Riders were built to run, Blue did decent job on ‘D’

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This article was published 09/09/2014 (4337 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This may sound surprising after giving up nearly 200 yards on the ground on Sunday — and 542 yards in three games against the Saskatchewan Roughriders — but the Bombers can actually stop the run. They just can’t stop it against the likes of the Roughriders.

This is how the Roughriders are getting paid in 2014. They pound the football and play defence.

It’s not fancy, it’s not tricky, it’s not fooling anybody, but it’s effective.

They have one considerable threat in their aerial attack by the name of Westin Dressler — who has only been back for two games — but they have eight weapons in their ground game: The five starting offensive linemen and the three-headed running back monster of Will Ford, Jerome Messam and Anthony Allen.

Most teams run the football to set up and open up the pass. Saskatchewan passes the football to set up and open up the run. It seems the Riders started Sunday’s game chucking the pigskin around solely in the hopes the Bombers would actually dedicate a number of their defensive dozen to cover their receivers. In hindsight, with only 107 yards in the air, the Bombers would have been better off putting all 12 of those men on the line of scrimmage, but that’s obviously not a realistic option.

Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea has been resolute in saying there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the scheme or system that his team employs to stop the run. That there are no uncovered holes or secret vulnerabilities to this front. According to the coach, any time they have been exposed on the ground it was either because someone was out of their assigned gap or they had missed a tackle. Of course, there really aren’t any other ways to allow rushing yards on the ground, but the point is taken.

If you aren’t in your gap, it is implied someone moved you out of it or walled you away from it. If you missed a tackle, you either weren’t able to get off of your block and square up to ball carrier in the hole, or he ran through your arms or over top of you.

When a coach says there is nothing wrong with a scheme, he is actually implying that it is a player issue.

In the three games the Bombers lost to the Riders, schematically they weren’t conceding anything on the ground. They just weren’t able to stop it. It was never the failure of a system. It was the shortcoming of the personnel.

Normally, when a team is as run-heavy as the Riders are, and as ineffective through the air as they are, they lose a lot of football games because the passing game is generally more prolific and moves the football down the field much quicker. Yet the Riders have the perfect complement to this seemingly unstoppable rushing attack: A good-to-great defence that backs them up. They play their opponents tight and rarely find themselves behind by large margins where an efficient passing attack would have to take over.

Their defence may not have the luxury of being able to give up a lot of points and still win games, but with a ground game like that — chewing up the clock — they will always be well rested.

The scary thing about the team in green is as the season progresses, and the weather worsens, the more critical your ground game and defence becomes. If the Riders can even pose a minimal threat in the air, going forward, and keep their offensive line healthy, they could become quite the handful for any opponent as the leaves change colour.

As for the Bombers, the good news is no other team in the CFL is as dominant at running the football as Saskatchewan. While they still have yet to play Calgary twice, and square off with the league’s best tailback in Jon Cornish, they don’t have to concern themselves with offensive lines that are that dominant with any of their remaining four opponents.

When you play a team as well suited to running the football as Saskatchewan is — one that can sometimes out-gain their passing attack by an unheard of ratio of two to one — not being able to stop the run may not really be a big surprise or anywhere near as big a deal as we might think it is.

Doug Brown, once a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.

Twitter: @DougBrown97