The Saskatchewan Roughriders must not have slept very well on Sunday night. Probably won’t sleep well on Monday night, either. After all, they had the 97th Grey Cup game in the bag and then gave it away.
As Montreal’s Damon Duval was missing a 43-yard field goal — a miss that that would have given Saskatchewan a thrilling 27-25 victory – the Roughriders were found to have had 13 men on the field, penalty flags flew and with no time left on the clock, Duval kicked a 33-yard field goal to win the game 28-27 for an Alouettes team that erased a 16-point deficit in the final 10 minutes to steal their second Grey Cup title in seven appearances since 2000.
Als runningback Avon Cobourne (bad choice) was named most outstanding player while Als receiver Ben Cahoon was the most outstanding Canadian.
In the end, Anthony Calvillo (who was dreadful for three quarters) finished 26-for-39 for 319 yards and two touchdowns, but that wasn’t enough to get him most outstanding player (it would be amazing if it wasn’t for the fact Canadian sportswriters choose the award winners). My gawd, he’s the only quarterback in the CFL capable of bringing a team back from a 27-11 deficit in 10 minutes to win.
On Monday, while many people wanted to pick out one play — especially the old 13th-man play — as a cause for Saskatchewan’s demise, the fact is, when you lead by 16 with 10 minutes to go and you’re outplaying your opponent by a wide margin, you should have won and you just didn’t have the jam to seal the deal.
In fairness, Saskatchewan probably shouldn’t have been in this game at all. In fact, they should be given credit for playing a wonderful game. Meanwhile, the Alouettes became the first team in professional football history to win a championship game without having the lead once until the clock struck 0:00 to play.
The 97th wasn’t a great Grey Cup, but the final three minutes — which actually took 31 minutes to play in real time — was worth the 3 1/2-hour TV marathon.