A View From the Stands: Sprinkle of Jesus Edition
Published: Tuesday, Aug 6th 2019, 1:08pm
A View From the Stands: Sprinkle of Jesus Edition
On a very hot Thursday the Queen City Ex wasn’t the only attraction making a stop in Regina, as the first place team in the CFL’s East Division, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats made their way to Mosaic Stadium to face off with the Saskatchewan Roughriders. The Tiger-Cats were without their 3 best players as starting QB Jeremiah Masoli, WR / Returner Brandon Banks and LB Simoni Lawrence did not make the trip out West. Masoli is out for the season after tearing his ACL in a non-contact injury last week. Banks also was injured last game and Simoni Lawrence was of course serving the final game of his 2 game suspension for his head shot on Zach Collaros in the opening game of the season. You know the drill by now, here are my random thoughts of the game.
– In Cody We Trust. I said it last week that if Cody can beat a “real” team that I would be All In on Fajardo being the next full time starting QB of the Riders. While Fajardo did not throw any TD’s he was very accurate with his passes when he did toss the pigskin. He was over 80% on his attempts for over 300 yards and came back after seemingly injuring his ankle to lead the Roughriders on a last minute game winning drive. Cody said that when he got to the bench he recieved a “Sprinkle of Jesus” and the pain in his ankle was gone. Fajardo has impressed time and time again this season and I will take all the sprinkles of Jesus I can get!
– Fans might say that with Hamilton being down their “Big 3” that it was not a quality win for the Riders or Fajardo. I call BS on that as early in the game the Riders lost Zack Evans and Micah Johnson to injuries and Hamilton still has one of the best defences in the league even without Lawrence. Evans has since been put on the 6-game injured list while Johnson is listed as day to day. This is a very tough break for the Riders as Zack Evans is a big hole to fill on the D Line.
– The Riders other Evans had himself another big game as well as he had 160 yards on 7 receptions. Shaq Evans is now 2nd the league in receiving after an impressive 3 game span totaling 337 yards. Shaq is continuously showing that he is the number one target for Fajardo and has eliminated the drops as the season has gone on. Keep up the good work Shaq.
– William Powell had a quiet game this week game after his monster performance last week in BC. It seems that the Riders are alternating the amount of touches between games in maybe a Kawhi Leonard-esque load management situation to keep Powell fresh. He did get another TD to take his league leading total to 7. Who’s second in the league on rushing TD’s? Cody Fajardo.
– My patience is wearing thin on the penalties that Riders DL Makena Henry is taking. He needs to play smarter so he does not make the field shorter for the opposing teams offence or extend drives that lead to point. Hopefully Coach Dickenson drives that point across this week.
– The CFL command center or football ops needs to get it’s *explitive deleted together. How can the “eye in the sky” go back and look to see if Winnipeg Blue Bombers Head Coach Mike O’Shea threw his challenge flag before the play was snapped in the first game of the Thursday night double header, but not do the same for when Hamilton HC Orlando Steinauer basically ran on the field trying to get the official’s attention to call a time out. Who knows if a time out would have made any difference in the outcome of the game but it was still a bad look. Get it fixed Randy.
– This week the Riders head east to Montreal to play the somewhat surging Alouettes and your boy is heading to the centre of the universe (Toronto) to take in SummerSlam weekend. We will be hopefully catching the Rider game while we watch the Toronto Blue Jays take on the New York Yankees in the Sportsnet Grill high atop the outfield at Rogers Centre. Let me know in the comments if you want to hear about my trip to the second biggest weekend of the year in WWE and if wrassling is your thing look for me rocking my #12 Brett FUQN Lauther Rider jersey at the Scotiabank Arena for 4 nights of WWE greatness. Until next time sports fans…
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