Sympathy for the Devil… uh, Rider Nation? Well, possibly

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/12/2009 (6181 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I, like many of you readers, have an awfully hard time feeling sorry for things that go awry in Rider Nation.

And we have our reasons don’t we? Just this season, for instance, they handed us losses to the tune of 29-14 in what used to be a highly competitive Labour Day Classic, and a 55-10 debacle at home in the Banjo Bowl that goes down as one of the most embarrassing defeats I have ever been a part of. Of course we can’t blame them for executing and doing their jobs properly — well, yes we can — but we do hold our grudges up high, don’t we?

There was 2008 where they beat us twice, once again, and Westin Dressler used his come-from-behind touchdown catch in the Banjo Bowl as his “best move” in Reebok’s online competition, so we got to see that play over and over again. And then, going back three seasons now, we of course have the grandfather of all defeats and humiliations, the loss in the Grey Cup in Toronto that ended the 2007 season.

But to this day I still have Rider fans coming up to me and professing that “had yur durn quarterbuck nut had his wing all busted en stuff,” we might have faired better on that fabled day. So the question that haunts me as I piece this story together, is do I shed a tear — well that’s never going to happen — I mean, do I feel sorry for the Green and White after they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory?

I have to say I was impressed with the way they played the game. Like any fighter in a professional bout that looks lopsided, they had a puncher’s chance no matter what and they came out with some pepper in that punch.

Regardless of how it ended, when the smoke had cleared the co-MVPs for the game on my score sheet were Roughrider offensive co-ordinator Paul LaPolice and Roughrider defensive co-ordinator Gary Etcheverry. Paul who was not-so-lovingly referred to by some as “plop” in his tenure here, was two steps ahead of the CFL’s No. 1 defence all day long. He put together a game plan emphasizing Darian Durant’s athleticism and he utilized motion and misdirection that kept the Als off balance and guessing for the entire contest, while it took Montreal’s prolific offence almost three quarters just to figure out how to even score against Etcheverry’s very unorthodox and unsung defensive dozen.

But then, as all Grey Cup viewers were privy to, Anthony Calvillo started to showcase his MVP credentials and made a game of it, resulting in a last-second field goal attempt. And in that moment that will always be known as the “13th-man disadvantage,” we saw the Rider players go from euphoria to eulogy once it became clear that counting was something we all take for granted.

I can tell you in pro football, everybody makes mistakes. We fall down, we drop things, we misread things, and we call the wrong plays in the wrong situations all of the time. We obsess about the little things and prepare for any probability in a game, no matter how remote. So can we understand on the last play of the game that decides whether you win a ring, a championship, and $16,000 in spending money, that the play was miscommunicated?

I have been around for some pretty monumentally deflating moments in pro football before, but to lose a championship game because of a basic technicality on the very last play of the game is something not even Leon Lett (one of the NFL’s most critical-error-prone players) could live up to.

Call me short-sighted, but that might be the biggest gaffe I have ever witnessed in all of pro sports history, and something that, as a player, I might never be able to get over when I reflected on my career. So while I do think two Grey Cups in three years is one too many for the Rider Nation, I could not be more sympathetic for the players who may never have another opportunity to win a championship in their professional careers, especially when, on the field, they had every right to be victorious.

Doug Brown, always a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.