Leos/Tabbies Keys to the Game

[Blitz]

Our 7-6 B.C. Lions, 4th in the West take on the East leading 5-7 Hamilton Tiger Cats in a key west-east matchup on Saturday.

Our B.C. Lions, minus Andrew Harris will use a rookie tailback in Antolin to lead our running attack in this game. Hamilton does not have much of a counterpart as Kent Austin's Tabbies running game is almost non-existent, with Dan Lefevour, 14th in CFL rushing, as their leading ground gainer.

Going by team stats this should be a close game. Our offence is averaging 331 yards per game this season while Hamilton is averaging 325 yards per game. Defensively we have the edge. Our defense has given up the least amount of points in the CFL while Hamilton's defense has not reached those standards. However, Hamiltion has the CFL's 3rd best defense and are no easy pushovers.

I'm going to take a different tact from the traditional focus on offence, defense, special teams and football strategies for this week's KEYS TO THE GAME. Instead, I'm going to take a cue from West Coast Joe's post, which reflected on Angus Reid's recent article. The Reid article was courageous and put the spotlight where in needs to be - on Mike Benevedes leadership and coaching.

Here are my KEYS TO THE GAME. The keys come directly from Angus Reid's comments.

LEADERSHIP

""Now is the time for Lions head coach Mike Benevides to demonstrate his ability to lead and provide his players with a real passion to win.It’s time for Mike Benevides not only to show what kind of coach he is, but more importantly, what kind of leader he is, too. That’s the only option at this stage, and given the overall situation, it’s time anyways to see if he can really do it."

MAKE THE TROOPS BELIEVE

"This is exactly the opportunity for Benevides to prove he has what it takes to make his troops believe. It’s too late to think you can win now by re-writing your whole playbook, and you don’t have the time to be holding weekly tryouts until you get the right people. You now have to find a way to sell the belief to your men that you have exactly the right people you need to win, and to keep winning".

"This will not be accomplished by emotional pre-game speeches, silly clichés or manufactured hype. Pros see right through that and it usually only adds to their belief that you don’t really know what to do. It’s a true art form that is impossible to commoditize, the ability to actually get players to believe you have the answer and that by following you they can’t lose.If Benevides can find a way to make his players truly believe, and play every single play like they can’t be stopped, two things will happen. This team can go as far as anybody else in this wacky season, and Benevides will have shown many who are questioning him that he has what it takes to lead at the pro level"..

PASSION AND A SENSE OF PURPSOE.

"The time has come for Benevides to unify this team’s passion and have them playing with a sense of purpose. It’s not the play calls that will matter Saturday against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. It’s not even the execution of the play. For this team to have a chance, it will all come down to the passion that is put into the execution".We are at the point where wins become paramount, but more important is finding a way to play inspired football".

BENEVEDES HAS TO PROVE HE HAS IT FOR REAL

"It will be up to Benevides to see if he has it for real".

WRAP

Our B.C. Lions have been in decline for two seasons now. The injuries are not an excuse. Many CFL teams in the past have overcome injuries to key players.

Kevin Glenn has lead Calgary to West Division crowns and a berth in a Grey Cup. Andrew Harris stepped in as a rookie part way through 2011 and we went on to win a Grey Cup. We have a top receiver in Arsenault, as we did with Simon that Grey Cup winning season. Our defense is the best in the CFL at keeping the opposition off the scoreboard. We have the tools to be able to win.

It's truly time for Benevedes to step up and truly earn the Head Coaching position that was basically handed to him on a platter. Its truly time for real leadership.

Go Leos

[MexicoLionFan]

I have been saying this all season long to absolute silence...its nice to see someone else focus on the heart of the Lion's problems...excellent read as always Blitz!

Regardless of any previous stats, HAM is going to be VERY TOUGH to beat tomorrow...

[TheLionKing]

Hope the Lions didn't overindulge at David Braley's shindig.

[David]

RB Bradley Randle has been activated for Saturday's game. My gut tells me he's going to be our import tailback next season. Great attitude (has publicly praised the running of Andrew Harris), seems happy to be here, and has run a 4.38/40.

So with Antolin and Randle drawing in, I am hopeful we can catch the Ti-Cats by surprise as they won't have any film on them (at least no CFL regular season film). While I am concerned about our receiving corps and Glenn's reluctance to look for his second and third reads, Ernest Jackson is a big, serviceable (and healthy!) receiver with speed, and Glenn does well against Hamilton. He is 14-5 in career starts, having won 9 in a row and 11 of past 12.


