Riders at Als GDT

[Lincoln Locomotive]

Alexander shone in that game, pretty sure he just gave MTL the boost they needed in the absence of Fajardo.  They will be shopping for a #3 guy now, not a #1 guy.  At least for the near future, until Alexander stumbles.

The two bars hit in one game hasn't been done in a while, but I do believe Lirim did it when he was here...

Yeah....not often you see two crossbars and with those you don't even get a rouge as the ball is a dead ball as soon as it bounces off the goal post.    Philpot has been an absolute beast for the Als at receiver and the Riders I believe have the best running tandem in the CFL with Ouelette and Hickson.....they didn't miss a beat with Hickson who had nearly a 100 yards rushing in the first half and then the Als loaded the box with 7 in the 2nd half.   Bomber fans may aregue that Brady and Johnny are the top running tandem and likely were last year....however this year our O-Line isn't nearly as dominant as is our running attack.    q

[DM83]

Jekyl Hyde

[Jesse]

Yeah....not often you see two crossbars and with those you don't even get a rouge as the ball is a dead ball as soon as it bounces off the goal post.    Philpot has been an absolute beast for the Als at receiver and the Riders I believe have the best running tandem in the CFL with Ouelette and Hickson.....they didn't miss a beat with Hickson who had nearly a 100 yards rushing in the first half and then the Als loaded the box with 7 in the 2nd half.   Bomber fans may aregue that Brady and Johnny are the top running tandem and likely were last year....however this year our O-Line isn't nearly as dominant as is our running attack.    q

Ouellette is terrible. Hickson was much more effective for them.

[blue_gold_84]

Ouellette is terrible. Hickson was much more effective for them.

And Oliveira is better than both of them.

[J5V]

Alexander Plays Great!

[dd]

Not sure why the Riders went away from the running game. Hickson had over 100 yds first half and then seemed they didn't run the ball at all the second half. I think they got pannicked in Alexanders quick score and rather than pound the ball and chew up the clock and pull back some momentum, they chose to go 2 and out passing and give the ball back to him again, and he scored a TD again!! As my old football coach used to say, if we quit giving them the ball so much, they wouldn't score so much!!

[TecnoGenius]

Last time it was applied was August 4, 2022. Rasheed Bailey was penalized for Illegal Participation on a 12 yard reception on a 1st and 15 play. Montreal chose to make it 2nd and 15 rather than 1st and 25.

Thanks for that!  It's nice having a fount of knowledge here.

Funny I don't remember that... I must not have paid attention to the penalty choice as I'm guessing it didn't end the game like this one did.  I'll have to go dig up that game on the PVR to give it a look.

Bailey would often get screwed over on the details, like his first TD/not-TD in the '19 GC.  Shafted on a tiny little error (which I still dispute!).

[TecnoGenius]

Valesi told us it was a command center step-in. As for the pause issue, Valesi did not pause the game for a replay review. It was only the TV announcers that said so. Sure, technically there was a short delay, like a calldown for a respot usually is, but it was not a pause of the game.

When command/ref says it's a review, and the little "review" word goes up on the chyron, and they don't blow in the next play immediately, that's a "pause".

Valesi's first words are "the ruling on the field is incomplete pass, 3rd down".

Then there is a 51 second pause.

Then Valesi's gets back on the mic and says "after step in by command center the ball will be placed on the 29 yard foot (sic) line after a fumble".

Nearly 1 minute is a "pause of the game".  The rules were all tweaked in recent years with the extra verbiage for when they can pause, how long they can take without a pause, etc.  There is no excuse here for the normal "what's the spot" delay, because it was ruled incomplete: the spot is the last LoS.  There is literally no excuse for not allowing substitutions and blowing the play in as they usually do, which is normally a fair bit less than 51s.

I believe there was a "pause" "for review" as the rule book defines it.  And I believe command had no right to do that without a situation of "two refs arguing".  And if 2 refs were arguing, why did they issue a call on the field?  We've seen cases where they go straight to review without offering any call on the field!

The part that gets my goat is in previous years there's been a couple of fumbles exactly like this where the field call went against WPG and command never stepped in then!!  It's all so arbitrary, and entirely non-transparent.  Command/refs should outline exactly what (i.e. rule) is prompting such reviews with better verbiage.  I fully agree with all the miffed Rider fans on this one.

[TecnoGenius]

Riders I believe have the best running tandem in the CFL with Ouelette and Hickson.....they didn't miss a beat with Hickson who had nearly a 100 yards rushing in the first half and then the Als loaded the box with 7 in the 2nd half.  Bomber fans may aregue that Brady and Johnny are the top running tandem and likely were last year....

Ya, except even if Ouellette/Hickson are just as good as Brady/Johnny, they aren't because they take up 2 entire IMP spots.  That's brutal from a ratio standpoint, and makes it nearly impossible for SSK to dress both in the same game.  Because of the nature of our CFL, when players are equal in talent, the one with the passport is worth much more because of the ratio.

Oh ya, and Ouellette has had an abysmal season (even with Yoshi bulldozing the path, pre-injury!) and Riderfans are getting extremely restless.  Seeing Hickson light up the best team in the league is stirring up quite a "RB controversy" over in greenville!

