Bombers 23 - Lions 6 Post Game Stats and Comments

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David
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If you have a brilliant, tenured professor yet his students are consistently getting Cs and Ds and his A students are becoming B students, while others are even dropping the course, is he still considered a great teacher?

I am, frankly, sick and tired of other CFL teams fielding average (at best) O-lines yet managing to pick up blitz pressure while giving their quarterbacks adequate time in the pocket, yet ours continue to rack up dumb penalties (likely from “information overload”), seem thoroughly overwhelmed by creative stunts and blitzes, while our quarterbacks take a pounding.

This has been going on for the past 12 years here, folks. It’s not a blip, or even a trend. One step forward, two steps back. Bring ‘em in for a look-see and cut ‘em the next week. Failure across the line has become entrenched and, I hate to say it, accepted. Meanwhile, because Coach Dorazio is widely regarded as one of the best position coaches in the league, we look for excuses to rationalize our troubles instead of examining the common denominator: “they’re young,” “inexperienced,” “not good enough,” “our QBs hang onto the ball too long,” “too many crossing patterns,” “too many injuries,” “it’s the O-Coordinator’s fault.” Shower. Rinse. Repeat.

Even in our Grey Cup winning year of 2006 with Murphy and Jimenez - our bully tackles – our quarterbacks were *beeotch* slapped around with 59 sacks, which was more than our defense had (56). Time to consider a fresh set of eyes and a new “teacher.”


DH :cool:
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ziggy
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Rammer wrote:
ziggy wrote:You can argue all day as to whether it's the game plan, the execution or the talent. I doubt its solely one of these factors. As always it's a combination of the three.

Exceptional talent can cover for poor game plans. Exceptional game planning can cover up talent weakness. But poor execution will kill you everytime.

I'm not convinced we are all that talented throughout the lineup, but hope I'm wrong. Regardless its up to the coaching staff to get the best out of what they have and that isn't happening. You can't change the whole team so it's time to analyse their strengths and weaknesses and draw up a plan that utilizes the former and minimizes the later.

Kevin Glenn is dazed and confused as is most of his offense. Time to sort things out before they start mailing it in!
That is the key to the losses. If you took our talent by groupings (linebackers, OL, DL and so on) and compared them unbiasedly to the teams that we lost to, then you could find our talent level to a degree. Once that is established, then you take the components of those groups that you think are less talented than the opposition and factor down to the individual talent. Further to that, each group is only as strong as its weakest link, so that individual either has to be replaced, or the scheme is developed to minimize that players weaknesses. Obviously there are limitations on your talent level to others, areas of your team will always be less than anothers team, but it is the consistent groupings that fall below that have to be addressed. Of those groupings, it is easy for us to finger point the OL, so how do we improve that, we have young talent overall, with two mainstays at this point, Olayfioye and Valli, plus looking at past history, Dorazio is a constant. That was the easy one, feel free to carry on.
Agree on the O line. Another quick one would be our D line. Unable to pressure opposing QB's . We haven't had much pressure from our front four at all. I'm not sure we aren't making O lines look good, simply because we are unable to get pressure without bringing the house and even then...... We give far too much time to opposing QB's
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DanoT
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David wrote:If you have a brilliant, tenured professor yet his students are consistently getting Cs and Ds and his A students are becoming B students, while others are even dropping the course, is he still considered a great teacher?

I am, frankly, sick and tired of other CFL teams fielding average (at best) O-lines yet managing to pick up blitz pressure while giving their quarterbacks adequate time in the pocket, yet ours continue to rack up dumb penalties (likely from “information overload”), seem thoroughly overwhelmed by creative stunts and blitzes, while our quarterbacks take a pounding.

This has been going on for the past 12 years here, folks. It’s not a blip, or even a trend. One step forward, two steps back. Bring ‘em in for a look-see and cut ‘em the next week. Failure across the line has become entrenched and, I hate to say it, accepted. Meanwhile, because Coach Dorazio is widely regarded as one of the best position coaches in the league, we look for excuses to rationalize our troubles instead of examining the common denominator: “they’re young,” “inexperienced,” “not good enough,” “our QBs hang onto the ball too long,” “too many crossing patterns,” “too many injuries,” “it’s the O-Coordinator’s fault.” Shower. Rinse. Repeat.

