Lions Prepare for Saskatchewan Rough Riders

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WestCoastJoe
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Depth chart for Riders ...

Is that Riders, or Rough Riders, or Roughriders? Hmmm, better check with Robbie. :wink: :beer:

Quick glance looks like standard stuff. Fabien in for Vailllancourt still.
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John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

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DanoT
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Fabien in for Vaillancourt could mean that he is still suffering from concussion symptoms or it could mean that Fabien graded out pretty well. Also coming out of CIS Vaillancourt has never played an 18 game schedule (plus play-offs I hope) and so some extra time off that also gives Jas Dillon some more playing time is probably a good idea.
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B.C.FAN
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I'm glad Anthony Allen will get to face his old team. The Lions lead the league in rushing and the Riders rank seventh against the run. Allen can pound the ball for six or seven yards a carry behind B.C.'s big offensive line. The problem last week was the Lions went away from the run on second and three and had trouble moving the ball in the air, especially in the third quarter.

For the B.C. offence, the key to the game will be finishing drives and not turning the ball over as they did last week in losing the turnover battle 4-0.

On defence, Mic'hael Brooks is back at nose tackle. That's a huge move. Bryant Turner moves to the one-game injured list after his poor showing last week replacing Brooks.
Depth linebacker Cameron Ontko is added to the roster. DL Kache Palacio returns to the practice roster.

For the B.C. defence, the key to the game will be to pressure Darian Durant and not let him hit intermediate seam routes to the likes of impressive slotback Ricky Collins, who is averaging 17 yards a catch through two games. B.C. is the toughest team to pass against. Durant is averaging over 300 yards passing through the first two games of the year, with 5 TDs and no interceptions. Hopefully Ryan Phillips will say hello to him before the game.

The Riders made five roster moves this week as they continue to try to rebuild. Their biggest move is probably the addition of former Eskimo Cedric McKinley at starting defensive tackle ahead of ex-Lion Ese Mrabure-Ajufo. He'll provide a physical challenge the interior of B.C.'s offensive line.

The Riders are still starting three internationals on their offensive line. As the Lions found out in recent years, that can hamstring a team at skill positions, and require a lot of situational substitutions. That exposes teams with a lack of depth.

I agree B.C. Fan...not turning the football over on offence and running the football successfully will be important offensively. However, our offence has also failed to convert too many second downs when we've been in positive positions to do so.

Defensively, we go into the fourth week leading the CFL in a number of categories, including the most sacks (11, an average of 3.7 per game), fewest average points by opponents (15.3), stingiest net offence against (299 yards), and fewest average first downs allowed (17). However, last week we really got hurt by the run in the second half. The return of Brooks will hopefully make a big difference.

Looking forward to see how Jennings comes out and plays in the first quarter of this game.

Last week the Riders showed they had no quit in them. Down 33-19 with just a little over 5 minutes to play, they came back and tied the game.

I'm pleased that Allen will get a second start and hope he plays well.
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CardiacKid wrote:
Blitz wrote:An interesting stat going into our game against Regina is that the Rough Riders have only given up one sack in their first two outings.

Its a good thing that Brooks is back in our lineup for Regina. We missed him against Toronto.
In their game against the Esks, the Riders went with 3 internationals on the offensive line; not sure if that was the case in their first game. That may mean St. John gets rushed into a starting role perhaps? Particularly if Jones wants international talent in the receiving corps.
Be interesting how he plays it this Saturday. Andrew Jones will get his first start at center.

While Jones has not played as aggressive a defense so far as he has previously used in his career I found this statement by Jones (whose defenses have been known to blitz a ton, create a lot of havoc, and run a lot of 0 defenses) interesting.
“Just for y’all’s information, Cover Zero is when you don’t play with a free safety and you blitz everybody. It has been 86-per-cent successful over my career for a 3.3-yard average, so that’s why we run it
.”

Jones certainly justifies why aggressive defense, with the necessary personell to play that style, is effective.
"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)
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WestCoastJoe
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Blitz wrote:
Be interesting how he plays it this Saturday. Andrew Jones will get his first start at center.

While Jones has not played as aggressive a defense so far as he has previously used in his career I found this statement by Jones (whose defenses have been known to blitz a ton, create a lot of havoc, and run a lot of 0 defenses) interesting.
“Just for y’all’s information, Cover Zero is when you don’t play with a free safety and you blitz everybody. It has been 86-per-cent successful over my career for a 3.3-yard average, so that’s why we run it
.”

Jones certainly justifies why aggressive defense, with the necessary personell to play that style, is effective.
Great post, Blitz. With Jones, it is we might expect.

:thup:

This fan likes it. Jones knows. Whether he can crank up an offence, or sustain player loyalty? We will see. Probably can.
John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.
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SammyGreene
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Blitz wrote:The Riders will be hungry for a win, having lost their first two games, playing at home and having lost a very close contest against Edmonton. Our Leos began the season with a lot of confidence and the loss to the Argos was unexpected. How we respond in Regina will tell us a lot about this 2016 edition of the B.C. Lions.

