Roughriders nearly perfect against disengaged B.C. Lions

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There are no perfect football games.

The Saskatchewan Roughriders came close Saturday, turning in their best performance of the CFL season with a 39-8 shellacking over the disengaged B.C. Lions. Playing before 28,683 “distributed tickets” on a near-perfect day at Mosaic Stadium, Riders linebacker A.J. Allen intercepted B.C.’s first pass and returned it 48 yards for a touchdown. It was a perfect start.

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“You have no idea how incredible that feels,” said Allen, a Canadian who got bumped into the starting rotation to abide by the league’s complicated roster rules, during postgame interviews. “Usually I’m a special-teams player, so that first half was something I was aiming for.

“To get a Pick Six on my second play of the game, you could not draw that up. That’s the stuff of dreams.”

Winners of four straight following a midseason winless skid of seven games, Saskatchewan improved to 9-7-1 and sits second in the West with one game remaining and an outside shot at surpassing the first-place, 10-7 Winnipeg Blue Bombers. With an 8-9 record, third-place B.C. has clinched the West’s final playoff berth.

Allen’s play flattened the visitors, whose waning interest allowed the Roughriders to easily secure a much-coveted home playoff game. The Roughriders have a bye week before completing their regular season Oct. 26 at home against the hapless Calgary Stampeders. They will play host to the West semifinal Nov. 2 or West final Nov. 9.

It would be interesting to psychoanalyze B.C’s performances since promising quarterback Nathan Rourke returned from several NFL tryouts and was put in charge of a Lions offence that had started the season smartly under the guidance of veteran pivot V.A. (That’s what most of TSN’s announcers call him; his real name is Vernon Adams Jr.)

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Few Saskatchewanians care about any CFL team other than the Roughriders. So let the Lions self-assess and instead focus on the green-and-white’s strong showing while also questioning a few things as the playoffs approach, such as the danger of not replacing quarterback Trevor Harris earlier in the blowout, an unwillingness to gamble early when they could have buried the Lions, why Brett Lauther had to kick six field goals, plus a strange call that left tailback A.J. Ouellette, in his first game back from the injury list, trying to throw a touchdown pass.

Since missing six games with a knee injury, Harris has been the CFL’s best quarterback on its hottest team. He completed 25 of 30 passes for 271 yards with touchdown passes to Jerreth Sterns and Kian Schaffer-Baker before being replaced late in the fourth quarter by backup Shea Patterson.

With the return of guards Jacob Brammer and Zack Fry, Saskatchewan’s offensive line was dominant, allowing only one sack while helping Ouellette rush 16 times for 84 yards. Even with great protection, there was no reason for Harris to appear in the final quarter with his team leading 36-8.

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“During that seven-game slide we got these wristbands that say, ‘Don’t flinch,’” Harris said during his postgame media scrum. “No matter what the situation is, up 21, down 21, you’ve gone seven weeks without a win: No flinching. Just continue to press on no matter what the situation is because we believe in who we are and who’s leading us.”

Credit the Riders for taking only two penalties for 10 yards. And when a defence forces six turnovers — interceptions by Allen and C.J. Avery, a forced/recovered fumble by Nelson Lokombo and defensive stops on three third-down gambles — it likely doesn’t matter that the Roughriders’ offence stalled six times and left their kicker to finish up.

Lauther is on a streak of 20 straight successful field goals, but touchdowns are better.

Maybe that’s why the Riders tried a trick play on B.C.’s four-yard line. Given the ball on first-and-goal, Ouellette pulled up and threw to Samuel Emilus in the end zone. It was knocked down.

The call made little sense: Why not let the CFL’s most accurate passer make that throw? Even stranger, after Harris uncharacteristically missed his next attempt, with a 13-8 lead and knowing a major would have truly crushed the Lions, the Riders instead had Lauther kick a 12-yard field goal.

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It was a weird, illogical series. It was rendered moot because the Lions didn’t score a second-half point against Saskatchewan’s playoff-ready defence, but it’s something else to fix while striving for perfection.

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