Even in our Grey Cup winning year of 2006 with Murphy and Jimenez - our bully tackles – our quarterbacks were *beeotch* slapped around with 59 sacks, which was more than our defense had (56). Time to consider a fresh set of eyes and a new “teacher.”


DH :cool:
The biggest problem is that Dorazio has tenure with the Lions and it is wrong and there is nothing that can be done about it. :bang:
TheLionKing
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I'm beginning to wonder if offensive linemen are being assessed on their ability to process complex blocking schemes as opposed to their ability to block.
leo4life
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Time for Dorazio to retire these issues been ongoing for 10yrs
Ballistic Bob
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I met LOOO in the concourse before the start of game. Shook his hand and said we missed him last week. Thnx BB
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TheLionKing
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leo4life wrote:Harris said post game that they didnt change the game plan untill the 4th Quarter!!!! Are you fricken kidding me? What does Benny do @ halftime? Freezies or ice-cream?
http://www.bclions.com/video/index/id/99425
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Spud387
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I want to see Brown back in the line-up. While most of his returns were called back due to penalties, he was able to get us consistent positive yards and make something out of nothing with WPG kicker's strong leg.

Unfortunately I think Logan has been a disappointment on returns, he is not breaking anything and is only managing small returns or none at all.
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SammyGreene
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Spud387 wrote:I want to see Brown back in the line-up. While most of his returns were called back due to penalties, he was able to get us consistent positive yards and make something out of nothing with WPG kicker's strong leg.

Unfortunately I think Logan has been a disappointment on returns, he is not breaking anything and is only managing small returns or none at all.
Agreed. He was one of the few bright spots Friday night. Joystick has looked very ordinary most of the season on returns although getting little help from McMann's unit in front of him.

And I'm still shaking by head over Benevides ignorance or lack of respect of Harjrullahu's leg strength on kickoffs. BC returns on Bomber kickoffs were to the 35 (called back on a holding call), 28, 27 and 24 (to start 2nd half) before they finally scrimmaged on the 35 after a 3rd qt FG.
leo4life
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Former Lions Martell Mallett and Jock Sanders will carry the rock friday vs BC...Mallett to start....also Benny's best friend Brandon Mcdonald is playing LOL
Blitz
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David wrote:If you have a brilliant, tenured professor yet his students are consistently getting Cs and Ds and his A students are becoming B students, while others are even dropping the course, is he still considered a great teacher?

I am, frankly, sick and tired of other CFL teams fielding average (at best) O-lines yet managing to pick up blitz pressure while giving their quarterbacks adequate time in the pocket, yet ours continue to rack up dumb penalties (likely from “information overload”), seem thoroughly overwhelmed by creative stunts and blitzes, while our quarterbacks take a pounding.

This has been going on for the past 12 years here, folks. It’s not a blip, or even a trend. One step forward, two steps back. Bring ‘em in for a look-see and cut ‘em the next week. Failure across the line has become entrenched and, I hate to say it, accepted. Meanwhile, because Coach Dorazio is widely regarded as one of the best position coaches in the league, we look for excuses to rationalize our troubles instead of examining the common denominator: “they’re young,” “inexperienced,” “not good enough,” “our QBs hang onto the ball too long,” “too many crossing patterns,” “too many injuries,” “it’s the O-Coordinator’s fault.” Shower. Rinse. Repeat.

Even in our Grey Cup winning year of 2006 with Murphy and Jimenez - our bully tackles – our quarterbacks were *beeotch* slapped around with 59 sacks, which was more than our defense had (56). Time to consider a fresh set of eyes and a new “teacher.”


DH :cool:
Since Dorazio arrived in B.C. we have had more than our share of struggles running the football or protecting the quarterback. We've had very mobile quarterbacks and very smart quarterbacks during Dorazio's tenure and all took more than their share of punishement. Dickenson actually started less than a 1/3 of the games that he was available for and dealt with multiple concussions. Casey Printers, in both of his stints as a B.C. Lion (MOP in 2004 and great start again in 2010) was soon injured. Buck Pierce was walking wounded. Jarious Jackson the same. Travis Lulay has followed in the same pattern. It's been very challenging to be a Lion quarterback in the Dorazio era.

