Riderville.com
Consistency, confidence and success are what the Saskatchewan Roughriders are trying to find in the final month of the CFL season before the playoffs.
To find all three, they first need to find stability.
It’s the reason given to why they went out this week to bring in a 41-year old quarterback and Rider hero Kerry Joseph.
The team feels with Joseph in the fold, it will provide stability to the most important position.
This isn’t to say Joseph is here to start and guide this team to a second consecutive Grey Cup Championship.
Joseph is here to provide leadership, guidance, and yes, maybe a touchdown pass here or there.
The Riders have been Jekyll and Hyde this year; shutout for an entire game, struggle here and then all of a sudden break out for 24 points in three consecutive drives against the best team in the league.
So Corey Chamblin is going back to Tino Sunseri, a second year starter who looks more and more like a starter in the eyes of his head coach.
“I think he’s seeing the game a little bit better, even with the (fact) he didn’t start in one of those games. I think he came back with a little more fire, intensity and little bit more focus. It’s hard to just start or be a rookie or have your first time at anything so I think the experience was golden for him.”
Now the offence needs to show that burst with much more consistency if they’re going to have any thought of beating Edmonton out for second spot in the West.
How to do that is the tough part, but receiver Weston Dressler says it may all be mental.
“Hopefully as an offence we can just keep attacking and have that ‘our backs against the wall’ mentality. Like, if we don’t score now the games over. I think once we got that attitude we started making more plays and just have that mentality of lets get it done now.”
With the losses starting to pile up in front of them, their confidence is taking a bit of a hit. Though, the players will never admit it.
Defensive end John Chick definitely doesn’t think it’s personnel or x’s and o’s so there isn’t much left to blame.
“It’s just confidence. The way you approach it, the way you play. I’m not saying we haven’t had glimpses of that but across the board there are times where there is a little bit of doubt here and a little bit of doubt there and that’s not who we are as a whole.”
Bottom line for this team is they need something to go right and early.
They’ve been outscored 58-13 in the first half of the four games since Darian Durant’s injury. With the team playing from behind, you don’t do things that may be as characteristic of your team than usual.
So will Joseph solve all? No, because it’s not just Joseph that will stabilize this team. They are getting help with veterans like Chris Best, Josh Bartel, Neal Hughes coming back or at least, close to coming back from injury.
The signing of veteran linebacker Diamond Ferri should help the coverage team unit and at times the linebacking corps who have come under fire for the amount of rushing yards given up.
The Riders are hoping the dominos start falling their way on Monday.
First, find stability.
With stability comes consistency.
With consistency comes confidence.
With confidence comes success.
It’s such an easy thing for Head Coach Corey Chamblin to know what he wants. It’s been a lot harder for him to get it out of his team.
