Riders know O-line needs improvement to defeat hungry Lions defence

The Saskatchewan Roughriders know their offensive line will need to be better if they hope to beat the B.C. Lions on Friday.

The Riders’ offence has struggled against one of the best defences in the CFL over the past month. In their two matchups over the past month — B.C. won 32-17 on July 29 and 28-10 last Friday — the Lions shut out Saskatchewan in the second half on both occasions.

Offensive co-ordinator Jason Maas said Tuesday that despite the injuries that have plagued the O-line this season, the group is working hard to correct its mistakes.

“It starts a little bit with continuity and that’s one thing we haven’t been afforded with this year on offence and that’s playing with the same guys week in and week out,” he said. “In offensive football, usually it’s 12 guys jelling. After 10 or 11 games, you’d expect some kind of jell and I just don’t feel like we’ve had a lot of that.

“So you go back to the drawing board, see what the lineup we’re working currently is good at and try to focus on what the defensive weaknesses are and try to combat that.

“We obviously haven’t done a good enough job of that collectively, but it’s a hard thing when guys keep going in and out of the lineup. We just have to overcome it. We’re working our butts off and ultimately, it’ll get corrected by us coming together, stringing a few good practices together and if we continue to do that on offence, we’ll start seeing some results.”

Guard Evan Johnson says while the lack of continuity on the O-line has been tough to deal with this year, they all know they’ve got to be better in order to protect their quarterback.

“It’s a tough league; there’s a lot of really talented players out here. We’ve had a hard time keeping continuity on the line,” Johnson said. “The guys who have stepped up have done an outstanding job. It’s just a matter of getting comfortable with each other and feeling confident we’re seeing the same thing out there.”

While there are struggles right now, Johnson noted they still have time to figure things out.

“Obviously, we all know we have to do better,” he said. “We aren’t in the place we want to be, but at the end of the day, we get to play a game at the end of the week. Our season is far from over and we’re still in the hunt.”

Maas also spoke on the struggles quarterback Cody Fajardo has faced recently. He was benched in Friday’s game in favour of Mason Fine.

While Fajardo has struggled, Maas says this is something almost every quarterback deals with during their career.

Maas also mentioned all of the quarterbacks in the room want to help Fajardo find his game once again and that includes Maas, who went through a similar experience with Ricky Ray.

“Having been a quarterback and been in his shoes, you know what it’s like when it’s going well and you know when it’s not going well. So the relationship we’ve built over the two years, (we’ll) just keep it strong,” Maas explained.

“I’m not trying to talk him off the cliff or anything; you’re just going through scenarios, going through things, trying to think about the process rather than the outcomes of everything he’s going through right now. He’s won a lot of games as a starter. He’s a great quarterback. He’s just got to be mindful of that and stay positive and keep focusing on the things we can control.”

While Fajardo and Riders know they’ll need to be much better on Friday night, Maas says beating B.C. won’t be an easy task — especially with the Lions’ defence coming at the Riders’ offence.

B.C.’s star quarterback, Nathan Rourke, is most likely done for the remainder of the season after being injured in Regina last week, so the Lions’ defence may feel it has to carry the load.

“Their offence is playing at a super-high level and their defence is matching them. They fly around, they’ve got a lot of energy (and) I don’t know how much more they can fly around and how much more they can bring you,” Maas said.

“But obviously, everybody’s game generally elevates when you’re a really good football team and a guy like Nathan goes down. I’m sure they’ve talked about it, but ultimately it’s a team game. It’s not one person doing it all and we know we’ve got to play our (best) to beat them.”