It was Friday night football at its finest.
The Riders and Lions each played hard Sept. 24. They are closely matched teams. As with every Rider fan in the nation Coach Craig Dickenson said the game had the feel of going to the wire.
I thought Cody Fajardo had his best game of the year. While his last drive heroics dominated discussion he looked the confident, skilled quarterback he was in 2019 when the Riders were rolling through the season.
His touchdown pass to Ricardo Louis was a moment of perfection. He hit the Rider receiver in stride lofting it just enough. Louis barely had to lift his arms.
Louis lined up in the backfield and then waggled to the left side hitting the line with speed at the snap. The Riders had anticipated T.J. Lee giving Louis leverage to go inside. Louis said he knew it was going to him when he saw where Lee was lined up. He said Cody had told him before the game to step on his (Lee’s) toes and get inside. Lee in the Vancouver Province said he had lined up too much outside and gave away the inside.
The focus of the game has to be the final three minutes.
The Riders had been driving from their five-yard line after B.C. missed a 43 yard field goal when they were at their 47. In a baffling decision Cody tried a long pass down the sideline towards Mitchell Picton. The Rider receiver was well covered and the interception was inevitable.
Had the pass merely failed, Rider fans were saved another dramatic moment. Dickenson said after the game they were going the whole way. I expect the Riders would have gambled on third and six.
Giving the ball back to the Lions and Riley with less than three minutes is a risky strategy. With the interception there was no choice on whether to gamble.
Dickenson was very aware the Lions had the advantage on point differential if the Lions were to win the game. Had the Riders been stopped within field goal range on that drive he might have kicked a field goal to regain the differential and try to stop the Lions in time to get another drive.
Sports, especially team sports, have a cruel inevitability to them. If there is a weakness on a team it will be exposed in crucial moments.
For the Lions, as they started their last drive, their offensive options were limited. They had but 16 yards rushing to that point in the game. They could not run the ball and run down the clock.
Both of their plays on the drive were passing plays. On the second, with the Riders having good coverage Reilly took off with the ball. Dickenson gave credit to Deon Lacey, effectively playing on one leg, tracking down Reilly short of the first down. As I did, Dickenson thought Reilly was closer to the first down marker than where the ball was spotted. In the first Winnipeg game the Riders had suffered from a Command Centre decision reversing a Winnipeg offside penalty. On Friday night they benefited from the Command decision on the spot of the ball.
When the Riders got the ball with 1:42 to go Cody took over. On the touchdown drive he completed four lovely passes. (He completed eight of his last nine passes.)
In classic Rider “do it the hard way” fashion Cody made the drive more difficult as they neared the goal line. With the team at the Lions four-yard line, he tried to run outside rather than giving the ball to William Powell and lost five yards. He said he was a touch selfish in keeping the ball. He continued that it was a zone read and he should have made the handoff rather than thinking he could out-run the defence to the pylon.
After the nice pass to Kyran Moore to get to the one-yard line it was decision time on the 3rd down play to win or lose the game. Dickenson said it was offensive co-ordinator Jason Maas who made the call to go with Cody on the quarterback sneak. Early in the game on third and one it had been Powell, from the shotgun formation, running for a first down. At the end of the game it was Cody behind centre driving forward for the touchdown.
Unlike the Rider defence a week ago which went low piling up the Argo offence as they stopped Toronto at the one-yard line the Lions went high trying to push back Cody before he could reach the goal line. The Rider offensive line drove low going over a yard into the end zone. With Cody tucked down the Lions had no chance of stopping him.
Maybe I was wrong in thinking the Riders would not be Cardiac Cowboys in 2021. It’s already been a wild ride half way through the season.