DH

[WestCoastJoe]

Austin has the TiCats playing well now. Stadium nightmares must have negatively affected their early season performance.

Collaros back in after his time off.

Austin has brought LeFevour along nicely. Injured now, but good backup on his return.

I expect Kent Austin to have the TiCats playing tough against us. I expect good game plans on O, D and STs.
..........

Now for us ...

Angus Reid has put the spotlight exactly where it should be -- on Mike Benevides. Time to show us if he can lead this team beyond the middling results we have seen so far with him in charge. Wally's protégé needs to make good.

Game Plans ... Hmmmmm

I expect Mark W to have a very serviceable game plan on D. Pressure on the QB? Dunno about that. Stop the run? Possibly. Will Austin have Collaros beat us with his legs?

Offence. Will Khari have a game plan that integrates our Wideouts? Our National receivers? Will we be able to run the ball? Can Khari get decent run and pass blocking from Dan Dorazio's O Line? Big questions. And IMO the outcome of the game will probably depend on our Offence.

STs ... Better be prepared for any tricks. Austin has seen us embarrassed a few times this year. It is all on the tape.

BBQ at Braley's. Hmmm ... Seems to me we have come out sluggish after lots of ribs, et cetera.

We live in hopes. Our destiny is still in our own hands.

[Blitz]

RB Bradley Randle has been activated for Saturday's game. My gut tells me he's going to be our import tailback next season. Great attitude (has publicly praised the running of Andrew Harris), seems happy to be here, and has run a 4.38/40.

So with Antolin and Randle drawing in, I am hopeful we can catch the Ti-Cats by surprise as they won't have any film on them (at least no CFL regular season film). While I am concerned about our receiving corps and Glenn's reluctance to look for his second and third reads, Ernest Jackson is a big, serviceable (and healthy!) receiver with speed, and Glenn does well against Hamilton. He is 14-5 in career starts, having won 9 in a row and 11 of past 12.
DH

It will be interesting to see how our tailbacks perform tomorrow....no doubt that we have to run the football successfully for our offence to do anything. Last week we had 56 yards of offence in the second half.

Here is a quote in today's Ullrich article in the Province.

Yet something does come clear as the two talk about their first visit back here together for what amounts to yet another playoff test for the Lions Saturday (4 p.m., TSN, TSN 1040). Jones may be the victim of mounting criticism by a segment of the fan base who wish for the glory days of Jacques Chapdelaine, thanks to an offence that has failed to reach double digits four times in 13 outings.

However we should not have expected much more out of Khari Jones than what we are getting. Benevedes chose to dump Chap last season when, in his two previous seasons he had a Grey Cup winning offence in 2011 and a CFL best offence in 2012. The 2013 season was not stellar but our offence has also hampered by Lulay's sore shoulder, having to play a rookie in DeMarco, integrate Buck Pierce into it etc. The biggest problem our offence faced in 2013 was a mid-season big slump of our running attack, and that was corrected towards the end of the season. Chap had moved away from the spread offence in 2011.

So what did Benevedes do? We dumped Chap with no successor in place and we hired Jones, who was more of a spread offence guy than Chap had ever been in his spread offence years of 2005-2010. When we hired Jones I anticipated headaches with our offence.

Average passing yards

2011 Ticats: 263.1; 2014 Lions: 244.5

Passing percentage

2011 Ticats: 62.1; 2014 Lions: 62.1

Average rushing yards

2011 Ticats: 90; 2014 Lions: 111.8

Overall offence

2011 Ticats: 339.6; 2014 Lions: 331.5

Source: Province

But that was Benevedes decision. And its Benevedes job to direct Jones towards running an offence that takes the best advantage of our talents and gives us the best chance to win. That's not happening. It's on Benevedes hiring and leadership.

MLF has it right on....as does Angus Reid. His article was trying to get Benevedes to become a leader and not a slogan regurgitator.

[Rammer]

But that was Benevedes decision. And its Benevedes job to direct Jones towards running an offence that takes the best advantage of our talents and gives us the best chance to win. That's not happening. It's on Benevedes hiring and leadership.

MLF has it right on....as does Angus Reid. His article was trying to get Benevedes to become a leader and not a slogan regurgitator.

