There isn't too much to say about two of the three phases of the Saskatchewan Roughriders' game after their win over Edmonton yesterday. The defence was nothing short of superb, leaving little to improve on other than trying to make sure a bit more rust gets shaken off Rey Williams before he returns to a full-time role. And on special teams, about the only development which seems likely to affect the team in future games is the success of the punt teams when Jamie Boreham has converted third downs or quick-kicked into the wind - leading to the question of whether the 'Riders might be best served using a similar strategy even when the conditions aren't quite as extreme.
On offence, though, there's plenty worth discussing about Darien Durant's performance.
The good news is that Durant seems to be adding new strategies to deal with defensive pressure as his first season at the controls wears on. At the beginning, Durant mostly sought to scramble to the outside - which is never a bad option for a quarterback with his athleticism, but which can be easily enough taken away when it's his standard escape route.
As the season has progressed, the 'Riders have rolled out new wrinkles to combat the pass rush every few games. Not long ago, Durant added to the usual screen plays as an outlet against pressure by making effective use of shovel passes; yesterday, it was a strategy of backing up and buying a fraction of a second when a rusher got in Durant's face which met with some success.
While we've seen a lot of different strategies work at different times, however, we haven't often seen much variety within a single game. And the same held true yesterday: while Durant's retreats worked well at times, he also wound up taking far more sacks than would be ideal, seemingly due in large part to far less decisive running than he's shown in the past when an extra second bought by backing up wasn't enough for him to find an open receiver.
That was particularly problematic in the second half when Edmonton tried to cover for its injury-depleted secondary (I believe defensive coordinator Jim Daley actually took the field under the assumed name "Gemara Williams") by sending a blitz nearly every play. Rather than attacking either the weakness in the secondary or the desperate pass rush, Durant stuck with the apparent plan to try to retreat his way out of trouble. But not surprisingly, that was less successful when there were multiple defenders coming at him than when Durant faced only a single defender who would have to worry about containment rather than being able to rush all-out.
Fortunately, Durant managed to make just enough plays to win the game by sticking to the original plan. But the next step in Durant's progress as a starter has to be to take the elements which he's used effectively in isolation and identify the one which fits best into the game situation. And that may be the difference between Durant's current status as a solid starting quarterback who can manage the game if the rest of his team plays up to par, and his developing into one of the CFL's elite players.
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