The Saskatchewan Roughriders get no respect. And, dammit, they don’t want any, either.
Last year they were nine-point underdogs in the Grey Cup. So far this year the Montreal Alouettes are being favoured with the early line bouncing around between a touchdown and a field goal.
This is a team that lost last year’s Grey Cup 28-27 to the Als on that infamous too-many-men-on-the-field penalty. This is the team which beat Montreal 54-51 in that wonderful way to open the season this year, with the debut game on the NFL Network. This is the team which lost 30-26 in their visit to Montreal.
Shouldn’t this game be pick ’em?
This is a team with allegedly the best fans in football who watched those fans get ugly and turn on them, and give up on them when they lost four in a row coming down the stretch.
This is a team which came from behind to knock the Edmonton Eskimos out of the playoffs in the last game of the regular season, battled back to win a classic over the B.C. Lions in the Western Semi-Final and come-from-behind to win a nail-biter over the favoured Calgary Stampeders in the Western Final to win their Grey Cup do-over.
And this is a team that arrived at Edmonton International Airport where about four dozen Saskatchewan fans and about as many media men were there to great them. And the Roughriders weren’t remotely interested in flapping their gums about getting no respect, bothered by being the underdog or any other form of whining.
Saskatchewan head coach Ken Miller said it’s only right that the
Alouettes should be favoured.
“You look at the season records and that kind of thing. They’re the defending champions. I’m perfectly at ease with them being favourites.
“If you’ve watched us, we do well when we’re facing adversity,” said Miller, warming up for Wednesday morning’s coaches press conference.
There’s something about this group in green. This Roughriders team is a study.
As soon as you count them out, they start counting on each other to battle back.
Miller put it perfectly in the interview room after the win in Calgary when the Riders overcame an 11-0 deficit to defeat the Stampeders Sunday.
“We were talking about a mindset, a mindset of mental toughness and physical dominance and I think we came through in both areas,” Miller said.
Receiver Weston Dressler, who had to watch last year’s Grey Cup game due to a late season injury, says the Riders lead the league in resiliency.
“We’ve been in situations climbing out of deep holes. We’re a team which is willing to fight no matter what the score is — we’re a group of guys who all believe in each other and trusts the guy beside you to have his back.”
It was quarterback Darian Durant who naturally had the biggest scrum after he worked his way through the fans signing sweaters and Roughriders 100th anniversary books.
“We don’t mind being underdogs,” he said.
Not getting respect?
“We’re not about that. We’re not about what’s outside, we’re about what’s inside our dressing room,” said the the QB who will move into the Eskimos dressing room this morning.
“We know what kind of team we have. We had a few things that weren’t clicking on the way here, but as long as we got here it doesn’t matter how we got here. Getting here is what it’s all about. We want to make this as the norm in Saskatchewan,” said the quarterback who won a Grey Cup ring carrying a clipboard in 2007.
“We’re taking the right steps in that direction and this is where we want to be.”
And don’t talk to them being here for revenge, either.
“I don’t think revenge is the word,” Durant said.
“I think you look at last year as a little motivation to let history not repeat itself, and go get that ring we feel we should have had last year.”
These guys weren’t wearing them when they showed up at the airport Tuesday, but the Saskatchewan Roughriders are a football team which has their helmets screwed on straight.
Follow me on Twitter.com/sunterryjones
terry.jones@sunmedia.ca
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