Number-crunching is not my forte, as evidenced by the fact that I failed math in Grades 3, 12, 9, 4, 11, 8, 5, 7, 10, 1, 6 and 2.
Accordingly, it would be advisable for me to leave all the in-depth numerical analyses to our Chief Financial Officer, Kent Paul.
However, I am reminded of the fact that it is part of my job description to provide context and perspective, so I will look up those terms on Dictionary.com before proceeding with a column that is designed to inform and illuminate.
Ready, set …
Reliable sources confide that the Saskatchewan Roughriders sport a 3-1 record.
Confirming this to be true, I wonder: What is the historical significance of such a solid start?
So, as forewarned, here are the numbers …
Post-Second World War, 18 previous Roughriders teams have won three of their first four regular-season games.
Seventeen of those teams have made the Canadian Football League or Western Interprovincial Union Playoffs — the one exception being the 2022 Roughriders.
Twelve of the 18 3-and-1 teams have gone on to post a winning record. The cumulative slate over those 18 seasons: 165-127-6 (winning percentage: 56.4).
Eleven teams that were 3-1 at one point have advanced as far as a division final.
Six of them have reached a Grey Cup game — including the Roughriders’ first two championship teams (1966, 1989).
Only three of the teams that started at 3-1 have finished with a losing record (2002, 2012, 2022), so there must be something about years ending with 2.
Three of the aforementioned 3-1 teams have finished at .500 (1958, 1989, 2005), but kindly keep in mind that the 1989 edition also went 3-0 in the playoffs en route to winning the Grey Cup.
What earth-shaking conclusions, then, can we extract from this deluge of digits?
Nothing is guaranteed, as anyone who followed the 2022 season can attest, but the preponderance of the evidence suggests that a 3-1 record is a good omen — especially when you consider the bad news the current edition of the Roughriders has weathered.
If you can bear it, peruse the team’s ever-expanding six-game injured list.
It includes an entire starting-calibre receiving corps — Kian Schaffer-Baker, Brayden Lenius, Derel Walker, Jake Wieneke and Juwan Brescacin.
Three of those pass-catchers are Canadians. The two Americans in that quintet, Walker and Wieneke, have CFL All-Star credentials to their good names.
Also on the six-game scroll: Two projected starting offensive linemen — Philip Blake and Jerald Hawkins.
As well, first-line centre Peter Godber is on the one-game injured list.
Largely on account of injuries, the Roughriders have started eight different receivers and offensive linemen over the first four games of the season.
Even though Athletic Therapist Greg Mayer has been busier than my Dictionary.com app, the resourceful Roughriders have nonetheless found a way to manufacture victories.
They haven’t always been pretty — see: Thursday’s 12-11 conquest of the visiting Edmonton Elks — but it is important to remember that the Roughriders have achieved the bottom-line results even though the injury list seems to be bottomless.
At this rate, the Roughriders will soon establish a professional football record for utterances of “next man up.”
It’s a cliché, yes, but also the reality.
Mitch Picton, a next man up, made his first start of the 2023 season on Thursday. He responded by making four catches for a game-high 79 yards. Most notably, he caught a four-yard touchdown pass from Trevor Harris with 1:04 remaining in the fourth quarter.
Harris then found Kendall Watson — another member of the next-man-up union — for a two-point conversion that produced an 11-11 tie. Watson, a rookie, was making just his second CFL start.
Watson’s debut performance on June 24 was highlighted by a 21-yard reception he had made on second-and-seven. On the next play, Harris spotted a wide-open Tevin Jones — yet another next man up! — for a 44-yard score against the host Calgary Stampeders.
Jones had been elevated to a front-line role in Week 2, after Walker suffered a knee injury in the season opener. Jones has responded by making 18 catches for 256 yards in three games. Extrapolate his stats over a full 18-game schedule — uh oh … more math! — and you have 108 receptions for 1,536 yards.
Upon stepping in for Walker, Jones caught nine passes for 121 yards against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on June 16.
That same evening at Mosaic Stadium, the Roughriders’ Samuel Emilus scored his first three CFL touchdowns and, in fact, tied a franchise record for TD catches in one game.
Emilus joined a star-studded fraternity that also includes Hugh Campbell (who had three three-touchdown-catch games as Roughrider), Joey Walters (two), Curtis Marsh (two), Rhett Dawson (one), Weston Dressler (one), Ray Elgaard (one), Jeff Fairholm (one), Andy Fantuz (one), Jack Hill (one), Don Narcisse (one) and Bob Renn (one).
Let’s not forget that Emilus enjoyed a three-touchdown breakout game as … wait for it … a next man up!
He is starting because Schaffer-Baker, the Roughriders’ Most Outstanding Canadian in 2022, is still recovering from off-season hip surgery.
Schaffer-Baker should be back by mid-season, though, and the same applies to all the other receivers on the six-game injured list.
This creates the very real possibility that, before too long, the Roughriders’ roster will include twice as many gifted receivers as the starting lineup can accommodate.
Now that is a math problem — albeit a nice one to have.
