The Saskatchewan Roughriders are desperately in need of a win heading into Thursday night's showdown with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats at Mosaic Stadium.

The heat has been turned up in Rider Nation this week after a dismal performance last Saturday in a 23-17 loss to the Montreal Alouettes, which dropped Saskatchewan's record to 1-2 early in the CFL season.

While the fans might be panicking, head coach Chris Jones is preaching patience.

"I worry about this football team and I can't worry about the fans, if we went undefeated, there would be somebody complaining," said Jones. "I know what we've got to do, we've been here before and unfortunately, we've stubbed our toe again and we've taken too many penalties, so we've got to correct that, play good football and get back on the winning ways."

The two areas that have taken the most heat from the fans this week have been Duron Carter remaining at quarterback and Brandon Bridge's struggles at quarterback in his first week as the Riders' starter.

Bridge will be back under centre to start this week against Hamilton and he said he's confident that he can get the job done this time around.

"It was only one bad half of football, if you go back on every other game, everyone is going to say that I was shining bright like a diamond, but now it's like one bad half and people think hell froze over, so I've just got to bounce back, take what the defence gives me and execute the game plan," said Bridge, who was 8-of-18 for 111 yards and two interceptions before being pulled in favour of David Watford.

Jones said he wants Bridge to play within himself this week.

"I just want them to do what they do, don't try to be somebody you're not, use the strengths that God gave you, go through the progressions and don't try to do too much, don't try to win the game on every play," Jones said.

"The game was a little bit fast for both of them from time-to-time (last week), they both threw into coverage and those are the type of things that we can't do."

Carter will be remaining at cornerback for the Riders this week after getting torched by Alouettes receiver Chris Williams to the tune of 130 yards and a touchdown last week.

Jones said they've went over some technical adjustments with Carter this week to get him ready to face the Ti-Cats receivers.

"Duron has to make strides, he's like everybody else, he's no different," said Jones. "He's got to learn to play defence, he's got to learn to disrupt routes early in the play and if he does that, he's going to see success."

Bridge added that he'd like to see Carter back on offence and feels that would help him, but he understands that he's also needed on defence.

"Duron is an athlete that can play a lot of positions and Coach Jones wants to have him over there and he's the head man," said Bridge.

"We know that we'd love to him, but he's got to help out on our defensive side and we have a lot of confidence in Shaq Evans, he does a lot of great things. Duron is arguably one of the best players in the CFL, so I'd love to have him lineup on the left or right side of me."

The Riders will see if they can improve on last week's effort when they hit the field for a 7 p.m. kick-off against the Ti-Cats.