Jamie Nye: Riders’ season reaches tipping point

Opinion

Last season, the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ season turned on a home game against the Ottawa Redblacks.

Ironically, it was a victory. But it was the ugliest victory in team history.

We don’t have to relive the entire episode. It’s fresh in all our memories of the flexing defensive lineman, the injured opposition quarterback, and the angriest fan base I’ve ever heard on our post-game show following a victory.

And here the Riders are again this season with a home game against the Redblacks.

Unlike last season, this year’s Roughriders season has already taken a turn for the worse.

Yes, it’s only Game 8 of the regular season and saying “must win” appears to be hyperbolic at this juncture of the season, but it’s as close to a “must win” as you can get in August.

Consider the following four games for the Roughriders. They have four days off between games, including a day to travel to Montreal. Then Saskatchewan will have to play B.C. And after taking on the second-best team in the West Division, the Riders face their arch-nemesis, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, for their traditional home-and-home set.

If you could set up a more problematic schedule than that, it would have to include the Super Bowl-champion Kansas City Chiefs.

But here the Roughriders are. They were a 3-1 team, but now the issues of last season are showing yet again: An anemic offence that can’t buy a touchdown and an offensive line that again leads the league in sacks allowed.

I guess the bright spot is the team hasn’t seen one of their players celebrate injuring an opponent. So I guess it can get worse.

Some compared last week’s loss to the Toronto Argonauts to a game in August of 2015 when the Roughriders got embarrassed by, you guessed it, the Ottawa Redblacks.

After the team arrived home from Ottawa, president-CEO Craig Reynolds met with head coach Corey Chamblin and then general manager Brendan Taman and told them their services were no longer required.

“Sustained success” was a phrase uttered by Reynolds many times after as his goal. Well, eight years later, Reynolds is facing another crossroads.

The board of directors must be pondering what its handpicked successor to Jim Hopson will now do again if the losses continue to mount.

The Roughriders organization needs the product on the field to keep up with the progression the organization has made off of it. The Riders are leaders in sponsorship relations, ticket sales, marketing and merchandise.

However, all of those things are harder to sell if the team sucks.

The team has seen a declining season-ticket base over the years. The usual decline happened after hosting a Grey Cup, but let’s not forget after this season, a big group of season-ticket holders will be rounding out their three-year commitment to the team following the pandemic.

The MVP plan was a brilliant campaign from the Riders. Fans were able to lock in their seats for three years with the promise of no increase to the price of tickets. They also received jerseys and other perks.

But what has the team given the fans on the field of late? The Roughriders have one home win in the last two years and now they’re staring a second straight year out of the playoffs in the face.

The play of the team is not exactly inspiring fans to keep spending their money to watch losing football.

They’ve had enough of the promises of being better. It’s time to show them you mean it. And you do that by winning or making meaningful change.

Sunday is the tipping point on which direction the organization must go.