Insanity in Sask.

Yikes.
It's hard to know what to make of the Saskatchewan Roughriders these days. At the start of the season, they looked like the best team in the CFL in winning their first three games. The offence looked unstoppable, and Darian Durant looked like the best QB in the league.
Looks can be deceiving, for sure, and the Riders crapped the bed on several occasions in dropping four of their next seven games. Inexplicable losses - to the hapless Edmonton Eskimos on Aug. 28, and a brutal 31-2 capitulation against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Sept. 12 - became the norm.
Then came Friday's home game against the Calgary Stampeders, the CFL's best team. The outcome is best described with a paraphrase from that cinema classic, Dumb and Dumber: Just when you think they can't get any stupider, they go and do something like this . . . AND TOTALLY REDEEM THEMSELVES!
Well, total redemption might be putting it a little strong. Durant was in a brutal slump coming in, having thrown three TDs and 10 picks in his previous six games. He put up some crazy numbers on Friday, throwing for 495 yards. But he threw a pick-six on Saskatchewan's first possession, and made a couple head-scratching decisions down the stretch.
Ultimately, Durant got the Riders into position to beat the Stamps in regulation, galloping away on an electrifying scramble to get into field goal range with the score tied 37-37 and just a couple ticks on the clock.
But this is where the game got strange. In what is sure to become a huge talking point in Saskatchewan for the next couple days, Riders coach Ken Miller sent punter Eddie Johnson out to try to boot the ball through the end zone for a single point. His excellent field goal kicker, Luca Congi, is pretty much automatic from 35 yards, which is the kick he would have been looking at. Needless to say, Johnson's punt was short and Calgary ran the ball out of the end zone, forcing OT.
Now, I generally think Miller provides the Riders with above-average coaching. He is one of the CFL's best. But on this call, he must have been smoking some powerful peyote.
Not to worry, though - the Riders won in OT. Sheer madness. Only in the CFL, right?

RANDOM NFL OBSERVATIONS:
Sunday's best highlight was Randy Moss scorching Darrelle Revis for a long TD, on a ridiculous one-handed catch, no less. Who's the slounch now? . . . LaDainian Tomlinson is the best running back on the New York Jets roster . . . Reports of the Indianapolis Colts' demise have been greatly exaggerated . . . The Seattle Seahawks came back to earth, big time, in Game 2 of the Pete Carroll era. I think that's more along the lines of what we can expect from the Seahawks this season . . . Cleveland Browns fans were utterly unsurprised by Derek Anderson's horrendous bed-crapping against Atlanta . . . Hard to tell who's more overrated: the Dallas Cowboys or Tony Romo. It's kind of crazy, but it seems like a lack of discipline is almost part of the culture in Cowboy-land . . . The over-under on Wade Phillips's tenure as Cowboys coach is 3.5 games . . . Aside from Minnesota Vikings fans, the only folks worried about Brett Favre's slow start to the season are fantasy football leaguers who drafted him three rounds too high. The rest of us just think it's funny . . . Speaking of fantasy football, all those "experts" who were horny for Joe Flacco in the preseason better be updating their resumes.