Scruffy’s This N That

1 – WRITING THE EULOGY: As you know, Grey Cup 111 goes Sunday at BC Place.  Rider Nation was hoping the green-and-white would be there, but they weren’t and there should be no debate as to why that was the case.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers beat the Riders from pillar to post in the Western Final.  Once Winnipeg took a 14-0 lead, the chances of a comeback were slim and slim turned into none when Corey Mace inexplicably decided to gamble on 3^rdand 3 from their own 24 early in the 4^th quarter down 15.  There was still plenty of time and for a team that put a lot of faith into its defence, it seemed as if Mace had no faith in his defence as the gamble didn’t pay off with Winnipeg using the short field to ice it.

The ink is now dry on 2024, which leaves the question to you as to your thoughts on this team going into the off-season.  I think we all knew the arrival of Mace would mean better things after back-to-back six win seasons.  Did they overachieve in getting to the Western Final? I said at the start of the year this was a team that would win somewhere between 8-10 games and challenge for 3^rd.  I got the first part right, but not the second part in what was a weird Western Conference.  Once you get to the playoffs, we know anything can happen.  Getting a home playoff game was a big plus.  At the end of the day, I think Rider fans have to be optimistic going into 2025.  We all know that the team that left the field at Princess Auto Stadium won’t be the same one we see when the regular season starts next year.  In a league where one-year contracts mean a lot of player shuffling, so many things can change.  If GM Jeremy O’Day and Mace look at what they have and what they need, the Riders should be in the mix.

2 – GREY CUP THOUGHTS: If anyone knows what it is like to have the backup quarterback play in the Grey Cup because the starter suffers a season-ending injury in the division final, it would be Ryan Dinwiddie.  Yes, the man who had to QB the Bombers in 2007 after Kevin Glenn got hurt and failed to come through will watch as Nick Arbuckle tries to bring the Grey Cup back to Toronto after the broken leg suffered by Chad Kelly.

With Kelly, the Argos win the Grey Cup.  Without him, they don’t.  Collaros, Oliveira, Lawler, Jefferson and Ford should be too much for Toronto to handle.  I’ll take the Bombers in a game that shouldn’t be close with 5 minutes to go.  Let’s go with a 25-16 Winnipeg win.

3 – ZACH COLLAROS: There is no doubt the Bombers quarterback will be enshrined in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame once his days in the CFL are over. If the Bombers should win, would Collaros go out on top and call it a career?  He has nothing else to prove and his resume is long. He also still has his health which is so important and is still a concern.  With Grey Cup 112 on his home field, I think he wants an opportunity to win one at home and who could blame him for wanting to do so.

4 – ONE MORE GAME: There is still some football to be played in Saskatchewan.  The U of R Rams will meet Laval in the Mitchell Bowl.  Can I call it the Scruffy Bowl? I digress.  Hats off to Rams coach Mark McConkey for rallying the troops and getting into the playoffs despite a 3-5 regular season record and then knocking off Manitoba and the U of S to win the 2^nd Canada West title in school history.

The question I have now is how much of the Regina/southern Saskatchewan football community will show up.  There are many who are CFL or nothing.  They don’t give a rats you know what about Canadian university football or junior football even though the likes of Logan Ferland, Mitch Picton, Nelson Lokombo and Jaxon Ford have come from the Thunder, Rams or Huskies. 

It is funny how people will go to junior hockey games to see future pros in action, but they don’t want to go to university games where once again future pros are in action because they don’t care yet they ask where this Canadian came from or that one came from.  I actually had someone last year ask me about Jaxon Ford and where the Riders found him.  He was then offended when I told him that he could have watched Jaxon play with the Rams and who his grandfather was.

This will be a great test for next season when the Vanier Cup comes to Regina.  I will be interested to see what the crowd count is especially when tickets are less than $25.  I think there will be a good showing.

5 – ANALYTICS SHMANALYTICS: In his year-end address to reporters, Corey Mace said there were times this year where he didn’t go with his gut and went with what the analytics said.  Corey Mace and all other coaches need to coach the way coaches did 20 years ago and that is with what YOU think is right.  Not all of those decisions will be correct, but deferring to what the numbers say is wrong. It has been since analytics creeped into sports and to me it will always be that way.  If YOU think you should do this or do that in order to achieve success, you do it.  It may end up being the wrong decision and you might get criticized for it, but Mace and others know that when they accept the position.  I want my coaches to make decisions because it is what they think is right and not what the numbers say.

