Courtesy: John Kenney/CFL.ca.

For the first time since 2021, the Saskatchewan Roughriders have won a game in Montreal. And perhaps for the first time in at least as long, the Riders made sure their fans didn’t have to suffer through it.

In a rare showing of dominance, Saskatchewan started hot and stayed hot all night en route to a 34-6 drubbing of the Alouettes on their home turf.

Even if the Als are a different team without their starting quarterback, Davis Alexander, defeating one of the best teams in the CFL over the last two seasons is not anything to sneeze at.

It’s safe to say that this was the Riders’ most impressive win of the season. Is it a sign of things to come? Only time will tell.

Here’s the good, the bad, and the dumb of the Riders’ seventh win of the season.

The Good

We’ve discussed the Riders’ business-like approach before in this column, and that would be the easiest way to describe how the Green and White came to play in Montreal — this time in a very positive sense. 

Nowhere was that more evident than what the Riders were able to do on defence. As mentioned, the Alouettes’ offence has become fairly stagnant without Alexander. Despite getting upset with the TSN panel following his lone win as Montreal’s starting quarterback last week, McLeod Bethel-Thompson has not been good for his new team this season. He’s regressed even further than what we saw in Edmonton last year.

With that in mind, it was vital that the Riders’ defence ensured this game was put in the hands of their offence, who had the tougher task of trying to defeat a very stout Montreal defence. That meant keeping the Alouettes’ offence stuck in neutral.

Unravel the banner, because it was mission accomplished for head coach Corey Mace’s unit. The Alouettes couldn’t find the end zone all game, nor did they ever really threaten to do so, settling for two field goals. Montreal only managed 169 yards of net offence and only held the ball for 23:08.

Perhaps most impressively and importantly, the Riders’ defence controlled the Montreal offence without relying on turnovers like they did a year ago. It was just a smothering from start to finish. The Alouettes committed three turnovers, but two of them were on downs.

Even if Trevor Harris and the offence didn’t hang 34 points on Noel Thorpe’s defence, it might not have mattered given the effort from the defence.

The Bad

There was one decision by Mace in this game that I didn’t particularly like.

Late in the first quarter, with his team up 14-3, Mace opted for a 17-yard field goal after taking a deliberate delay of game penalty on third-and-two from the four-yard line. While it’s generally fine to attempt to get your opponent to jump offside once, that deep in your opponent’s territory, it’s always preferable to convert a third down on anything shorter than about 5 yards or so. The field position given up just isn’t worth three points.

We saw that on Friday night when Toronto Argonauts’ head coach Ryan Dinwiddie opted to kick an eight-yard field goal from the two-yard line. Winnipeg instantly gained 38 yards of field position and regained their footing in a game that was starting to slip away from them.

Perhaps the state of the Alouettes’ offence played into Mace’s decision, but should he make it again, it might not end as well.

The Dumb

If there’s one thing the CFL has been maligned for, it is their video review.

From inconsistent rulings to injecting themselves into games randomly, it’s been a rocky road for the newly renamed Replay Centre.

In fairness, they’ve done a much better job at staying out of games unless absolutely necessary so far this season, but there was a bit of a funny moment during this game on Saturday night.

On third and three with just over six minutes to go in the third quarter and the Alouettes needing to keep a drive going to stay in the game following a contacting the kicker penalty from the Riders, head coach Jason Maas decided to go for it from the Riders’ 50 50-yard line.

The play ended in disaster as Bethel-Thompson took a sack and fumbled to defensive lineman Caleb Sanders for what appeared to be a Riders’ touchdown. That play would be automatically reviewed for the turnover, and Maas also challenged for roughing the passer.

Okay, cool.

TSN went to commercial break, and we came back to learn that the call had changed. Bethel-Thompson was ruled down by contact, and only then did they begin the review for roughing the passer.

Pardon? Why are we taking all of this time? Can the replay centre not multitask?

At the end of it all, the Riders did end up with the ball as roughing the passer was not called, but it was certainly a weird series of events.