There was a time not that long ago where it looked as if the Saskatchewan Roughriders were well on their way to not only reaching the playoffs, but also defending their Grey Cup championship.
Now, times have changed.
The Green and White are a team going through an ugly set of struggles, trying to regain their footing and salvage their campaign in the midst of a late-season four-game losing streak.
Roughriders defensive line coach Micah Johnson has seen this kind of thing before, where a team gets into a string of tough times that seem impossible to get out of — until they do. And the 12-year veteran of the CFL wars feels this edition of the Riders is more than capable of a sudden and dramatic turnaround.
Johnson spoke with the Voice of the Roughriders Dave Thomas after practice Wednesday and offered what the message to the team is amidst their recent struggles.
“It's just about just telling the guys to keep fighting, keep going,” Johnson said. “Reaffirming that we believe the guys in the room and guys need to believe in themselves… It's cliche, but continue to trust the process. The guys work extremely hard, the guys put in time after, so we just got to keep grinding, keep believing.”
Johnson feels the team is extremely close to getting the mojo back, with success or failure coming down to three or four plays a game. That assessment isn’t far off — for example, had the Riders broken up a couple of the deep ball touchdowns against Montreal or gotten to Davis Alexander for an extra sack or two, the result may have been different. So it’s just a matter of cleaning up the miscues and missed opportunities.
“We can't take our turns with the mistakes and just the timeliness of the mistakes that we've been having,” he said. “A lot of that starts with communication and we've been pushing more communication through the guys.”
One aspect that Johnson would most certainly like to see improve is the finish from his defensive line charges. Time and again Saskatchewan has found themselves in the backfield threatening the opposing quarterback or blowing up a run play in recent games, and time and again tackles have been missed and something big happens for their opponents.
As one might expect, that makes for some frustrating times on the field, but it’s just a matter of keeping up and staying as level-headed as possible in the face of adversity, Johnson says.
“I'm just telling guys to keep pushing through,” he continued. “I felt like last game we had a few chances and we just got to finish. A few of those are on us, and we talked about that. So hopefully it'll just continue to come together. Guys have a great mindset, they come to work every week, man. It's really a great group.”
As tough as things look right now, the fact remains that Saskatchewan still has the inside track on a playoff spot. A win in either of their last two games and a loss by Calgary or Winnipeg and they’ll land the crossover spot, so it’s just a matter of controlling their own destiny with a victory.
“We control our own fate, so at the end of the day, we're just telling ourselves and reiterating with the players, no matter the situation, whatever it is, whatever scenario, it doesn't matter if we come out and we just win. That's what our focus is for these last two.”
The Roughrider Broadcast Network will have all the action from Saskatchewan’s meeting with the Montreal Alouettes at Mosaic Stadium beginning at 10 a.m. on Saturday. Teagan Witko and Wes Cates will have plenty of special guests, and Dave Thomas and Luc Mullinder will have the game call at kickoff at 1 p.m.
