Blitz wrote:It's an early battle for first place as our Leos travel to Regina to play the Saskatchewan Roughriders on Friday night. The last time we played the green and white we dominated them in the confines of B.C. Place in the 2006 Western Final.
However, playing the Riders in Saskatchewan has been more challenging. Dave Dickenson, as our quarterback, has never beaten the Riders in Regina in the four season he has been with us. The Riders always play our offence tough at home and they have played us tough at times in our own 'house' over the years. Kent Austin has Saskatchewan out of the gate well so far this season with two wins. Lets have a closer look:
OFFENSE:
Our offence has taken some heat this season, to date, with the microscope on Dave Dickenson's play. However, against the Edmonton Eskimos our offence had a total of 365 yards of offence. We averaged 369 yards per game last season so our last outing was similar to last season's offensive average. Saskatchewan is one of the CFL defenses that likes to crowd our underneath game. Last season our only threat for most of the season, in the vertical game of posts, corners, and deeper routes was Geroy Simon. Double cover Simon and we had challenges with that kind of defense until Paris Jackson broke out in the playoffs.
This season is different. Not only can Geroy Simon and Paris Jackson run deeper or deep routes but Tony Simmons is also a burner. Rodgers was able to get deep against Toronto and needs to become an integral part of the offence. Jason Clermont runs disciplined corner and post routes. Once again we have to be able to challenge the Saskatchewan secondary with the vertical game to open up the underneath routes later. Paris Jackson noted today that we have big receivers who can go deep and believes that we need to take more advantage of this ability. The key is Dickenson's willingness to go deep more often early (he did that against Edmonton) and to be better at being able to connect with his receivers more accurately on deeper passes than his favorite 8-12 yard range.
We ran the football well against Edmonton, for a total of 135 combined rushing yards. Even more impressive was how we controlled the football with the running attack to eat up the clock and preserve our victory. We are proving that we have the running attack and Dickenson has always been excellent at the underneath, controlled passing attack when teams aren't sitting on those routes. If Dickenson can improve his throwing ability in the vertical game...we'll have all three weapons we can turn to and defenses can pick their poison. LFITQ said "What's wrong with having it all" Looks like we're trying to accomplish that on offence but it will take time to move out of our previous comfort zone.
One aspect of our offense against Edmonton that impressed was our creativity. Last season our offence, even with some positive changes had become stale, conservative, and often predictable.
We again dropped our offensive average per game another 30 yards from our 2005 season, which had already dropped an average of 30 yards per game from our 2004 season. Defenses in the CFL are more complex, the players and coaches are smarter than ever, and teams can watch a lot of video to determine an offenc's tendancies. Try to do the same thing week after week, no matter how well your offence executes, and a good defense can take away a number of things an offence likes to do a lot of.
Kruck and Dorazio are doing a number of things this season that made it tougher for the oppostion defense. With the offence struggling again in the first half against Edmonton they went no huddle, forcing Edmonton to keep the personell in that favored our offence and preventing substitutions and special defensive packages. The 'no huddle' offence forces more of a vanilla defense that we can take advantage of and we should do it again.
Secondly, we had a 100 yard drive against Edmonton, in the second half of the game and then drove the ball down Edmonton's throats. We need to assert the running game earlier against the Riders. Thirdly, we need to continue to give opposition defenses new looks. We weren't able to take advantage of Smart lined up wide but we were effective with him at tailback and Smith at fullback, in the two back set, with Smith able to run wide and stretch the defense laterally. It opens up the inside running game. However, since and including the Grey Cup game of last season we've stuggled to finish drives. We need less field goals and more touchdowns!
DEFENSE
Since Dave Ritchie arrived our defense has become complex, aggressive, and innovative. Ritchie is also outstanding at making within-the-game adjustments, as evidenced last week when Edmonton started off hot early but struggled against our defense as the game wore on. Turnovers have been the trademark of our defense for the past two seasons and we keep getting better. Phillips is looking more at home again at halfback and made an excellent interception and runback last week. Banks, Glover, and Marsh are looking sharp and Miles is his impressive self. Washington is certainly not looking out of place at nickel back.
However, Saskatchewan's offence has the ability to cause our defense challenges. The first challenge is Kerry Joseph is a dangerous, skilled runner and we struggled to contain him in our first game last season. The key is to continue with the formula we've used so well and that is to have Otis Floyd spy him while Glatt drops into coverage. The second is to get pressure on Joseph. If we can prevent him from running and get pressure on him he can make bad decsions. However, give Joseph time and he has always had a very good set of receivers to throw to, who have not been properly utilized in the past. That's changing with Austin, instead of Barrett at the helm. The Rough Riders have abandoned their short passing game of the past to a more multi-dimensional passing offence. Matt Dominguez, Jason Armstead, Andy Fantuz, and D.J. Flick are quality receivers.
Cates is now in the backfield for Saskatchewan. I can't understand Calgary trading him. He's a dangerous runner who can also catch the football well. However, Austin is pass conccious and our defense will likely focus pass first.
SPECIAL TEAMS
McCallum went 5/6 last game and Wally said it was an 'average' game for him because he always puts McCallum into situations where he can hit his field goals 100%. Smart still looks dangerous. However, one of the reasons we kept Rodgers was his return abilities and he hasn't shown us anything yet...this game would be the time! One worry I had this season was replacing Carl Kidd on special teams for downfield coverage but overall we've been very good in that department so far this season. Pottinger took some 'shots' on Lionbackers following the Argos game but he had an excellent game covering against Edmonton.
WRAP
The Riders are always tough to play in 'Riderville"! We're also coming off a huge game in which every Leo player was pumped to play Edmonton. The game was very emotional. Hopefully we won't have a letdown and will want to keep our win streak intact!!
Excellent Analysis!
Should be a tight game and a late field goal to win it.
However, as one will shortly find out on Friday, the Rider D is IMHO has incredible team speed! Even the big guys, (who have no right to be able to move that fast.) I have watched Rider ball for 30 years. This group is the quickest and fastest team I have seen.
Speacial teams I would call even. The Rider cover teams in particular have been very, very good.
I would give BC the slight edge in QBing, only because the Lions have Buck Pierce waiting on the sidelines.
Both teams have excellent O-lines and D-lines. I think the Riders O-line is slightly better but BC's D-line is slightly better I would call this even.
Slight edge to BC's secondary only because they have intercepted one or two more passes than the Green guys.
Recievers Both teams have excellent recievers. Simon, Clermont, vs Dominguez, Flick, Fantusz.
The Riders in 4 games counting exhibition, have turned the ball over exactly, one time.
I think that the keys to this game is whichever offense can dominate the line of scrimmage and Field position. Historically the Riders are the least penalized team in the league and Austin has been PREACHING, NO stupid penalities. So don't count on any holding or illegal procedure or time count violations. ( having said that, there will be some, because I predicted none.)
I like my guys at home, it should be close and a great game to watch.
I sure hope the Lions win cuz my Rider-buddy will be razzing me until the next game if they don't. I am really going to enjoy this weeks TSN doubleheader (EDM/WPG followed by SASK/BC)