After getting pulled halfway through Saturday’s 23-17 loss to Montreal, Brandon Bridge will get another shot as the starting quarterback for the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

Riders head coach Chris Jones confirmed after the team’s practice on Monday that Bridge will be starting on Thursday when Saskatchewan hosts Hamilton at Mosaic Stadium.

“Bridge is going to start and we’ll come in with (David) Watford (if Bridge struggles), but both will more than likely play,” said Jones.

“It’s just like last year when we had (Kevin Glenn), he would start the game and if he struggled, Bridge would come in.”

With Zach Collaros on the six-game injured list, the Riders turned to Bridge last Saturday against Montreal, but it didn’t go how they had hoped.

The Canadian pivot struggled to an 8-of-18 day passing with 111 yards and two interceptions before being replaced by Watford to start the second half. 

After going over the game afterwards, Bridge doesn’t feel like his performance was as bad as the numbers indicate.

“I’ve got to do a better job, can’t turn the ball over and put our defence in terrible situations, but as an overall offence, we know from the top down that we’ve just got to get better,” said Bridge, who’s grateful for another shot this week.

“After the game I saw a couple of text messages from Kevin (Glenn) and we actually spoke about it and Damon Allen actually called me right after the game too, so a lot of people reached out to me and told me not to worry about it because it looks like its all your fault on TV, but when you look at the film and people who actually know football, it’s a team game and a lot of the mistakes that we had weren’t just on me.”

Riders Sign Elam

The Riders are in need of some more depth at defensive back and they turned to a former NFL first round pick to help out with the signing of Matt Elam to the team’s practice roster on Monday.

Elam played 41 games over three seasons with the Baltimore Ravens, posting 89 tackles and one interception during his time in the NFL.

“He’s a first round draft pick DB and it allows us to bring in a guy and compare him to the guys that we have,” said Jones. “He was at one of our workouts earlier in the year and he did a very nice job covering and we know he’ll tackle, he was a safety in the (NFL).”

Elam does come with some off field issues, which led to him going unsigned as an NFL free agent in 2017. He had charges dropped after a drug arrest on Feb. 26, 2017 and then on Mar. 22, 2017, he was arrested on battery and theft charges, but the charges were dropped again.

“We put it in (the league’s) hands and they went through everything that they needed to do and gave us the go-ahead and once we got the go-ahead with them than we went ahead and brought him up,” said Jones on the issues.

“We just comply with the CFL rules when it comes to that type thing and then I just communicated exactly what I was being told by the CFL and we go from there.”

The Riders also released international quarterback Jeremy Johnson, who was signed last week.

Riders Pull off Trade

Saskatchewan swung a deal with the Toronto Argonauts on Tuesday, acquiring a negotiation list player in exchange for international defensive lineman Eric Striker.

Striker had two tackles in the Riders’ regular season opening win over the Argonauts, but has spent the last two weeks on the practice roster.