where I think it’s going to show a lot of who we are and hopefully we respond the way I think we’re capable of.”