Do you think that Benevides can provide direction on how to take advantage of our offensive talent? Isn't that why JC was able to run his pony show as he wished, well until the hammer was going to come down? Benevides isn't the guy that is going to help the Lions O, but Wally should be finding a consultant and not cheap out by reading Blitz's offerings on LB'ers, at least pay Blitz.

[DanoT]

As has already been stated, MB leadership should not be rah rah stuff, but concrete plans to out coach the opposition and have his players better prepared on how to beat the Ticats. Some new plays on O would be nice or if not new, at least somehow surprise the Ticats with something.

The D will keep the game close, but they are not a turnover or scoring D, so the O has to step up. Probably won't happen.

[leo4life]

Benny has said once in the media:"If coaching were easy everyone would do it" ...he made himself sound above regular folks...he doesnt say the best things to the media...imagine team meetings and game planning?

[Blitz]

But that was Benevedes decision. And its Benevedes job to direct Jones towards running an offence that takes the best advantage of our talents and gives us the best chance to win. That's not happening. It's on Benevedes hiring and leadership.

MLF has it right on....as does Angus Reid. His article was trying to get Benevedes to become a leader and not a slogan regurgitator.

Do you think that Benevides can provide direction on how to take advantage of our offensive talent? Isn't that why JC was able to run his pony show as he wished, well until the hammer was going to come down? Benevides isn't the guy that is going to help the Lions O, but Wally should be finding a consultant and not cheap out by reading Blitz's offerings on LB'ers, at least pay Blitz.

What do you mean...cheaping out by reading my offerings? There are electricity costs for turning on a computer and they wouldn't waste the elecricity on my posts.

Nope...Benevedes can't provide direction to our offence specifically but he could request we get out of the spread as often, use more misdirection play action, and integrate some anti-bltiz strategies. That ain't so hard. Here is another not so unique thougth. He could strongly suggest to Jones that he take advantge of Logan's speed by using him to run the football outside more often, or use him for a motion hitch pass instead of running Logan almost exclusively inside the tackles and lining him up as a stationary spread receiver where he makes a small target downfield.

Certainly Chap was a pass first offensive coordinator until 2011. That came from three bases..the first was being a receiver as a player, the second was being indoctrinated into the spread offence in Calgary, and that was what Wally wanted him to run...the Calgary offence... and the third is that Dorazio is not the best offensive line coach to design a run first game around.

Chap basically realized in 2011 (and having his job on the line helped with the push) that he needed to get out of the spread if he was going to overcome Darazio and get more blockers involved. The change in 2011 was amazing....lpower formations, lots of misdirection play action. But by 2013 defenses were really loading up the box and blitzing like hell to defend us. Chap had a very good scheme staring in 2011 but anti-bltiz strategy was not his strength - however he was a hell of a lot better at it than Jones, which isn't saying a whole lot.

As for changing the blocking scheme at the end of last season....unheard of to change a blocking scheme 2/3 of the way into a season, the new man blocking scheme was not the key to our 200 plus rushing attack for our last three games of 2013. The key to that new found success was the motion that Chap put in, using slots as lead blockers and a whole variety of other changes to overcome Dorazio's ineptitude.

Its easy for an offensive coordinator to draw up passing plays in the off-season and put them in the playbook. Lots of Lionbackers could draw them up as Jones has done. Line up five recievers...three wide and two short. Shot gun snap - no play action. The wide side, outside receiver runs a fly pattern to keep the safety back. The short side outside receiver and the outside slot on the wide side run deep crossing patterns. The tailback races to the outside flat vacated by the wide side outside reciever, The slotbacks run shoter crossing patterns. There are your layers. Quarterback drops back, reads the deep cross first and then comes underneath to one of the short crossers. Reciver beats his man, makes the catch, and turns it upfield for a big gain or we hit Harris in the flat and he beats his man, turns upfield and burns it up.

However, when it happens in a game can be a different story. The defense zone blitzes. There is a linebacker blitzing from the outside who gets in the throwing lane for a quick toss to Harris, who is also being spied by a fast linebacker. A stunt also comes from inside and suddently there are two guys in Glenn's face. If he can release the football quickly to an underneath crosser, the defensive back playing zone lines him up for a suicide hit. Doesn't look so good as it did on paper now.

