Frankly, I’m just sick of it. All this talk of how bad Danny Barrett is at coaching, his poor decisions, and all the talk of the poor play of Kerry Joseph. The Riders beat the BC Lions but, if you were to pay a visit to Riderfans.com you would have a hard to believing it. Fans are on Barrett’s and Joseph’s case on how they performed on Sunday.
I would like to state, first of all, that the Riders won and the Lions lost. At the end of the day the BC lions (the CFL’s top team in the standings) had their seven game winning streak ended by the hometown Riders. Calgary, Toronto, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Montreal all tried but failed at beating the Lions during that seven game stretch. The Riders were finally successful in bringing down the Lions. In that seven game stretch, the Lions defeated their opponents by a combined score of 251 to 111. That’s an average margin of 20 points per game! The Lions weren’t just on a roll they were steam rolling over the competition. That was, until they ran into the Riders.
My whole point to this is to say to all the Danny Barrett and Kerry Joseph Nay-Sayers out there, “Relax, enjoy the win”, and perhaps even, “You are all beginning to look like the fans of the evil empire.” Really, this whole nitpicking thing is really getting old. Not only do we want a win, but we want it done our way and to the highest of standards.
Until this year, the Eskimos fans have come to expect a win every game, now those expectations have moved to Rider Nation. Now players and coaches must live up to the impossible standards of the fans. I guess the difference between the “Evil Empire” and “Rider Nation” is the fact that in Edmonton the expectations were originally set by the team, through winning. Here in Rider Nation, expectations are just thrust upon the players and coaches by the fans because it’s been so long since we’ve seen such success. Such pressure is unfounded and perhaps even a little dangerous. The team will win, we saw what they’re capable of on Sunday and wins will continue to happen. And I feel that, unless the pressure from the fans subsides, the players will start to get a little frustrated and leave. There are a lot of free agents on this team, and should one leave due to the unwanted heat applied by the fans, I’m afraid that more will leave.
So let’s all do what good Rider fans are supposed to do, and enjoy the success that the Riders are having by showing up to the games clad in green and white gab and paint and cheer our loudest. Let’s support them right through to the playoffs to Winnipeg in the Grey Cup. Let’s save our grumbling until after the last season of the game, should they lose. Although, given what I’ve seen so far, I’m sure there will be some grumblers should the Riders win the whole thing.
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OK I can almost see where you are coming from. But what exactly is wrong with expecting the best out of the team? I like wins as much as anybody but even you have to admit that Sunday was lucky. If Fantuz slips trying to recover the fumble it's game over. If the wind picks up when McCallum punts the ball it's game over. Our offense needs to score early in games. And blah blah that B.C. has a great D. We don't score early against most teams. I think we have a handful of first quarter TDs this year, that's five. Not good enough to win in the playoffs. Or the regular season if the D gets caught wearing the wrong shoes early in a game. What I really want is to see what this team can do when ALL of the units click at one time. And really that hasn't happened yet this year.
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