Offensive Ineptitude

By: Adamo Marinelli

August 25th, 2019

     Ottawa, Ontario: Dominique Davis proves once again, he is incapable of leading an offence at the starting QB role for the Ottawa Redblacks. He threw three interceptions; two of which occurred inside his own 15-yard line, both leading to touchdowns for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. 

     So far this season, he has thrown for 1846 yards, completing 169/271 passes but only has five passing TDs compared to 14 INTs. He also has five rushing TDs. He leads the league in picks, being three ahead of BC Lions QB Mike Rielly who has nine INTs and 11 TDs in a subpar season for the Lions where everyone is struggling and five ahead of Toronto Argonauts QB McLeod Bethel Thompson who has nine interceptions but also 14 TD passes, one less than Matt Nichols for best in the league. No other QB has more than seven INTs. 

     Recurrent turnovers by the offence told the story of this game, like several others and the Roughriders took advantage of the Redblacks’ five turnovers (three interceptions and two fumbles lost), scoring 24 points off turnovers directly. This helped the Roughriders cruise to a comfortable 40-18 victory after they started the game with a quick 17-0 lead in the first quarter. Turnovers killed Ottawa in this game and have in several others, always losing the turnover battle and gibving up too many points off of turnovers. 

     Not only do these turnovers help the Roughriders score points, but they eliminate potential scoring drives for the Redblacks and they take all the momentum away from the offence. Too many turnovers will also put the defence out on the field for too long, which isn’t good either.

     Despite losing 40-18, the Redblacks' defence played a decent game. Ottawa’s defence did not fail to make a few key plays to keep themselves in the game and give their offence opportunities to score some points. They didn’t cause any turnovers or get any sacks but they did keep the game close enough for a long stretch in the first half, but the offence was unable to generate a comeback. The QB switch from Davis to Jonathan Jennings which led to a 75-yard strike to Dominique Rhymes gave some momentum but it wasn’t enough to amount to a comeback. 

     As a result, most of the points the Redblacks gave up cannot be directly pinned on the defence. All of the turnovers gave the Roughriders excellent field position -- multiple times they started drives in the red-zone too -- which gave them several chances to take and maintain a lead thanks to easy, close-yardage touchdowns. Also, due to the inefficiency on offence, the Redblacks’ defence has been on the field for the majority of the past five or six games; in this game they were on the field for 33 minutes, less than some other games but still more than half.

     However, at some points, the Redblacks’ missed or didn’t finish key tackles or weren’t able to bring down a scrambling QB which led to many points for the Roughriders. A key moment that came to mind was a missed sack which led to Cody Fajardo spinning around a Redblacks’ defender before scrambling and throwing a TD pass to veteran receiver Emmanuel Arcenneaux. 

    Despite losing a lot of talent on offence in free agency at the end of last season like Greg Ellingson, William Powell, Trevor Harris and Sir Vincent Rogers amongst others, there is still a lot of young talent on the roster, both on offence and defence, such as: Dominique Rhymes, Devonte Dedmon, John Crockett, J.C Beaulieu, Brad Sinopoli and R.J Harris on offence, Lewis Ward and Richie Leone on special teams and Antoine Pruneau, Anthony Cioffi, J.R Tavai, Avery Williams and Jonathan Rose on defence, to name a few. The defence and special teams have a lot of talent and it shows week in and week out. On the other hand, offensively, the Redblacks have loads of youth and talent, they just need to have a competent QB at the helm who doesn’t turn the ball over a lot to lead this offence to success, to be able to keep drives alive and to be able to score TDs, not just field goals. Whether that QB be Jonathan Jennings, William Arndt or another free agent QB, it doesn’t matter. Davis simply doesn’t cut it as a starter. He definitely hasn’t shown that he is this season.