The Saskatchewan Roughriders’ offence was sputtering throughout the first quarter, but Brandon Bridge ended up being the saviour for the Green and White.

Bridge replaced Kevin Glenn at quarterback early in the second quarter and helped spark the Riders to a 27-24 win over the Toronto Argonauts at BMO Field on Saturday.

“I thought it was a good team win, defence did a heck of a job, offence did a hell of a job, we just wanted to go out there and execute, they were running a lot of man coverage, so we got the ball in the playmakers hands and do what they do,” said Bridge after the game.

Bridge completed 20-of-28 passes for 292 yards and two touchdowns to lead the Riders to the win, while Glenn was 3-of-8 for 29 yards before being replaced.

Glenn had the Riders’ offence clicking on all cylinders earlier in the season, but they’ve struggled to get going early in games in recent weeks and the Riders decided to make a switch.  Jones said brushed off the quarterback controversy talk and compared the move to going into the bullpen in baseball.

“(Glenn) wasn’t feeling it, wasn’t seeing it, I didn’t feel like,” he said.  “They were getting to him, we’ve got to protect him, if they’re getting to him early in the ball game, that’s not his cup of tea.  He’s a great leader and he’ll still be our starting quarterback and we just have to move onto the next game.”

Jones added that he was happy with the performance that Bridge put together in relief and awarded him with the game ball in the locker room.

“I’ve always went in there as if I was the starter, I’ve trained, I try to prepare like I’m the starter throughout the week,” said Bridge.  “We’re all like one group, whoever is out there, we want to support them and that’s how it was on the sidelines, Kevin Glenn supported me, I supported him and he wasn’t salty, he was a true pro and I have so much respect for him.”

The Riders trailed 16-3 late in the second quarter, but Bridge led the Riders on a big drive and hit Naaman Roosevelt for an eight-yard touchdown pass with just 23 seconds left in the first half.

Tyler Crapigna nailed a pair of field goals from 23 and 27 yards out to tie the game up at 16-16 with 4:52 remaining in the third quarter. 

The Argos retook the lead with a single, but the very next play saw the Riders go in front for good on a 75-yard touchdown pass by Bridge to Caleb Holley that made it 24-17 going into the fourth.

Ricky Ray and the Argos came back to tie the game with 4:01 to go in the fourth when he found SJ Green in the end zone for a 19-yard score.

Saskatchewan put together a lengthy final drive with Bridge and Kienan LaFrance leading the Riders on an 11-play, 64-yard drive that ended with a 18-yard field goal by Crapigna to win the game.

“In the second half, we came out and executed a little bit better, we gave Ricky a couple of different things to look at and offensively, we did a real nice job of continuing to control the football,” said Jones.  “We should have scored a couple more touchdowns, but we’ll take the field goals and we did what we had to do at the end to finish the game off.”

Ray finished 29-of-39 for 341 yards with two touchdowns and one interception in the loss.  Green and Martese Jackson hauled in the two touchdown passes.

Running back James Wilder Jr. gave the Riders trouble through the air and on the ground in the game as he finished with 13 carries for 72 yards and seven catches for 89 yards. 

Bridge was able to spread the ball around throughout the game with Holley leading the team with 86 yards, while Roosevelt had a game-high eight catches for 77 yards.  Bakari Grant finished with seven catches for 85 yards and Duron Carter had five catches for 71 yards.

LaFrance got the majority of the touches late for the Riders out of the backfield, finishing with six carries for 38 yards, while Trent Richardson was limited to five carries for 20 yards in his CFL debut.

The Riders are now 8-6 on the year, which gives them a two-point lead on the Edmonton Eskimos for third place in the West Division.  Edmonton will head into Montreal on Monday.

Saskatchewan returns home this week to take on the Ottawa Redblacks coming up on Friday at Mosaic Stadium.