OTTAWA — The Saskatchewan Roughriders are looking to go on the offensive.
The CFL team’s offence has struggled over its past six quarters, putting up just two touchdowns and 272 yards of net offence.
Saskatchewan has generated 16 first downs since halftime of its game Sept. 15 against the host Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Over that same time period, the Roughriders’ Josh Bartel has launched 16 punts.
Even so, Saskatchewan managed to close out a 27-19 win over the Tiger-Cats before falling 15-9 to the Calgary Stampeders on Sunday. The offence gets its next opportunity to produce Friday, when the Roughriders face the Ottawa Redblacks at TD Place (5 p.m., CKRM, TSN).
“(The lull) is another example that you can’t get too high or too low,” Saskatchewan receiver Rob Bagg says. “It’s a long season. You can’t get complacent and think things are going to come easy for you.
“The better you play as a team, the harder and more prepared the opposing teams are going to be to try to take away the things you do well.”
The Roughriders went into Hamilton ranked fifth in the CFL with an average of 388.5 yards of net offence through their first 10 regular-season games.
They were on pace for a similar output through the first half against the Tiger-Cats, who surrendered 185 yards, 14 first downs and 20 points through 30 minutes.
But the Roughriders managed just seven points, three first downs and 62 yards of net offence after the break. Then, on Sunday, Saskatchewan was held to 13 first downs, 220 yards of net offence and nine points (two of which Calgary conceded) in the loss to the Stampeders.
“Sometimes in baseball, you get a hitter’s slump and I think that’s what the offence is going through right now,” says Roughriders quarterback Kevin Glenn. “We’ve had successful plays, but they’ve been taken away because of silly mistakes and maybe penalties and maybe not a good enough pass when a guy’s open or maybe a dropped ball.
“It has not been like the plays haven’t been there; we just haven’t been able to take advantage of them. We’ve got to win the one-on-one battles. If we win our one-on-one battles, then it’ll put us back into a rhythm to where we’re playing the type of football that we know we can play.”
The Roughriders now sit seventh in the league with an average of 361.8 yards of net offence per game. In Bagg’s mind, the numbers will rebound as soon as the Roughriders focus on the details and eliminate the errors.
“Football’s a great game because it requires all 12 guys to do something and be successful at their job at the same time in order for the whole play to work,” he says. “Watching (the film of) last week’s game, there were instances where one guy was slightly off on his assignment and it affected the rest of the play.
“It wasn’t one guy all the time; it was that classic case of everyone taking a turn and we slowed ourselves down. We just have to focus. The offence itself isn’t going to change. We’ve just got to make more plays.”
For head coach-GM Chris Jones, that applies primarily to two areas of the offence: Running the football and protecting the quarterback.
In the second half against the Tiger-Cats, Saskatchewan ran the ball five times for 23 yards. That included a six-yard scramble by quarterback Brandon Bridge.
On Sunday versus Calgary, the Roughriders rushed 12 times for 28 yards. Bridge led the way with 12 yards on three carries.
“Anytime you have a game like that, it’s a little frustrating,” says tailback Kienan LaFrance, who rushed four times for four yards against the Stampeders. “(The running game) is part of it, but it’s a team effort. We just have to make sure we’re taking advantage of the opportunities that we’re given and go from there.”
Not surprisingly, Saskatchewan lost the time-of-possession battle in the second half in Hamilton (18:35 to 11:25) and in the contest against Calgary (36:10 to 23:50).
The Stampeders also recorded five sacks and four quarterback pressures against Glenn and Bridge (who played the fourth quarter).
Despite the Roughriders’ recent offensive slowdown, they still are tied for the league lead with 36 offensive touchdowns; that translates to a major on 21 per cent of their possessions. Last season, Saskatchewan finished ninth with 27 offensive TDs and a 10-per-cent success rate, so the improvement is staggering.
“Kevin has done a real nice job of throwing the football (this season),” Jones says. “The thing that we need to work on is we need to have more ball control and we need to be able to run the football more. If we do those two things, I feel like we’ll be an even better football team.”
Glenn notes that, as professional athletes, the Roughriders are perfectionists, so struggles sometimes can be frustrating — especially when the offence has put up impressive numbers before. But he and his teammates remain confident that things will change soon.
“You can’t be perfect the whole season; you’re going to hit a dry patch,” offensive tackle Thaddeus Coleman says. “The good teams hit the dry patch and they come out of it. Those are the ones that win the championships.
“We’ll see how we adjust to these games (in Ottawa on Friday and in Toronto versus the Argonauts on Oct. 7). That’ll show to the team, the organization and the league that we’re a team to be reckoned with.”