Perhaps instead, we could have gone to four recievers and off-set Lumbala. On the wideside, the outside reciever could still run his fly pattern. The inside slot could run an out. Harris would race to the wide side flat. On the short side, we send the outside receiver deep and the slotback on a post. Glenn looks wideside quickly to either go deep or underneath to Harris, Lumbala sets to block on the weakside, the left tackle and left guard make one explosive hit and slide left. The center does a two count and slides left. Lumbala sets to pass block and slides a step or two into a passing lane. The play is run quickly...its not a long developing sceen pass.

Glenn short throws underneath to Lumbala. Three blockers and possibly one linebacker to block if executed properly. But do we ever run the fullback screen when teams are blitzing the hell of out us and spying Harris. > Nope!! Sean Milligan made this play happen game after game in his day, for huge gains, even when defenses knew it was our favorite play back then against the blitz. Makes this fan shake his head in frustration.

[notahomer]

Would be nice to see the Lions find some ways to BURN teams for their tendencies.

It just seems there are 'books' out there on what to do to the Lions Offence (especially on 2nd down, even when its under 5yards to go). Its kinda the opposite of watching past TERRIBLE days on defence. The kinda day where every body knows that (Fred Reid or Darian Durant) is going to take off with the ball and run for a big gain but what happens, the guy goes and does it.

Well that SEEMS to happen to our OFFENCE too, we do okay on first down but WHAM, the D-line/Linebackers (plus anybody else its seems is interested in attending) decides to have an impromptu meeting on top of Kevin Glenn....

Its almost like oppossing Defensive Coordinators are playing a game of flip the coin where the rules are: Heads We Win, Tails You LOSE
__________________________________________
I think the Ticats have been getting WINS lately playing a brand of football not that much different from one that was ending in LOSSES, earlier in the season. I think its time for the Lions to have one of those games that comes along where we almost forget common struggles like the o-line. Hoping some of the new roster additions have strong games and we'll see where it goes.

[Blitz]

Would be nice to see the Lions find some ways to BURN teams for their tendencies.

It just seems there are 'books' out there on what to do to the Lions Offence (especially on 2nd down, even when its under 5yards to go). Its kinda the opposite of watching past TERRIBLE days on defence. The kinda day where every body knows that (Fred Reid or Darian Durant) is going to take off with the ball and run for a big gain but what happens, the guy goes and does it.

Well that SEEMS to happen to our OFFENCE too, we do okay on first down but WHAM, the D-line/Linebackers (plus anybody else its seems is interested in attending) decides to have an impromptu meeting on top of Kevin Glenn....

Its almost like oppossing Defensive Coordinators are playing a game of flip the coin where the rules are: Heads We Win, Tails You LOSE
__________________________________________

You make a very important point notahomer about our offence notahomer.

First of all, its a trend right across the CFL...offences are struggling often this year and scoring is down. Its been going that way for a while now. The reason is simple. Defenses have more than caught up to the spread offensive philosophy. Now they are way ahead of the curve. The spread offence was great in the 90's when the fifth and sixth five or sixth receiver was covered by a slow linebacker.

Defenses learned to make the spread offence struggle by creating nickel and dime backs, zone blitzing the hell out of it, or rushing theree and dropping nine into coverage or in the case of defensive coordinators like Jones, by blitzing while using press man coverage.

I laugh when I read columnists write that offence is down this season because of the extra international player.

The spread offensive philosophy was innovative at one time. Now its a dinasour but CFL football is stil dominated by spread offence devotees. It can still work but in order for it to work it needs all of the following 1) a very good quarterback who can read quickly, throw quickly, or be very *poop* in the pocketor or very, very mobile 2) an excellent offensive line 3) a top running back 4) a high calibre receiving crew 5) very good play calling and 6) have excellent anti-blitz strategies.

A fullback or a tight end or both can do much more for an offence these days than a fifth or sixth receiver. The spread has so many weaknesses....quarterbacks are more vulnerable to injury, its difficult to run outside with it (hence the fly sweep) its mostly a pocket passing offence, and its vulnerable to the blitz.

Mark Trestman, in Montreal, moved to a multi-formational offence. Chap did the same, in 2011, after our offence had struggled for 3 seasons and the start of that one. A quarterback like Ricky Ray can still make the spread offence work very well at times but he also gets shut down at times too. Calgary can make it work because they have such an excellent offensive line and Jon Cornish so they get a lot of short second down plays with lots of options.

