Jamie Nye
CFL.ca
Saskatchewan is about to see their football team miss the playoffs for the first time since 2001.
The feeling within the borders now is that the team is more or less down to their last loss of the season. The team has done little to provide hope that they can rattle off five straight wins to finish the season for a magic push to the playoffs.
Although, maybe the team can draw inspiration from Major League Baseball where two teams epic collapses launched St. Louis and Tampa Bay into the playoffs.
There is a growing sense in Saskatchewan that it is next year country in Riderville and, beginning Monday afternoon in Edmonton, the team should move players in and out of the roster and use October as some sort of pre-training camp for 2012.
But wouldn’t that be asking the team to quit?
The very thing fans have been accusing their team of for the last two weeks and ridiculing them for is quitting or being ‘flat’.
These are professional athletes who still have a glimmer of hope they can salvage the season.
You don’t tell a pro to quit. They don’t have it in them to fold the tent and go home five games early and start looking towards next season.
The underlying issue is the math is still there for the Saskatchewan Roughriders to take over third spot in the West Division with two games remaining against the Edmonton Eskimos.
Though those two wins alone won’t get the Roughriders there, it does give them a sense they have something to play for.
So let them.
Now is not the time to throw raw rookies into a line-up just to see what they can do.
It’s undeniable that change is necessary for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. There is not much faith in the roster, after losing nine of their first 13 and have been outscored 82-8 in their last two games, that they can win these final games.
So roster changes should be coming.
Head coach Ken Miller told the media last week that he wasn’t going to do what John Hufnagel did in Calgary because of the loyalty he has for the players and the loyalty they show him.
Well, they showed so much loyalty to their coach that they left Calgary after a 40-3 drubbing at the hands of the Stampeders who had veterans on the sidelines because of their lack of performance.
So much for loyalty.
If I was a Roughrider on that 42-man roster the last two weeks, I’d be a little nervous.
The coaches had four days to evaluate film since that loss in Calgary with nine days between games. Plenty of time to come up with a plan.
While the roster should have its tweaks this week, the major overhaul can’t come now. The team needs to save that for when the math doesn’t add up and they have no hope at the 2011 playoffs.
Now is time for the coaches to send a message through the locker room they still have life on this sinking ship and find out who’s willing to stay and who’s looking for the lifeboat.
