All the optimism of a season opener came crashing down with under a minute to go in the first half.
After throwing a pass incomplete to Jamel Richardson, Darian Durant came up limping, grabbed for his ankle and went down to the turf. Moments later, he was carted off and the next time he was seen, it was leaving the stadium with a boot on his left foot and crutches under his arms.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders announced after the game that their starting quarterback is done for the season – before it even started – after suffering a ruptured Achilles tendon.
“It's a tough game and anything can happen at anytime,” said offensive lineman Brendon LaBatte. “I feel terrible for him, he worked so hard to get back and hopefully he'll have a speedy recovery.”
To make matters worse, the green and white fell in the game as well, dropping the contest 30-26 to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in front of a close to capacity crowd at Mosaic Stadium.
Kevin Glenn came in for the second half and gave the Riders the lead on the opening drive of the half, but they couldn't hold it as former Rider Drew Willy led the Bombers to the victory with a masterful performance, finishing 22-of-25 for 325 yards and three touchdowns.
While there was areas of concern for the Riders in the loss, much of the focus after the game was on the loss of their franchise quarterback. His injury took the energy out of the fans at the game and seemed to take the spark out of the team as well.
“With it being the actual first game of the season, you never want it to go down like that,” said Glenn, who will now be thrust into the starting role. “Our other leaders have to rally the guys up and put us in a more comfortable space.”
“It's always a blow to see that kind of player go down,” added head coach Corey Chamblin. “Darian is a team leader. We brought Kevin in more so for presence, not performance and this point now it's performance. Nobody ever wants to see Darian hurt.”
The Riders injury list from Saturday didn't stop at Durant as the team also lost linebacker Shea Emry, safety Keenan MacDougall and 2015 first round pic Nic Demski over the course of the game.
Chamblin expects that they will miss some time as well, putting the team's depth to test early in the season.
“It's going to be a long night sitting down with Brendan (Taman), the medical staff and seeing where we go from here,” said Chamblin. “We're going to have to bring some guys back in here and the roster is going to change a little bit, it will be a test and there's some other things that we have to fix.”
On the positive side, with and without Durant, the Riders' offence was able to move the ball during the game as they posted 497 total yards in the game. Durant was 13-of-18 for 165 yards and two touchdowns before the injury. Glenn also finished 13-of-18 for 120 yards and an interception.
Anthony Allen ran for 102 yards on 11 carries, while Jerome Messam had four carries for 75 yards, three catches for 36 yards and one touchdown, which came two plays into the second half when he broke free for a 53-yard score.
“I felt like I did a good job today, but it's not about the personal performance, we've got to get a W as a team,” Messam said. “Hats off to Winnipeg, they just did a better job than us tonight, it was a hard fought game, we put up some points, but we've got to be better in all three facets of the game.”
The Riders' defence was another story as they struggled to bring the Bombers' running backs and receivers down throughout the game, giving them big gains after first contact.
Running back Paris Cotton finished with 13 carries for 108 yards – 95 of which came in the second half. Cameron Marshall had two touchdowns, including one at the goalline where he broke two tackles.
Receiver Nick Moore finished with six catches for 94 yards and scored the go-ahead touchdown with 7:33 to go in the fourth quarter.
“It was poor tackling out there, we'll be a better tackling football team than we showed tonight,” said Chamblin. “Whether that's the back-ups in, it doesn't matter because some of our starters didn't do a good job tackling.
“There's somethings in the defensive units that we have to fix, including special teams, just the way we tackle and the things that we need to work on.
“I'm never pleased with any loss, but with all those bad things, we still had a chance and so if we can correct the fundamentals of football, we'll put ourselves back in the win column.”
The Riders are back on the field on Tuesday to start their practice week. They host Toronto next Sunday.
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