July 5, 2014: Saskatchewan Roughriders vs. Toronto Argonauts

[Argo]

I think it's the best regular season game the Argos have played in the Milanovich era. The three games last year in late-July and early-August against Winnipeg, British Columbia and Montreal respectively would have been the standard bearers to date as well as the 45-31 game against Hamilton from September, 2012 (the TiCats scored two garbage time TD's). That one game from Michael Bishop in July 2007 against Calgary was pretty dominant as well, in fact, I think the score from Saturday (48-15) was identical. Ray certainly played at a Flutie-like level on Saturday and even rushed the ball a little bit. But, I'll put the obligatory disclaimer that this team still has a ton to prove this season and one game a season does not make.

Bishop (in that game) was a genuine 99th percentile quality QB and, both passing and running, showed himself to be a supremely-gifted athlete. Alas, he fractured his wrist and was never the same again. Well, it's the peaks and valleys that make the landscape of life interesting.

Before we move the focus to next weekend, I want to make the case that this game was the most dominant performance by an Argo team in quite some time. We defeated the GC champs by 33 points, and racked up extraordinary yardage totals with the ball in our hands: 407 passing, 161 rushing, 123 on kick returns and 108 on interception returns: a grand total of 799 yards of ball advancement. Plus five sacks, two interceptions and only eight insignificant penalties. We were fantastic in all phases of the game -- even Waters' kickoffs were all (except one) inside the 10-yard line. And it was against the GC champs.

The last game I can think of that was as dominant was the 2012 Grey Cup, and even that we ended up winning by "only" 13 points. This game was almost like some of the laughers during the Flutie era. I doubt we'll see quite that dominant a performance again this year but clearly we have the potential to perform at a very high level.

Soaring to this height after plumbing the depths the previous game was indeed shocking. I wouldn't want to see such remarkable variation later in the season (when, of course, it should be far less likely to occur).
If injuries do not factor in too terribly, the Argos are at least as likely to play for and win the Grey Cup as any other team.

[Do or Die]

Good job Argos

Toronto's ability to generate lots of YAC from them high-percentage short passes (staple of Argo O) , was huge. That said...Rider tackling was abysmal, at times....

[argolio]

and only eight insignificant penalties.

Is that....nah, I'm not going to ask.