Joshua Bell, another proponent of turnover-crazy zone defences, <\/a>who took over play-calling duties from his boss as the new defensive co-ordinator for this campaign.<\/p>\nAll part of the appeal for Woods.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s part of our defence, our identity,\u201d said Woods. \u201cThat\u2019s Bell, that\u2019s Mace, that\u2019s Roughrider football.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talk about it. They\u2019re gonna come eventually. When they do, it\u2019s gonna be a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
If not for the dearth of turnovers, the Roughriders have been OK during a season dominated by high-scoring offences.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re in the middle of the pack for points allowed, yardage surrendered rushing and receiving, big plays and time of possession.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs long as we\u2019re limiting explosive plays and getting off the field, sometimes that\u2019s equal to a turnover in a way,\u201d said Woods.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we force a two-and-out and flip the field with a good return, it\u2019s almost the same thing as a turnover.\u201d<\/p>\n
This season has also featured a couple of rule changes, specifically eliminating single points on kicks going untouched through the end zones and a 35-second play clock that forces offences to work faster.<\/p>\n
Wait till next year, when the field dimensions change and the goalposts move to the back of the end zone.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not gonna worry about next year\u2019s rules because it doesn\u2019t do anything to help us win this year,\u201d said Woods.<\/p>\n
Although the CFL hasn\u2019t tied the data together, the league\u2019s statisticians have noted there are only 3.2 quarterback sacks per game this season, the lowest on record.<\/p>\n
Through the first five weeks of the regular season, even with two fewer games than in 2025, there have been 117 offensive touchdowns compared to 95 last year. There have also been seven non-offensive TDs scored in 2026, down from 18 last year.<\/p>\n
Woods particularly loves the rule change that put the teams on opposite sides of the field, but he doesn\u2019t believe the faster pace nor the single points have disrupted Saskatchewan\u2019s defence.<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately all these changes are kind of tailored towards the offence anyways,\u201d said Woods. \u201cNext year you\u2019ll see even more.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just early in the season. As far as the speed of the game and guys being tired, it\u2019s more that guys are just getting their sea legs. I don\u2019t think the clock is a factor. Maybe our setup this year, when we went three weeks (during the pre-season and Week 1) without playing, that factored into our first game.\u201d<\/p>\n
There have been a few other chances for the Roughriders to capitalize on turnovers. DBs Tevaughn Campbell and Marcus Sayles have had their hands on potential interceptions. Another potential turnover was negated by a ridiculous roughing-the-passer penalty.<\/p>\n
Right now the Roughriders are averaging one turnover per victory, a crazy ratio that certainly needs to change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Darn right, Josh Woods teases his teammates. He\u2019s a linebacker, a six-year CFL veteran brought in primarily as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[279843,49,48,521,522,276177,276912,279844,276178,158032,520,276176,82],"class_list":["post-792959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-279843","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-category-cfl","tag-category-football","tag-category-saskatchewan-news","tag-category-saskatchewan-roughriders","tag-category-sports","tag-cfl","tag-leader-post","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}