Can Geroy Simon and the Riders get back to winning against B.C. without Kory Sheets?

Former B.C. Lions' slotback Geroy Simon faces his old team Sunday (4:30 p.m. Eastern, TSN/ESPN3), and at first glance, he and the Saskatchewan Roughriders might seem to have the advantage. While the 8-3 Riders are only one game clear of 7-4 B.C., they're hosting this one, and they're 4-1 at home this season, while the Lions are 1-4 on the road and will be without top quarterback Travis Lulay (Thomas DeMarco will start, but Buck Pierce is available as a backup). However, Saskatchewan will enter this one without star running back Kory Sheets, who was hurt in last week's home loss to Toronto, and that could dramatically impact their offence. The Riders have also lost their last two games, so momentum isn't on their side. Can they get back on track against a dangerous B.C. team?

The most interesting thing to watch here may be how the Saskatchewan offence changes in Sheets' absence. Heading into this week, the Riders had 270 rushing attempts, first in the league and 13 more than second-place Calgary. That works out to 24.5 rushing attempts per game, slightly less than they were doing early on but substantially ahead of the 18 per game an average CFL team was recording near the start of this year. What's the average now? Totalling all teams' rushing attempts and dividing by eight teams gives an average of 211.6, which works out to 19.2 per game. That's with Saskatchewan included: if you take the Riders out, the rest of the league averages 203.1 rushing attempts on the year, 18.5 per game. Thus. Saskatchewan's offence has been substantially more run-focused than any other team in the CFL, but that's been largely thanks to the talents of Sheets, who leads the league with 1,222 rushing yards and has maintained a solid 5.7 yards per carry average along the way. Will they maintain the same sort of offence with Chris Garrett replacing Sheets, or are they going to ask quarterback Darian Durant to air the ball out more?

The Riders' passing attack has been sneakily good this year, actually, despite being overshadowed by what they've done on the ground. On the season, Saskatchewan is gaining 8.7 yards per pass, third-best in the league, and their 273.8 passing yards per game is also third-best in the CFL. Durant has thrown for 2,696 yards this year, fourth-best in the league, and he's tossed a league-high 24 touchdowns against just five interceptions. Moreover, he has plenty of receiving weapons to work with: Simon, Weston Dressler, Chris Getzlaf, Rob Bagg, Taj Smith, Jock Sanders and others have all shone at times this season.

The question is how good the Riders' passing attack can be without the threat of Sheets on the ground, though. After he went down last week, the rest of the team collected just 19 rushing yards, and they went to the air on almost every play. That didn't particularly work out: Durant threw for 369 yards and three touchdowns, but completed just 24 of his 49 passing attempts (49.0 per cent) and also threw three interceptions. We'll see if the team tries to be more balanced this week and if they're able to find rushing success with Garrett replacing Sheets, or if they'll stick to throwing early and often. Either way, this won't necessarily be an easy game for Saskatchewan.