By Elliotte Friedman,
CFL.ca
Yes, Dave Dickenson was great on Sunday afternoon. That’s no surprise. Dickenson is a great quarterback, a terrific player whose headfirst dives at the end of runs revealed exactly how much the West Championship meant to him.
Ask anyone exactly how healthy Dickenson is, you get some variation of this answer: “He’s always one hit away.” And when a quarterback slides headfirst, he can be clobbered by defenders. Go feet first, and they can only breathe on you. No way No. 12 was taking the easy way out last weekend.
But the honest truth is that Dickenson was not the most impressive Lion. Five guys share that award, five guys who completely shut down Saskatchewan’s monster defensive line. After the Semi-Finals, Roughrider Scott Schultz correctly stated his group “imposed its will” on Calgary.
Well, the Saskatchewan front four was imposed upon this time.
This is one case where statistics don’t lie. The Roughriders averaged three sacks a game in the regular season and added two more against Calgary in a game they basically spent up Henry Burris’ nose.
Sunday: zero. And if they got into the backfield, it came after being thrown there by a B.C. lineman.
Saskatchewan had the CFL’s best run defence, just 82 yards allowed per game. The powerful Calgary running game barely beat that. The Lions, however, more than doubled the average, getting 171. Dickenson and Joe Smith were close to six yards per carry, unheard of against this group.
The quarterback completed 73 per cent of his throws against a team that’s regular-season rate was below 60. When he’s unmolested in the pocket, the most accurate passer in league history is going to rip you apart.
Twice during live halftime interviews last season, Wally Buono criticized Dickenson for holding onto the ball too long. After a win in Hamilton, Dickenson ripped back at his coach – also live on-air. This year, the problem is fixed. As centre Angus Reid said the day before the game, “Dave has really improved at getting rid of it. We know that the ball is going to be gone 3.8/4 seconds after the snap. We hold our blocks for that long and we’ll be fine.”
There was some scepticism, since the Lions allowed 56 sacks this season, worst in the league. (Buono, by the way, goes bonkers whenever that is brought up. He thinks it’s an overrated stat.) Whatever the case, the Lions’ linemen were more than fine. They were perfect.
Afterwards, left guard Kelly Bates called it “the best game we’ve played in my five years here.” I don’t know if the “we” referred to the o-line or to everybody, but either one fits.
Left tackle Rob Murphy – the West’s representative for Outstanding Offensive Lineman – boasted in the days before the game that he’d “pitched a shutout” the last time they’d played Saskatchewan and was looking forward to doing it again. Both Chris Walby and Danny Barrett talked about how they’d never heard an offensive lineman do such a thing, but Murphy backed up his big words against two of the league’s best.
Fred Perry and Terrell Jurineack combined for 23 sacks during the season, but were in the Witness Protection Program on Sunday. It was a bitter way to end the season for Perry, who was upset at not being nominated as the league’s top defensive player earlier in the week.
Earlier in the year, Dickenson said the biggest difference in B.C.’s offence were the two tackles – Murphy and Jason Jimenez. Both are newcomers to the league, and both are nasty, nasty hitmen with a propensity for roughing penalties. Their arrival added some much-needed aggression to the group, although sometimes they go a little too far. (Not last weekend, though. Only one extraneous penalty between them.)
Their impact has been enormous, especially Murphy’s, since he protects Dickenson’s blind side. The guy is a riot, gladly telling reporters about his days as a high school hockey player in Ohio, where he holds the single-season and career records for penalty minutes.
“How many?” he was asked.
“I don’t know exactly, but pretty much every shift I got on the ice I fought somebody,” he said.
Murphy wanted to play at Ohio State, but former football coach John Cooper put the kibosh on the idea. Too bad. Maybe the Canucks could use him after the season to replace the departed Wade Brookbank.
The fifth starter, Sherko Haji-Rasouli, was one of three Canadians who played on Miami’s 2001 NCAA Championship team. (The others were Joe McGrath, who starts in Edmonton, and Brett Romberg, a St. Louis Rams backup.) Haji-Rasouli began his CFL career in Montreal, a great place to learn that position, before being lured away as a free agent.
Buono – who said last season people didn’t realize what an important signing this was – wanted him because Haji-Rasouli can play all five positions. That was a valuable trait when Jamal Powell went down in 2005 and Bobby Singh in 2006. Haji-Rasouli was pretty thin – by offensive line, not regular human standards – but he’s much bulkier now. At 26, he’s going to be a good player for a long time.
Montreal’s defensive line is pretty good. Ed Philion and Anwar Stewart have been beasts down the stretch. Adriano Belli shook off rigor mortis after leaving Hamilton, and Dario Romero was impactful in the last two games with Toronto.
But Saskatchewan’s group was better, and did bubkus. If Murphy and mates pitch another shutout, it’s going to be a lopsided Grey Cup.
Elliotte Friedman is the host of the CFL on CBC.
(The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily of the Canadian Football League)
