Roughriders 39, B.C. Lions 8: How much uglier can it get

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Any other game this year, it might have been funny.

A ball bounces off a receivers’ hands, heel and ass, pinballs between two more players, then gets snatched out of mid-air for a 48-yard pick six. In a flash, you’re down 7-0 before the game is barely a minute old. The B.C. Lions of old might have laughed about it on the sidelines, shrugged it off and made bets on if it would make the Misplays of the Month.

But when you’re a team with a psyche as brittle as the Lions, like a beaten dog that cowers when their owner raises a hand, there was no humour to be found. And certainly none was after Saturday’s game at Mosaic Field in Regina, when AJ Allen’s interception return of William Stanback’s bobbled catch set the stage for the tragic 39-8 loss to the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

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The loss ended the Lions’ quest for a home playoff game, locking them into third place in the West. If they’re to play at B.C. Place again in the post-season, it will have to be in the Grey Cup.

“If this is our route, so be it. It never really matters the route,” said Lions linebacker TJ Lee. “What matters is winning a game when it counts.”

This game not only counted, it mattered. A win would have meant the Lions (8-9) could have gone into their regular-season finale against an unmotivated Montreal Alouettes team knowing a win would clinch a home playoff date.

That’s now moot. Just like any thoughts of finishing atop the West Division disappeared weeks ago when they lost at home to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, giving their rivals the season series and stranglehold on first.

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Still, Saturday had great importance. Owner Amar Doman had dumped a sizable amount of money on talent, including the midseason acquisitions of Nathan Rourke and Mathieu Betts, to give this team all the tools it needed to not just host a playoff game, but play in the Grey Cup at home. Going into this game, beating Saskatchewan seemed almost a bare minimum.

Allen’s game-opening touchdown might have been bad luck, but all the miscues that followed were self-made.

Five more turnovers followed. Some you can credit Saskatchewan. Most you can credit the Lions.

The game’s turning point came with minutes left in the second quarter, and B.C. on the Riders’ doorstep, facing a third-and-2 from the 19-yard line, down 16-8. They’d just called two Stanback runs against the second-stingiest run defence in the league, netting eight yards. The decision to go for it was bold. The play call was not.

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Rourke handed the ball off to David Mackie, who was dropped for a one-yard loss. A field goal at that point would have been a victory, considering the start. Instead, it was squandered.

After forcing a punt, Rourke hit Justin McInnis for 29 yards, but he coughed up the ball after being hit by Nelson Lokombo. The Riders turned it into a touchdown. On their next play from scrimmage, with 15 seconds left, Rourke was hit as he threw, resulting in a CJ Avery interception and 41-yard return. Another Riders field goal from Brett Lauther split the uprights with zeros on the clock.

From being in the shadow of the goalposts and tying the game, to being down 26-8 two minutes and 23 seconds later.

“Just disappointing. Man, it just wasn’t our day today,” said head coach Rick Campbell. “We gotta create our own momentum and we didn’t do that today. The turnovers put us in a hole. They created turnovers and scored points off of them, and obviously took points away from us. That’s part of playing winning football; when you get down to these big games, (turnovers) put us in a hole that we couldn’t get out of.”

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There’s no use pointing fingers, because outside of the Ozarks, most people would run out of digits to use trying to assign blame for this performance.

Rourke was 15-of-23 for 200 yards and no passing touchdowns for the fourth straight game before getting replaced by Chase Brice in the fourth quarter. He was OK, but Doman didn’t pay him big money to merely be adequate.

The defensive line didn’t record a single sack. Linebacker Ben Hladik getting the only one. The defence gave Trevor Harris more steamboats than a Mississippi marina to go 25-of-30 for 271 yards and two touchdowns. It didn’t matter if they were in man or zone, they got shredded. The 369 net yards seems palatable until the short fields and Riders’ defensive scoring is factored in. Saskatchewan running back AJ Ouellette, in his first game since August, had 84 yards on 16 carries. He sat the last 10 minutes of the game.

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The Lions return home to host the Montreal Alouettes in a game that has no meaning for either side. B.C. has to use it to give Vernon Adams Jr. some game reps, since he’s barely seen any action since returning from injury. Third-stringer Chase Brice was solid in relief for Rourke on Saturday, going 9-of-14 for 92 yards, giving the Lions some confidence knowing there’s an option should either player in front of him get hurt.

The chances are the road back to B.C. Place will run through the site of their massacre on Saturday. The Roughriders can still win first place if the Bombers lose their season finale in Montreal, and they beat the Calgary Stampeders the same day.

Saskatchewan coach Corey Mace didn’t give much weight to Saturday’s win, just like he didn’t for their Week 6 loss in Vancouver, a 35-20 decision that dropped them from the unbeaten ranks.

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“They put it on us early (this season), and today’s result was today’s result,” said Mace, whose team has won four straight after a seven-game winless string.

“But if there’s another chance that we see each other again, you’ve got to wipe it clean, because it doesn’t matter. What happened today, truthfully, it don’t matter going forward.”

This B.C. team was built for November, or so they’d hoped. Stanback provided the ground game and power they’d lacked in two straight post-season exits in Winnipeg.

But ironically, it was a summer loss to the Bombers in Week 9 — a historically bad 25-0 loss — that knocked the wheels off the Lions’ season. They’d come back from a bye week after losing to Calgary, and had plenty of practice time to right the ship. But they were embarrassed and outplayed by Winnipeg, and lost Adams Jr. near the end of the game to injury.

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Since then, B.C. has just three wins in eight games, and lost three of their last four. Rourke looks like the shell of the player that left for the NFL, and B.C. looks like the shell of the team that started the season 5-1.

After hosting Montreal next Saturday, B.C. has a bye in the final week of the regular season, meaning a full two weeks to prepare for their likely return to Mosaic for the division semifinal.

The question will be: can they figure it out?

Lee feels they will.

“I still feel like everything we’ve been through is preparing us for what we’re getting ready to go through: this championship run.”

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