Most of the discussion following the 'Riders' stunning victory over Calgary has revolved around Ken Miller's odd decision to try to win the game with a punt single rather than a 35-yard field goal. But while that choice was certainly an odd one, the bigger story in the game was that the 'Riders were in a position to win to begin with against a team that had been demolishing all comers - and that they did it by adding elements to their offence that had seldom been seen in 2010.
Keep in mind that Calgary's defensive success over the past few years has been based largely on its being willing to trust the Stamps' secondary in regular man-to-man coverage - accepting slightly greater vulnerability to big plays if an offence could beat a top-level defensive back as the price of having more defenders available to load up the line of scrimmage. And Calgary has been more successful than ever this season in making that tradeoff work to their advantage.
Which looked to create serious problems for a Saskatchewan offence which hadn't made effective use of long passes in recent memory, and whose already-porous line seemed likely to let Calgary's defenders get to Darian Durant before he'd have time to set up deep throws. But the 'Riders managed to create just enough time for Durant to get the ball away on plenty of deep routes. And from there, a combination of great plays by the 'Riders' receivers and perfect timing or luck resulted in the 'Riders completing as many long (50-yard) passing plays as they had in their previous 10 games combined - not to mention putting up a total of 12 20+ yard gains based on a combination of passes to four different receivers and runs by Durant and Hugh Charles.
While the 'Riders amassed some yardage with more conventional offence as well, I don't think there's much room to argue that they would have come close to the Stamps if they hadn't put such a constant emphasis on big plays. Durant posted what has to be a remarkably low number of completions (23) and completion percentage (59%) for a 500-yard game, while Wes Cates was once again shut down on the ground. So the 'Riders had little choice but to match the Stamps' high-risk, high-reward defence with an equally aggressive offence - and the gamble obviously paid off.
Meanwhile, the 'Riders' defence fared about as well as can be expected against Calgary's high-powered offence. While 30 offensive points (plus a touchdown off a turnover) is normally more than a team can afford to give up, the 'Riders held the Stamps to a thoroughly mediocre ground performance, and managed to stop Henry Burris' passing attack as well when it counted most.
The bad news for the 'Riders is that their plan of attack against Calgary doesn't figure to work all that well against any other CFL team - meaning that if they plan to rely on winning shootouts in the future, they have plenty of work to do adding accuracy to their mid-range offensive game. But it's still a huge plus to see Durant's offence going toe-to-toe with one of the league's elite defences and producing enough long-range fireworks to win - and that looks to be a more important story going forward than the late-game maneuverings that nearly blew the 'Riders' chance to win.
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