Why is our offence struggling? Jones is a spread offence disciple who has taken our offence backwards to an even more spread offensive philosophy. Our offensive line pass blocking system is not very good. We don't have the receiver depth. We are only a successful offence if we can run the football effectively on first down. When we don't or can't our offence is in trouble.

I think some posters on Lionbackers wonder why I supported Chap being retained for this season. After all, I was the Lionbacker who was so critical of his offence for years and years and named his offences ChapBall (the spread offence), JaquesBall (his multi-formational motion misdirection offence 2011-2013) and CrapBall (if Chap started drifting back to the spread offence too much again or called a bad game against a heavy bltiz by running fly sweeps or neglecting anti-bltiz strategies)

But we were out of the spread offensive philosophy from Game 7 of 2011 to the end of 2013. Chap still ran the spread formation at times but it was part of a multi-formational offence now. Its not as if I fell in love with Chap after being so critical of his system and style for so long. Its that I really liked his new scheme with some caveats. If Chap would have had a decent offensive line coach, with that new scheme, we really would have been much more difficult to stop. Still we won a Grey Cup with it in 2011 and had the best offence in the CFL with it in 2012. Last season was more of a struggle because we couldn't run the football well for so long because Dorazio couldn't get any holes open for our running game. Everyone blamed Chap for it. When Chap was forced to keep Harris in to pass block at times, he didn't feel the love.

Defenses this season can shut us down on second and long because they bltiz six against our five or six receivers. They cheat on our slotbacks because they know Glenn will look there first with little time to throw and they don't respect our wideouts. We hae almost zero anti-blitz plays. We keep Glenn in the pocket and he is short, so getting guys in his face is a good strategy. With Lulay they rushed him from the outside and did everything to take away his runnng ability...forcing him to be a quick release passer, which he is not. Last game, we were better prepared for the blitz than usual so what did Stubler do? He often rushed three and dropped nine into coverage. Lots of ways to defend the spread offence well with the personell that defenses can utilize in today's CFL.

For as long as Khari Jones has us in a spread offensive philosoply and Dorazio is not able to lead our offensive line into an effective system , our offence is going to have its struggles. The only way we wil be effective is if we can run the football well and defneses stack the box on first down to do everything to prevent our ability to run the football.

[Blitz]

RB Bradley Randle has been activated for Saturday's game. My gut tells me he's going to be our import tailback next season. Great attitude (has publicly praised the running of Andrew Harris), seems happy to be here, and has run a 4.38/40.

So with Antolin and Randle drawing in, I am hopeful we can catch the Ti-Cats by surprise as they won't have any film on them (at least no CFL regular season film). While I am concerned about our receiving corps and Glenn's reluctance to look for his second and third reads, Ernest Jackson is a big, serviceable (and healthy!) receiver with speed, and Glenn does well against Hamilton. He is 14-5 in career starts, having won 9 in a row and 11 of past 12.


DH

I don't anticipate Stefan Logan being a B.C. Lion next season. His age, combined with the fact that he is no longer a consistently dangerous punt returner anymore spells that this is likely his last season.

So the debut of Keola Antolin and Bradley Randle will be interesting. One of these two backs or even someone different may take Logan's place in 2015. It will be interesting to see how they do.

Talking spread offences, Hamilton throws the football about 85% of the time. Hopefully Westerman and Menard can get some inside pressure today.

[B.C.FAN]

One area in which the B.C. offence leads the league is in second down conversions. They've converted a league-leading 136 second downs into first downs, and their conversion rate of 44.4% also leads the league. Toronto, Edmonton and Saskatchewan are slightly better in second-and-short situations because they run the ball better while the Lions tend to use short yardage as a passing down. But the Lions have converted a league-best 62 second-and-long situations (36%) into first downs.

The challenge for the offence in the final five games of the season is to find go-to receivers to replace the production they got from Courtney Taylor and Andrew Harris. Despite being injured for the past two games, Taylor's 21 second-down receptions for a first down put him in a tie with Manny Arceneaux as the league's second-most productive second-down receivers. Andrew Harris is also in the top 10. The Lions' passing game with Kevin Glenn at QB relies heavily (too heavily) on the slots and running backs. That means Ernest Jackson and Keola Antonlin will have to step into unfamiliar roles and come up big in pressure situations. How well they respond to that challenge will determine how well the Lions' offence is able to move the ball. It's a tall order.

[DanoT]

The only chance for a Lions victory is if they get a dominate performance from the O line.

So, K.I.S.S. DAN DORAZIO