Reeling Argos mystified by QB Ray’s current funk
REGINA— Where have you gone, Ricky Ray?
That wasn’t you throwing two interceptions and giving up a crucial fumble on Saturday night, was it?
Who was that impostor who cost the Argonauts 14 quick points en route to a 39-7 rout at the hands of the Saskatchewan Roughriders? Who was that guy who overthrew his receivers and made bad reads?
This was not the Ricky Ray that Toronto fans have come to know.
This was a veteran quarterback, a future hall of famer at age 34, who looked as lost and abandoned as a turnip truck on a Saskatchewan wheat field.
Since injuries to Chad Owens, Andre Durie and Jason Barnes, Ray has looked like an over-the-hill quarterback, and if this keeps up much longer, people are going to start writing his football epitaph.
The Argos’ hands are tied. They likely can’t make a trade for a receiver because what happens in a few games when Owens, Durie and Barnes are back? They have to weather the storm with a 1-4 record.
Against a pass rush with as much intensity as the Riders threw at the Argos, the pocket at Mosaic Stadium must have seemed like the most dangerous place in the province.
The Argo quarterback tossed his second straight clunker, giving him four interceptions in two games.
The 12-year veteran threw an interception on his first pass attempt, which was turned into a touchdown. On the next series, he fumbled the ball and the Roughriders turned that into a touchdown too.
The only silver lining in those black clouds is that the Argos’ East Division rivals are just as bad.
“If we’re going to have a funk early in the year, I guess this is probably the year to do it,” head coach Scott Milanovich said.
Although Ray is still the league leader in passing yards, his production and passing efficiency have been dropping to the point where he soon may no longer be the No. 1-ranked QB in the league.
Is this the worst game he’s played this season?
“Oh, yeah,” Ray said without hes- itation. “I’ve got to do a better job of not putting the team in a hole like that.”
In their game preparation, the Argos talk a lot about everyone being accountable and Milanovich said he was pleased by what he heard in the locker room after the game.
“The finger pointing has not begun,” he said. Ray holds himself to account too. “Nobody told me to throw that ball or not to hold onto it,” he said. “That was me out there. A quarterback has to come out and make good decisions.”
Although he did complete 23 of 35 passes for 221 yards, Ray has more interceptions than touchdown passes in the last three games and this has been his worst two-game stretch in some time.
However, Ray’s numbers are closely connected to the work of the offensive line, and the Argo O-line was under pressure all game as rookie Matt Sewell, making his first start of the season, lined up as the blindside tackle against fearsome John Chick.
Ray and his fourth-quarter backup, Trevor Harris, were sacked four times, including twice by Chick. For a time, Milanovich thought about bringing in Harris earlier.
“Ricky, I’m sure he will tell you, he probably didn’t play his best game,” Milanovich said. “But that’s what happens when a quarterback gets hit early in the game. That’s what we tried to avoid. Ricky’s better than most when he gets hit, but it does affect every quarterback. It was a recipe for disaster.”
For the Argos, who play the Alouettes in Montreal on Friday, hope is still there because the 1-3 Als are just what the doctor ordered. But Milanovich might need a medicine man to find out what’s ailing his team.
“I don’t have any great answers for you on why our offence isn’t executing,” he said. “The worst thing you can do, in my opinion, is to panic.”