REGINA – The Edmonton Elks might have put on one heck of an offensive show in their win over the Saskatchewan Roughriders last week, but can they do it again?
TSN analyst Glen Suitor joined the SportsCage on Thursday afternoon for the latest edition of his Press Coverage segment and, while he wasn’t about to predict a victory either way, he was confident that fans could be in for another barnburner on Saturday night at Commonwealth Stadium.
How things turn out, though, is anyone’s guess – in no small part due to the level of motivation Saskatchewan will have after going through the exceptionally tough loss last week.
“It’s difficult to repeat, it's difficult to win again, because the team that loses (the first game) in a back-to-back is so highly motivated,” Suitor told SportsCage’s Barney Shynkaruk. “So the Riders, they're going to be right mentally. There's just something that clicks when you're the team that lost the first game of a back-to-back.”
Motivation can only get you so far, though, and as Suitor pointed out, Edmonton is quickly becoming the kind of team that can win a variety of ways – and that makes finding victory against them exceptionally difficult, mental boost or not.
“It doesn't mean they're going to win every game the rest of the way, but we can see that in their first six wins, they've won three different ways,” Suitor said, pointing out that running back Justin Rankin was the primary factor in their first two wins, their defence came up huge the next three and it was all Cody Fajardo and his receiving corps against the Riders.
Given how the Green and White handled the first two issues fairly well, solving Fajardo while maintaining that success will be a prime key to success on Saturday.
“So take away the busts and take away the explosion plays, but you still have to handle Rankin,” Suitor said. “And you can’t turn the ball over. Those are the kind of things we say all the time, but it’s what they’re going to have to do against a team like that.”
Suitor also put his past as one of the greatest defensive backs in Riders history to good use and offered a few tips on how Saskatchewan could deal with Edmonton’s offence.
“Defensively, I always like to think when you're having trouble and struggling, simplify,” Suitor said. “The last thing you want in a game that happens so quick with a veteran quarterback like Cody is to be thinking. You don't want to be thinking and then overthinking and then trying to guess because then you get inside your own head.”
Suitor continued by explaining how to streamline things. The Riders need to show lots of different blitz packages and don’t bother trying to disguise them.
“You're not really going to fool Cody all that much, unless you hold that disguise and sometimes that gets you in trouble,” Suitor said. “But to me, if you send more pressure, you've done what? You've simplified the back end because now they're in man, basically, and you got the players that can do that.
“Then you're filling the gaps, so if they do run screen or run draw, someone's in charge of covering Justin Rankin. They have to hug the line of scrimmage, move up and cover him and then if they run him on a draw or something like that, you've got the gaps handled because you're blitzing all the gaps.”
Regardless of how things turn out on either side of the ball, Suitor expects another good one on Saturday night.
“It's going to be hard to live up to that first one, I'll tell you that,” he said.
The Rider Broadcast Network will have the pre-game show with Teagan Witko and Wes Cates beginning at 2 p.m. on Saturday, with Dave Thomas and Luc Mullinder bringing you the game call at 5 p.m.