6 – WEEK 11 NFL STUFF:   Here are some tidbits of information as you get ready for Grey Cup with some NFL.

• Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow leads the NFL with 2,672 passing yards and ranks tied for first with 24 touchdown passes, while wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase leads the league in receiving yards (981) and touchdown receptions (10). Burrow and Chase are the first set of teammates to lead the league in passing yards and receiving yards entering Week 11 since the Los Angeles Rams’ Matthew Stafford and Cooper Kupp in 2021.
• The Chiefs have won 15 consecutive games, including the playoffs, and can become the fifth team since 1990 to win 16 consecutive games, including the postseason, joining the 2003-04 New England Patriots (21 consecutive wins), 2010-11 Green Bay Packers (19), 2007-08 New England Patriots (18) and 1997-98 Denver Broncos (18). Kansas City will play a Buffalo team that has won three of four regular-season matchups between the two since 2020, but the Chiefs have won all three playoff matchups.
• Baltimore running back Derrick Henry leads the NFL in scrimmage yards (1,216) and rushing yards (1,120) and has a league-high 14 scrimmage touchdowns (12 rushing, two receiving) this season, including at least one touchdown in each of his first 10 games this season. On Sunday at Pittsburgh (1 p.m. ET, CBS), Henry can become the fourth player in the Super Bowl era to record a touchdown in each of his first 11 games of a season, joining Pro Football Hall of Famers O.J. Simpson (first 14 games in 1975), Jerry Rice (first 12 in 1987) and John Riggins (first 12 in 1983).

7 – THE 1000 POINT MAN: As you know, I am a huge Oilers fan.  I have been that way since they came into the NHL so I grew up watching those great teams of the 80’s winning Cup after Cup after Cup.  Yes, I thought another Cup would have already come to Northern Alberta under Connor McDavid’s watch, but it hasn’t. It will.

It isn’t often that I am squarely focused for an Oilers game on a Thursday night in mid-November, but when history is made you are a little more interested and it was that way at Rogers Place as Leon Draisaitl set up McDavid for his 1000^th career point as he became the 4^th quickest to do it.  McDavid just gets better and better each year.  He isn’t even close to his ceiling yet.  If you have seen him live, you see what he can do with your own eyes.  If you haven’t seen him live, you need to do so. Now that he has 1000, the talk is can he get to 2000.  Why can’t he? He has 10 plus years left in what has been a great career so far and he isn’t even 30.  Is it safe to say that in seven or eight years, he is approaching that 2000-point mark.  I wouldn’t bet against him.

8 – TYSON VS PAUL: There has been disappointment at JerryWorld these days, but those in Dallas weren’t at a Cowboys game Friday night.  Like a lot of people, I wanted to see Iron Mike Tyson rip Jake Paul’s head off and truthfully, he could have delivered some left hooks to Logan too, but it wasn’t to be. Tyson was outmatched by Paul, but the 58-year-old didn’t end up on his ass—one that we all sadly got to see.

In the end, Angelo Mosca vs Joe Kapp was better.  SIGHHHH!!

9 – PATS AT 5000 AND COUNTING:  The Regina Pats got a “W” in their 5000^th career game Friday in Brandon.  If you need a great history lesson, go to the Pats website and check out the article from unofficial Pats historian Kevin Shaw.  The Pats should really take a page out of the Riders book and hire Kevin like the Riders did with Rob Vanstone to write some articles on both the present-day Pats and Pats of the past whether they be NHL’ers or not.  Whenever I have a question about something regarding the Pats, I send Kevin a message and he gets right back to me with the correct answer.

10 – RANDOM THOUGHTS:

• Just want to make sure I have this right. If a junior hockey player in the Ontario Hockey League calls an opponent “a Mennonite”, he gets a five-game suspension.  Someone please let me off at the next stop.  
• It’s official. The hate that everyone outside a Patriots fan had for Tom Brady and New England has been transferred to Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City.  That was evident after KC blocked a last-play Denver field goal to keep their perfect record alive. Add me to that list as I would be more than OK with Mahomes and company not being in the Super Bowl and it has nothing to do with one Ms. Swift.
• Who will go down as having had the best career. Jon Cornish or Brady Oliveira?
• If there is a more annoying ad on TV right now than the one for Jublia, what is it?

Have a great weekend everyone!