Riders practice with 111 decibels of noise to prep for Bombers

The sound had fans and media alike wishing they brought ear plugs.

The Roughriders piped in 111 decibels of crowd noise to practice in this weekend ahead of Saturday afternoon’s game against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

“It’s like a TV with no cable, very loud and obnoxious but I think it will help when it comes game day,” said Jordan Williams-Lambert when asked to describe the sound.

“It’s tough,” he added. “It’s going to be a hostile environment and they’re going to try to get our attention and our job is to focus and do our job.”

Linebacker Samuel Eguavoen said with all that noise around it can be easy to get distracted with all the booing and trash talking going on around you.

“You’re trying to get your own self together and it’s just like you forget to look for the call or you forget to talk to the person next to you because it’s so loud and you forget to communicate,” he explained.

However, Egauvoen quickly added that’s something that can’t happen.

“You can lose focus all you want but man, you might not have a job the next day.”

Fortunately, the Riders have been preparing for this eventuality for a while. Defensive back Jovon Johnson said they started working on their hand signals – which they use for playcalling in loud situations – since training camp but they’ve really upped their practice of them this week.

Johnson played in Winnipeg for several years so he knows how rowdy the fan base there can get.

“That’s how loud it is on the field so you got to get used to being able to use signals and being able to communicate without speaking because if it’s that loud and you can’t hear the guy next to you, you got to figure a way out,” he explained.

This will be the first game the Roughriders will need the hand signals, but head coach Chris Jones said he’s confident they’re ready for the loudness.

“If (Wednesday) is any indicator our offence did very well, they ended up coming up on the top end of the defence and they executed very well and special teams-wise we were able to get on and off with the different personnel groupings so hopefully we’ve done enough to be prepared.”

Kick off is at 2 p.m. at Investor’s Group Field.

The Green Zone pregame show begins at noon.

DEPTH CHARTS

Your #Riders depth chart ahead of tomorrow’s matchup on the road with the @Wpg_BlueBombers. pic.twitter.com/cWLPNwAdvP

— Saskatchewan Roughriders (@sskroughriders) September 7, 2018