We'll either be 3-1 heading into the bye week or 2-2. Its an important contest for Wally Buono and our Leos in this early part of our season.
A big one Blitz for just Week #4 for sure. A real swing game where we find out if the Lions start was for real or are the team many people predicted at the start of the season and will be battling the Riders and Bombers for 3rd place.

The is heat starting to get cranked up on this sputtering passing attack and Jennings too. Simply we need to get the ball in the hands of our playmakers and into space and let them do their thing. Ottawa and Edmonton were great examples of that this past week. The end result was Harris and Riley again having monster games through the air. The YAC yardage for both teams was through the roof. Ours has been minimal through 3 games with Jones not creating enough isolation situations.

Baffled why Adekolu is not part of the receiver rotation and at least see if he can provide a different look to the wide side spot compared to Ianuzzi. But it ultimately might take adding another international to make the receiver group more dynamic as Hawkins and his deep threat ability has not been replaced.
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CardiacKid
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I expect the Lions have accounted for Jonathon Newsome in their offensive game planning. So far this season he is making a case for being a strong candidate for MODP. IMO he is the player with most impact on the Riders defence and will need to be dealt with if the Leo's plan on having an improved outing on offense.
Blitz
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A big one Blitz for just Week #4 for sure. A real swing game where we find out if the Lions start was for real or are the team many people predicted at the start of the season and will be battling the Riders and Bombers for 3rd place.

The is heat starting to get cranked up on this sputtering passing attack and Jennings too. Simply we need to get the ball in the hands of our playmakers and into space and let them do their thing. Ottawa and Edmonton were great examples of that this past week. The end result was Harris and Riley again having monster games through the air. The YAC yardage for both teams was through the roof. Ours has been minimal through 3 games with Jones not creating enough isolation situations.

Baffled why Adekolu is not part of the receiver rotation and at least see if he can provide a different look to the wide side spot compared to Ianuzzi. But it ultimately might take adding another international to make the receiver group more dynamic as Hawkins and his deep threat ability has not been replaced.

SammyGreene
2015 MVP

Definitely a swing game Sammy! Like you, I have been wishing for Adekolu to get an opportunity. Down the road, perhaps Boldejiwn will get an opportunity as an International and create a different look to our receiver package. While we have missed Hawkins and his retirement was a surprise and a disappointment, I really don't believe our passing attack challenges come down to just the l ack of not replacing Hawkins with another deep threat.

I've been frustrated with our passing attack from the 2013 season onward. Our passing attack in 2013 was hampered by Lulay's shoulder injury and a lack of a running attack for a chunk of that season until we brought in Logan and revamped our blocking scheme towards the end of that season.

I hated our passing scheme in 2014 and our poor pass blocking didn't help. Khari Jones five and six pack passing packages were slot back oriented and lacked imagination. When Tedord arrived, I believed we would go to more pro sets and a more multi-formational dynaic passing attack. We had decent pass blocking last season for the most part but our passing offence struggled under Cortez, who just took our tight ends and made them slotbacks in a spread offence sytem. Jennings came out throwing aggressively when he got his opportunity and played impressively to begin with but tailed as he played more games.

However, with a training camp under his belt as our starter and with a group of receivers who he was comfortable with, there were big expectations for Jennings and our passing offence this season. So far, the results are disappointing. Our running game has been impressive and should have set up our passing attack to be very successful. However we rank 8th in passing yards (and really should rank dead last because the Riders have only 100 less passing yards than us and have played one game less) and our passing percentage completion rate is the worst in the CFL.

One major problem that I see is that we are still in a basic spread offence with little innovation, motion, isolation, misdirection play action, movement of the pocket, etc. All CFL teams are using some type of spead offence. But most have integrated some spice to bring additional flavors. However, we continue to run basic stuff. CFL defenses have seen this type of offence for so long now that they know it well.

Execution is one thing but the major advantage an offence has is the element of surprise , to do the unexpected, or to go away from tendency, by formation, motion, play call, deployment of personnel for matchup advantage etc.

At one time, I believed that CFL offences would move towards the multi-formational trend that the NFL went to. Successful teams like New England, Seattle, etc. moved away from the spread. New England began to use more tight end pro sets, stopped running their offence exclusively out of the shot gun or the pistol, and used a variety of formations, including the spread on certain passing downs but not always.

We're asking a lot from Jennings and our receivers. Our passing offence calls for a high level of execution due to a very predictable passing attack. Defenses can key on Arsenault and over play our slots by bringing their safety up and dropping their wide side corner off, making things more difficult.

Hopefully this game, we'll see some different looks from our offensive passing package to compliment our running game. It will be interesting to see how Jones plays us.
"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)
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