However, let's all temper what we saw from Hickson because:
a) MTL is apparently weak against the run
b) MTL clearly gameplanned around a pass-first O like SSK used on us
c) When MTL adjusted at HT they were able to eliminate Hickson

Ouellette will start when he's healthy: there's too much SMS and merch sales tied up in him to anoint Hickson as the frachise RB.  Those thor hammers won't sell themselves!

[bomb squad]

When command/ref says it's a review, and the little "review" word goes up on the chyron, and they don't blow in the next play immediately, that's a "pause".

Valesi's first words are "the ruling on the field is incomplete pass, 3rd down".

Then there is a 51 second pause.

Then Valesi's gets back on the mic and says "after step in by command center the ball will be placed on the 29 yard foot (sic) line after a fumble".

Nearly 1 minute is a "pause of the game".  The rules were all tweaked in recent years with the extra verbiage for when they can pause, how long they can take without a pause, etc.  There is no excuse here for the normal "what's the spot" delay, because it was ruled incomplete: the spot is the last LoS.  There is literally no excuse for not allowing substitutions and blowing the play in as they usually do, which is normally a fair bit less than 51s.

I believe there was a "pause" "for review" as the rule book defines it.  And I believe command had no right to do that without a situation of "two refs arguing".  And if 2 refs were arguing, why did they issue a call on the field?  We've seen cases where they go straight to review without offering any call on the field!

The part that gets my goat is in previous years there's been a couple of fumbles exactly like this where the field call went against WPG and command never stepped in then!!  It's all so arbitrary, and entirely non-transparent.  Command/refs should outline exactly what (i.e. rule) is prompting such reviews with better verbiage.  I fully agree with all the miffed Rider fans on this one.

I think we're in agreement on the arbitrariness. Also that it took a little longer than it should have. But we have to keep in mind that they had to be accurate on where they re-spotted the ball as it was critical. However...

The bolded didn't happen. There was not an official pause for review. When the ref whistles the next play in is at his discretion. There was a re-spotting of the ball. "Delay" and "Immediate" are subjective terms in this case. It would be impossible to apply a step-in without some kind of delay. The ref is working in a loud, chaotic environment, while trying to communicate with people verbally on electronic devices. It's going to take some extra time.

The call miss on the field was egregious and did warrant a step-in per the rules.

[TecnoGenius]

The bolded didn't happen. There was not an official pause for review. When the ref whistles the next play in is at his discretion. There was a re-spotting of the ball. "Delay" and "Immediate" are subjective terms in this case.

If the refs were sticking to their incompletion theory, then there is no re-spot!  The sticks don't move!  So you can't say there was any delay for a re-spot.  It's literally the easiest ball-placement scenario for the refs!

As for "delay"... I started measuring the delays between whistles in the surrounding "normal" plays.  I only did a couple so far, and they seem to be between 30-40s.  So close to 51, but if I can't find any above 40, I'll maintain that the extra 11 is significant enough to say command calling down to them to "hold on a sec" is a delay as opposed to "no delay".

The call miss on the field was egregious and did warrant a step-in per the rules.

It was not egregious.  Egregious, as previously used in CFL precedent, means it's obvious to nearly everyone in live time.  It does not mean obvious in slow-mo replay from the 3rd angle when the difference between result A and B is a single tenth of a second!

For instance, the phantom DPIs on WPG in the SSK game were egregious because everyone knew live there was no DPI.  Slowmo only confirmed it.  This fumble/incompletion for SSK needed slowmo to tell what really happened.

Unfortunately, since none of these words are clearly defined or given examples in the rule book, you can interpret it your way and I can mine, and we're both correct.

My main metric is when the fan bases of the two competitors, as well as 3rd party bitter rivals, all agree that refs/command got it wrong... and when my comp PVR tricks show me what happened.

[bomb squad]

If the refs were sticking to their incompletion theory, then there is no re-spot!  The sticks don't move!  So you can't say there was any delay for a re-spot.  It's literally the easiest ball-placement scenario for the refs!

As for "delay"... I started measuring the delays between whistles in the surrounding "normal" plays.  I only did a couple so far, and they seem to be between 30-40s.  So close to 51, but if I can't find any above 40, I'll maintain that the extra 11 is significant enough to say command calling down to them to "hold on a sec" is a delay as opposed to "no delay".

It was not egregious.  Egregious, as previously used in CFL precedent, means it's obvious to nearly everyone in live time.  It does not mean obvious in slow-mo replay from the 3rd angle when the difference between result A and B is a single tenth of a second!

For instance, the phantom DPIs on WPG in the SSK game were egregious because everyone knew live there was no DPI.  Slowmo only confirmed it.  This fumble/incompletion for SSK needed slowmo to tell what really happened.

Unfortunately, since none of these words are clearly defined or given examples in the rule book, you can interpret it your way and I can mine, and we're both correct.

My main metric is when the fan bases of the two competitors, as well as 3rd party bitter rivals, all agree that refs/command got it wrong... and when my comp PVR tricks show me what happened.

Sure, go with it then.