Dickenson had great pocket presence as does Kevin Glenn. Printers, Pierce, Jackson, and Lulay were all very mobile. None has escaped the severe pounding. Dave Dickenson is the offensive coordinator in Calgary. Buck Pierce is coaching in Winnipeg. Jarious Jackson was offered a promotion to go to Edmonton this season. Lulay and Glenn will have opportunities in the future. Both are smart and have leadership qualities. Dickenson, Pierce, Jackson, Lulay have all been noted for excellent leadership abilities.

Chap took a lot of heat from me from 2005-2010. I mostly was not critical of Chap because I thought he wasn't a knowledgeable football coach. It was because he was a spread offence disciple. For the spread to work, you have to have an offensive line that can open quick holes for the run game and pick up stunts and blitzes in the passing attack, along with the tailback when he is kept in to block. The concept of the spread is that, with receivers spread out, it opens up the defense against the longer run, if you can get an initial block. In the pass game it creates matchup problems for the defense and makes playing zone much more dififcult. However, opposition defenses quickly picked up that we were susceptible against stunts and blitzes, often with clear, unimpeded lanes to the quarterback.

Chap took most of the heat as the offensive coordinator. Wally always knew how to deflect heat. Benevedes did the same at the end of last season. When Chap left at the end of 2006 and Hufnagel was hired as a consultant for 2007 as Kruck and Dorazio shared the offensive coordinator role, with Kruck calling the plays.
Hufnagel obviously realized that, in 2006, we had given up the most sacks in the CFL for the second year in a row (2005, 2006) and Printers had spent most of 2004, making plays with his legs...in other words we could not be a spread offence with that kind of line blocking, Dickenson took a beating in the 2005 WDF and he had to use his legs as the key to helping us win the Grey Cup in 2006, due to the pressure he faced against a 6th rated Montreal defense

Hufnagel advised us to run the football more and we started out 2007 with more of a run emphasis (which didn't make Geroy and most of our recievers very happy). When Dickenson and Pierce went down to injury early in 2007 we were forced to run the football even more, with Jarious getting his first starts that season. Joe Smith rushed the football hard and we won 9 of our last 11 regular season games with Jarious at the controls.

There was a notion that the problem was Chap's offence and it wa ..but mostly not because there was anything wrong with Chap's spread offence. All CFL offences were using it and most CFL offences are still spread offences. The problem was that Chap was dedicated to the spread when it was obvious that we did not have an offensive line that could open holes for the run game nor pass block effectively enough for the spread to work. That was my criticism of Chap - ChapBall was the spread offence and I would never run the spread with Dorazio coaching the offensive line.

In 2011, with our offence struggling with Lulay, who had started partway through 2010) Chap finally realized he was never going to get the blocking he needed. Instead he went multi-formational, mostly power on first downs, and began to use a lot of motion to have receivers assist with blocking for the run game and a lot of misdirection to help get Lulay more time in the pass game. We went on to win the Grey Cup and in 2012 our offence was the best in the CFL in both the run and pass game.

But in 2013, we couldn't get the blocks for Harris in the run game, even from power formations and opposition defenses did everthing to keep Lulay in the pocket, where he was able to buy less time. How did it get changed? It took the addition of Stefan Logan, more power formations on second down, and an entirely new run blocking scheme with 6 games to go (its exceptional for a pro team to change a blocking scheme during a season) for us to get things turned around.

The pattern of offensive lineman's play deteriorating has been a pattern under Dorazio and you see it today. Norman was best in his first season as was Rob Murphy as was Dean Valli and the list could go on and on. Offensive lineman who could never make it here have gone on to play successfully on other CFL teams. Our offensive lineman are often as injured as our quarterbacks have been, to boot.

Khari Jones came in as our new offensive coordinator with promise. He was a spread offence quarterback and coached the spread in Hamilton. I thought he would carry on with what worked at the end of last season and utilize more power formations. He didn't in our first two games. But he used more power formations in game 3 and went mostly power formation against Montreal for our second win of the season. I thought he had figured it out. But he went back to more spread against Winnipeg and Glenn was sacked 6 times and our offence was miserable again.

The reality is that the problem is that we do not get adequate line blocking or pass blocking from Dorazio and rarely have. As an offensive coordinator you have to scheme around the weakness. To make matters worse, Dorazio has had too big of a role for too long. He was the co-coordinator in 2007, even though he was not the play caller. Dorazio was our offensive coordinator in 2008, while Chap called the plays. He was the co-offensive coordinator in 2009, while Chap called the plays. When Chap took over as official offensive coordinator in 2010, Dorazio still had control of the run game and still does. He was even able to tell Benny to gamble on third and 3 in the Montreal game, two games ago. Its been a crazy situation for far too long and Jones now has the problem that Chap had.

