The Saskatchewan Roughriders, owners of the CFL’s best record, have reached the largely enviable point where the aftermath of a victory can have the tenor of a post-mortem.
Consider Friday’s game at Mosaic Stadium, where the Roughriders assumed a 21-4 lead over the Edmonton Elks before allowing two fourth-quarter touchdown passes and ultimately prevailing 21-18.
A 6-1 record underlines the legitimacy of the Roughriders’ Grey Cup aspirations — which are accompanied by elevated expectations inside and outside the organization.
Even when a game is won and the bottom-line goal is achieved, contentment or complacency will not enter the equation.
“There’s obviously some positive things to take away, but I’m sure you guys could probably guess that I’m not happy with the way we finished the game offensively,” quarterback Trevor Harris told reporters to begin his post-game media availability on Friday.
“If you want to be a championship-calibre team, you’ve got to put the nail in the coffin, and we didn’t do that.”
Not until the final play, when Micah Johnson’s second sack of the evening — and the eighth sack of the game for Saskatchewan — squelched even the slightest possibility of an Elks comeback.
“We have to finish,” Johnson said after his first multi-sack game as a Roughrider. “That’s probably the word for us for the rest of the year.
“We come out hot but for some reason, individually or together, we kind of take our foot off the gas.
“We’ve all got to look in the mirror and we’ve really got to fix that, because later on the season when you’re playing against the best teams, that could definitely come back to haunt you.
“We have to find a way to keep that same energy throughout the game.”
What a luxury it is, though, to be able to dissect a victory while occupying first place in the West Division and boasting the league’s best record.
Edmonton, at the other end of the spectrum, is 1-5. Hence the post-game refrain: Why did it take so long to cement a victory against a struggling opponent?
Well, for starters, that is professional football.
The outcome is never assured. Every point, every yard, must be earned.
Roughriders fans should know that as well as anyone. The Green and White has been an underdog at some point in the playoffs during each of its four championship seasons. Conversely, a 14-2 Saskatchewan team — the 1970 edition — didn’t even make it to the Grey Cup.
However, one mark of a championship team is, to borrow a baseball analogy, an ability to win when the fastball isn’t crackling or the breaking pitches are, in a word, broken.
There has been many a year, many a game, in which a game such as Friday’s would have resulted in defeat and despair.
Rider resourcefulness and resilience prevented that from happening on Friday, when some of the biggest plays were not reflected on the scoreboard.
Just 1:40 remained in the fourth quarter when A.J. Ouellette took off on a 17-yard run that moved the chains and extinguished valuable time.
The run game had been held in check for most of the game, only to come through massively in the clutch.
Centre Logan Ferland and left guard Noah Zerr made massive blocks near the line of scrimmage.
Receiver KeeSean Johnson, who scored a touchdown on one of his career-high nine receptions, impeded a would-be tackler downfield and helped Ouellette access first-down territory.
When the possession ended on the Elks’ 51-yard line, punter Joe Couch launched a picture-perfect punt. Elks returner Javon Leake could only slump his shoulders in disappointment after catching the 46-yard punt on his team’s five-yard line, with one foot out of bounds and 24 seconds left.
“Huge,” Head Coach Corey Mace said when asked about Ouellette’s run and Couch’s coffin-corner punt.
“We hadn’t broken a huge run until then. It was a great job by A.J. to do that. We’d like to finish and get another first down and just kneel out the clock. We couldn’t do that.
“Joe Couch goes and has a hellacious punt when we needed it the most. The previous punt, we ended up getting a penalty on for kicking it out of bounds a little bit too early.
“How these guys respond when we need them to at the very end is good. When we needed their best, they showed up.”
That also applies to the defensive line. Elks quarterback Cody Fajardo, who performed admirably amid adversity in his return to Regina, was sacked on each of the final two plays.
“I thought the pressure was just phenomenal all night from the front seven,” Mace said, “so credit to them.”
Credit should also be dispensed to …
• Samuel Emilus, for barging into the end zone to complete a 15-yard major after catching a basketball-style chest pass from Harris behind the line of scrimmage. Emilus fought off two would-be tacklers over the final five yards, with the help of key blocks from KeeSean Johnson and Joe Robustelli. “That’s toughness … that’s grit,” Paul LaPolice said during the TSN telecast. “This team is built on it.”
• Malik Carney, for registering two sacks — as did Johnson and Shane Ray — and forcing a punt by limiting Fajardo to a three-yard gain on a second-and-five scramble. Carney’s second sack pushed Edmonton out of field-goal range.
• The Roughriders’ offensive line, which allowed only one sack (on the team’s final offensive play). Harris has been sacked only once over the past two games with a rookie, Darius Washington, starting at the all-important left tackle position.
• C.J. Reavis, whose blitzes produced his second sack of the season and a pass knockdown on second-and-four. On the sack, Reavis applied the finishing touch after Fajardo was pressured by defensive end Habakkuk Baldonado.
• Brett Lauther, for shaking off a 47-yard miss early in the game and responding with field goals from 51 and 46. He now has 22 field goals of 50-plus yards since joining the Roughriders in 2018. Also on Saturday, Lauther registered nine points to move into 23rd on the CFL’s career list, with 1,056. He passed Boris Bede (1,054) and Luca Congi (1,050) on Saturday.
• Drae McCray, who returned eight punts for 106 yards in the absence of Mario Alford (hip injury). McCray’s 42-yard punt return, to the Elks’ 46, set up a Lauther field goal that gave Saskatchewan a 21-4 lead at three-quarter time. That three-pointer, which concluded the Roughriders’ scoring, did not seem to be crucial at the time. As it turned out, though, Lauther’s 46-yarder provided the margin of victory.
Ever the perfectionist, Harris accentuated a fourth quarter in which the Roughriders did not pad the lead.
“As you may guess, I’m just not too thrilled with the way we finished the game offensively,” he said. “That being said, I think this is a team that can take a look in the mirror and get better.
“It’s not like we don’t have the games or we’re screwed or we don’t have enough to get it done. It’s just one of those things where we have to take a look in the mirror and be better toward the end of the game — and we will. You can mark my words.”
The following words are also worth noting.
“Let’s not get spoiled here,” Harris cautioned. “We’re 6-and-1 at this point in the season. If you would have said, ‘6-and-1 after seven games … would you take it?’, you’re darned right. We’re 6-and-1 and finding ways to win.
“Toward the end of the year is when it matters who you are. It’s about who we’re becoming in this process and I like what this team is becoming every week.”