Saskatchewan Roughriders legend Scott Schultz knows what it’s like to see a team he played for go through a bit of a tailspin.
There were a few seasons in his time with the Green and White where things were less than ideal for stretches of the campaign — even in the Grey Cup champion season, where they posted a 12-6 record but had back-to-back losses early in the season.
That’s why when Schultz joined the SportsCage for his Mid-Week Soundoff segment on Wednesday, he wasn’t overly concerned with how things are going for the Roughriders at the moment, even with the two difficult losses in the last couple weeks.
“Even the ones where we went off and we went all the way to the Western Final we still had to win like three and four games at a clip just to get in the playoffs,” Schultz told host Barney Shynkaruk. “So that pressure was there and I remember one of those years we were having some trouble on offence with drops and stuff. I don't remember anybody bringing it up to the offence, being a jerk about it.
“I remember guys really buying into that mentality of ‘let's give the ball back to the offence They fumbled on the one yard line. Awesome, let's go out there make a stop get it back to them.’”
Schultz is of little doubt that the 2026 edition of the Riders have much the same mentality. It’s just that the way they’ve lost games to Hamilton and B.C. the last couple of weeks — way too many unforced errors and penalties that are giving the team the ball in good field position. Or even worse, taking points off the board.
“It was very preventable stuff,” Schultz said. “When you look back at a game like that, you can let one go, but you start stacking them up back to back then it becomes a little bit of a little bit of a concern.”
Schultz pointed out that Saskatchewan did enough to win the game on offence, but sometimes when things aren’t going your way, they just aren’t going to go your way.
“We didn't get physically pummelled around, we moved the ball for over 410 yards,” Schultz said. “It's just frustrating to see when we kind of shoot ourselves in the foot.”
As one might expect from a Plaza of Honour defensive lineman, Schultz that feels a bit better play in that facet of the game could make the difference, especially if someone steps up and starts to dominate at their position.
“They're a little unassuming right now,” he said. “I would have liked for the group to really produce their next big stud guy, but that's not to say that they're not doing a great job.
I think that they're playing together as a unit, but we just need to finish on the quarterback We need to get that ball back into our offensive hands as many times as possible, the d-line can affect that and we need to start seeing it.”
Schultz had plenty more to chat about in the Midweek Soundoff — including his take on offensive lineman Daniel Johnson getting a catch — and you can check it all out in the video below.