Jones really has little choice but to mainly go power formation most of the time as long as Dorazio is coaching in B.C. That is the reality that took Chap too long and it will kill Jones if he doesn't learn the lesson from last game and the first two games of the season.

Jones is wearing it right now as Chap did. Our quarterbacks have worn it. As a qb you had better realize that you will often have less than 2 seconds to throw so you had better get it off as soon as it hits your hands or you had better be very mobile as well as a great escape artist. As a running back you have to create your own holes very often. Nor should our offensive lineman wear it. Olofoye looked like an ass last game, stepping inside to block on a pass play, while the defensive end came free for an unimpeded sack of Glenn. Olifoye was dominant in 2012 and slid a little last season and has again so far this season. That is to be expected. Its difficult to shine while playing in chaos.

So Jones had better figure out that he will wear it from Wally, as Chap did, if he doesn't take control as best he can and he better figure out quickly that he needs to use a scheme that can best adapt to the weakness of this Leos offence for too long - offensive line play. Its not talent or inexperience. Its not individual skill. Quite simply its offensive line coaching. Jones also better figure out that we need power formations to run the football and power formations to give our quarterback time to throw.. and we need this more than any other CFL offence and have for over a decade now.

Its the reality of being an offensive coordinator or quarterback for this team.
"When I went to Catholic high school in Philadelphia, we just had one coach for football and basketball. He took all of us who turned out and had us run through a forest. The ones who ran into the trees were on the football team". (George Raveling)
leo4life
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Thanks for another well written piece,Blitz.Very fustrating to watch subpar OLine play year after year and the HC simply blame the players (lack of execution gotta make plays yada yada) weak play calling and relying on the spread is going make for a very long season.Last place in the west is currently home for our Lions :-(
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MexicoLionFan
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Blitz, I think it is becoming clear the Dorazio is the master behind this debacle...but, it the OC's job to make the offence run...and if that means running the ball, and structuring most of your offence out of power formations, so be it. Chaps KNEW what worked...but he didn't have the patience to stay with it...and ultimately HE killed our QBs by trying to run his highly complex system behind a sieve...you can't build the Great Wall of China on top of sand...and now Jones is in the same situation...IMO, Jones was reckless in the MTL game at home, and put Glenn under an enormous amount of pressure, its just that Arceneaux chose that day to have his career start and it bailed us out...because Glenn could EASILY have been sacked 10 times in the MTL game at home, and could have thrown up to 5 INTs if the MTL DBs had reacted better, or if Manny had not been so amazing...

IMO, Jones hasn't figured ANYTHING out yet...and as such, we are going to continue to struggle and get people hurt until he does...and if the Lions rush Lulay back into this Dorazio mess, they are going to destroy his career...Jones needs to wake up to power football and play action...as you said Blitz, the spread CANNOT function with Dorazio coaching the OLine...so now its up to either Wally to fire Dorazio (good luck) or Jones turning on the light and playing smash mouth football.

The Bottom Line is this...this is a JOKE that we as fans should have to put up with Dorzaio for this long...the evidence is out there now for everyone to see...
"Condemnation Without Investigation is the height of ignorance."

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JohnHenry
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The main problem with the OL over the past several years is the linemen seemed confused about who they should block, often double-teaming one pass rusher while letting another rusher run free...and their inability to react to stunts or blitzes. This is more of an indictment on the decision-making process of the OL. I believe Dorazio is a good coach at teaching the linemen how to block, how to position their feet, gain leverage and bend their knees, ect...but not who to block. I'm not sure that's even the OL coach's bally-wick, it could be more of an issue with the OC and RB coach.

Another problem could be the physical and mental abilities of the individual linemen, who make wrong decisions and don't have the physical ability to block in the correct manner the coaches have instructed them.
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notahomer
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When Tony Dungy began being a head coach is goal was to simplfy and execute perfectly. He'd tone down on the complexities and had his players do what they did WELL. There is no point of having a complex system for the O-line if it isn't working and has probably contributed to QB's making mistakes including being sacked, injured and throwing INTS. IMO, the guys we have on our O-line are talented enough and can get the job done but they are obviously in a system some of them are struggling to execute. I hope things improve...........
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