With Friday’s 45-35 loss to the Calgary Stampeders, the Saskatchewan Roughriders have fallen to 1-6 and are firmly ensconced in the basement of the CFL. For a team that entered the season fresh off two Grey Cup appearances and looking to go for it again this year with a veteran-heavy lineup, that record is stunning enough. What’s even more disappointing is the embarrassing way in which many of their losses have come, though.
Even the 10-point final margin Friday favoured the Roughriders, as they outscored Calgary 21-7 in the fourth quarter after the Stampeders took their foot off the gas. Head coach Greg Marshall (seen above)said the team’s at “almost rock-bottom”, and he’s right. On the year, Saskatchewan has scored just 147 points (second-worst in the league) and allowed a CFL-high 229 points, giving them a league-worst point differential of -82. Their losses have come by 14, 14, 30, 4, 13 and 10 points, while their lone victory was a three-point win over a Montreal Alouettes’ team that just happened to be missing star quarterback Anthony Calvillo for most of the clash. Change has to come in Saskatchewan, but the question is what it’s going to be and if it will be the right one, or if the Riders will get fooled again. Here are five options Saskatchewan could take, ordered from least drastic to most drastic.
1. Reshuffle the roster: There’s some talent on the Saskatchewan roster, but they’re clearly deficient in a lot of areas. The chief target for change might be the secondary, which has struggled all year and allowed Calgary quarterback Henry Burris to finally achieve some excellence in execution Friday. Burris completed 21 of 29 passes (72.4 per cent) for 298 yards and three touchdowns without an interception, and picked up 258 of his passing yards in the first half before the Stampeders let up a bit. That kind of performance doesn’t look good on any secondary. The Saskatchewan offence has plenty of issues too, though. Some of their new receivers, such as Efrem Hill (11 catches for 177 yards) and James Robinson (three catches, 72 yards) are showing promise, but the receiving corps as a whole has had its issues this year and is clearly missing Andy Fantuz and Rob Bagg. With NFL cuts coming up and the UFL dropping from five to four teams, there are plenty of opportunities to make changes, and it looks like Saskatchewan will have to at least try a few. We’ll see if that’s enough to right the ship, though.
2. Change quarterbacks: Arash Madani pointed out Friday that many of the Riders’ issues thus far can be laid at the feet of quarterback Darian Durant. Durant wasn’t terrible Friday, but he wasn’t great; he completed 24 of 34 passes (70.6 per cent) for 325 yards and two touchdowns, which certainly is pretty impressive, but also threw two terrible interceptions (including an end-zone one Keon Raymond took back for a 117-yard touchdown, the longest return in franchise historya and the fourth-longest in league history) and lost a fumble. On the year, Durant is fifth in the league with 1,660 passing yards, but he’s thrown a CFL-high eight interceptions against just eight touchdowns and he’s only completed 62.8 per cent of his passes. His quarterback rating of 83.1 is the worst among starters except for Travis Lulay. Durant has led the Riders to two Grey Cup appearances, and backup Ryan Dinwiddie hasn’t done a ton to inspire confidence (although he was six-for-six for 109 yards and a touchdown in garbage time Friday), so Durant may still prove the better long-term option. Giving Dinwiddie a start might work out, though; if he turns in a great showing, the Riders come away with a victory, but if he fails, a benching may serve as the wake-up call Durant needs.
3. Switch defensive coordinators: The decision to change defensive coordinators from Gary Etcheverry to Richie Hall in the offseason was applauded by many who weren’t fans of Etcheverry’s unconventional blitz-heavy schemes, and they had at least a partial point. The 488 points the Riders’ defence conceded in the 2010 regular season were the second-highest in the league (ahead of only Edmonton), and they couldn’t stop the run at all much of the time. Still, things have gotten significantly worse under Hall. Through seven games, the Roughriders have given up 229 points (32.7 per game, as opposed to the 27.1 they conceded last season). The next-closest team is Toronto, with 178 against through six games. Saskatchewan’s proven utterly unable to get much if any pressure on opposing quarterbacks without Etcheverry’s blitzes. At this rate, Saskatchewan is on pace to concede 588 points this year; for comparison, last year’s worst total was Edmonton with 545. Something has to change on defence; perhaps that’s just adapting existing players to Hall’s scheme, perhaps it’s bringing in new guys who fit in his system, or perhaps it’s changing the defensive coordinator again.
4. Bring in a new offensive coordinator: Doug Berry’s seen plenty of criticism over the years, and it hasn’t all been deserved. For example, last season saw the Riders put up 497 points, the third-highest total in the league. If you can average 27.6 points per game, you’ll win quite a lot of them. The offence has gone into a tailspin this season, though, only recording 147 points through seven contests (ahead of only the Argonauts, who have played one fewer game). That’s an average of 21.0 points per game, and that’s not enough to frequently win in the CFL. Moreover, the stats get even more dire if you remove Friday’s 35-point outing (where, again, 21 of the points came in fourth-quarter garbage time). Apart from that, Saskatchewan has scored 28, 25, 3, 27, 18 and 11 points for an average of just 18.7 points per game. It may not be entirely Berry’s fault; Durant appears to have regressed as a quarterback, and the Riders are certainly missing some of their most prolific receivers. Still, Saskatchewan needs to do something to shake up the offence; if personnel changes don’t pay off, Berry’s head may be on the chopping block.
5. Abandon the Marshall Plan: Firing a rookie head coach midseason is extremely rare, and would be particularly unusual for an organization that appears to think longer-term. Marshall seems to have a good relationship with vice-president of football operations Ken Miller and general manager Brendan Taman, and they’re not going to axe him lightly (especially considering that he’s on a three-year contract). You can also make the argument that the Roughriders’ failings aren’t as much on him as they are on the personnel they have or the failures of his coordinators’ strategies. Still, losing isn’t taken lightly in Riderville, and Saskatchewan is not just losing close games: they’re frequently getting humiliated. Axing Marshall would be a drastic change, but it’s one that may come before too long if the Riders aren’t able to turn the ship around.
Source: http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/cfl/blog/cfl_experts/post/Change-has-to-come-in-Saskatchewan-but-how-?urn=cfl-wp972
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