Riders ready for first-place showdown with Stamps

A pair of Micahs are excited to make their returns to McMahon Stadium on Friday.

Defensive lineman Micah Johnson played six seasons with the Calgary Stampeders before signing with the Saskatchewan Roughriders this off-season.

“I just want to come out and be a disrupter and come out and win the game most importantly,” Johnson told the Green Zone this week. “I’m glad where our team is at seeding-wise so we’re just trying to push for this first-round bye.”

Kickoff for the game in Calgary is set for 7:30 p.m.

Meanwhile, linebacker Micah Teitz will make the first start of his CFL career in his hometown. The last time Teitz played at McMahon was as a member of the University of Calgary Dinos, who lost 35-23 to the Laval Rouge et Or on Nov. 18, 2017.

“It’d be nice to get another win at McMahon,” Teitz said.

Teitz, along with fellow Calgarian Sam Hurl, will be called upon to fill the void left by linebacker Cam Judge. He suffered a concussion against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Saturday.

Teitz is looking forward to getting an opportunity to sack Stampeders quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell, something Teitz has wanted to do since he was in Grade 9.

“I’d love to get a sack but I’m just looking to make the plays when they come to me,” Teitz said.

While every meeting between the two prairie rivals has an extra sense of importance, it’s the first time since 2009 that the Roughriders and Stampeders have met this late in the season with first place on the line. That season, the Roughriders won the Nov. 7 game 30-14 to pull even with the Stampeders and win the division via the tiebreaker.

The Roughriders (10-4) currently hold the edge over the Stampeders (9-5) but Calgary owns the tiebreaker after a win over the Roughriders earlier in the season. The Green and White would need to win by more than 27 points to take control of the tiebreaker.

“We’re just trying to win the game; the point differential is a lot,” head coach Craig Dickenson said. “We’re hoping we can just play well enough to win the ball game and let the chips fall where they may after that.

“We’re in good shape. (Calgary’s) a good team. We know they’re going to be gunning for us and it’s a game that they feel like they’ve got to have and it’s a game we feel like we’ve got to have too, so it should be a fun afternoon.”

Johnson said one of the biggest things he has noticed in Saskatchewan has been how close the players have become during the course of the season. After spending multiple years in Calgary and going to multiple Grey Cups, Johnson said team camaraderie plays a major role in team success.

“A lot of times if you’re willing to go out there and fight for your brother and fight for the man next to you, it elevates your game,” Johnson said. “In my opinion, I think that (the Roughriders) have more talent than we had at any point in Calgary; it was just a matter of the team gelling and coming together.”

One of the key cogs to the Roughriders in the locker room and on the field has been quarterback Cody Fajardo.

Fajardo has a 9-3 record in his first 12 starts as the Green and White’s signal-caller, which is the best record ever for a Roughriders quarterback in that span.

He also has the Roughriders on a 9-1-0 tear — the best stretch since the team went 10-1 in 1970. That squad finished the season at 14-2 and atop the West.

Fajardo said he feels like he’s getting close to where he needs to be for the playoffs.

“I’m always going to be pretty hard on myself but I need to be better,” Fajardo said. “We do a great job of moving the ball with a lot of guys contributing but I think we need to do better at finishing in the red zone because if we don’t, (against) good teams that are able to hurt us offensively, it’s going to be tough.”

The Roughriders have scored a touchdown on 61 per cent (25 of 41) of their red-zone possessions in 2019. Over the past six games, Saskatchewan has scored a touchdown 11 times in 19 red-zone trips. Meanwhile, the Stamps have converted just seven times on 19 trips over the same stretch.

Since the 37-10 loss to Calgary on July 6, the Roughriders have lost only once (35-10 to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the Banjo Bowl).

“It humbled us for sure,” Dickenson said. “We felt like we could beat Calgary. They came in there with a new quarterback (Nick Arbuckle) and they just really put it on us.

“I thought that was a humbling game for us … I think our guys took that as a sign that if they want to go where they want to go, they’re going to have to do a better job.”

The Green Zone pre-game show gets underway Friday at 5:30 p.m.