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Alputt
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TheLionKing wrote:Not often you lose the turnover battle and 145 yards in penalties and still come away with a win.
Agreed, 75+ yards on penalties at the half? And I believe 3 turnovers? Score aside we squeaked this one out. If Durant's glass ankle hadn't shattered who knows? Still happy for the W.
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Alputt
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WestCoastJoe wrote:Weird, intense game.

Credit to JJ. He has considerable magic.
"Considerable magic"... Well said.
dat
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Good resilience after a lot of mistakes in the first half. A typical exciting CFL game. Lions have a lot of character and depth. Good job by Anthony Allen the last few games. Great block by Rolly Lumbala on the Gore touchdown in the second half. Good entertainment after a boring Hamilton, Montreal game the night before. Lets get a few more people in the seats next game.

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TheLionKing
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Alputt wrote:
TheLionKing wrote:Not often you lose the turnover battle and 145 yards in penalties and still come away with a win.
Agreed, 75+ yards on penalties at the half? And I believe 3 turnovers? Score aside we squeaked this one out. If Durant's glass ankle hadn't shattered who knows? Still happy for the W.
Chris Jones is appealing to the league to take a look at that hit by Brooks. Thinks it may be deliberate rolling onto his ankle.
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CardiacKid
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TheLionKing wrote:
Alputt wrote:
TheLionKing wrote:Not often you lose the turnover battle and 145 yards in penalties and still come away with a win.
Agreed, 75+ yards on penalties at the half? And I believe 3 turnovers? Score aside we squeaked this one out. If Durant's glass ankle hadn't shattered who knows? Still happy for the W.
Chris Jones is appealing to the league to take a look at that hit by Brooks. Thinks it may be deliberate rolling onto his ankle.
When I saw the replay of the Riders failing that 3rd down play at the end, I noticed Lee's injury. And my first reaction was his Achilles was stomped by a Rider. I need to check the pvr...

Edit: just dumb luck...was in coverage tight and simply planted his foot. Came up hobbling immediately.
Last edited by CardiacKid on Sun Jul 17, 2016 11:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Sir Purrcival
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TheLionKing wrote:
Alputt wrote:
TheLionKing wrote:Not often you lose the turnover battle and 145 yards in penalties and still come away with a win.
Agreed, 75+ yards on penalties at the half? And I believe 3 turnovers? Score aside we squeaked this one out. If Durant's glass ankle hadn't shattered who knows? Still happy for the W.
Chris Jones is appealing to the league to take a look at that hit by Brooks. Thinks it may be deliberate rolling onto his ankle.
What a crock. Totally looked like he slipped on the play. He took Durant out low with his legs as he was going down to the ground. Seemed completely unintentional.
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maxlion
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A few thoughts...

Jennings' development was rushed last year, and growing pains should be expected. But tonight showed why Lions fans should be excited. He's not top of the class yet, but he is still the best up and coming QB in the league.

Riders are in big trouble if Durant is out for any extended time. They were foolish to not pursue a competent back up.

If Durant didn't get hurt, it would have been a more even matchup and very interesting game.

Jones is a very good coach, but can't work miracles. Riders may have a bright future, but made too many changes for one year.

Brooks was overly enthusiastic tonight and cost the team, but does not have a history of being a headhunter.

Losing Lee is big, but I think Clarke will step up. He showed signs last year that he can play.
TheLionKing
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Riders must be regretting the day they released Jennings.
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MikeAK
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TheLionKing wrote:Riders must be regretting the day they released Jennings.
No doubt. But every team goes through that. We basically gave Mike Reilly away for peanuts and look how that turned out for us. What goes around... as they say
Blitz
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It was so good to see our passing offence come alive in this game. Jennings is getting most of the credit for his play and deservedly so but it was also good to see so many of our recievers have big games. Our passing offence tends to focus a lot on Manny Arsenault. He has been targeted the most of any CFL receiver so far this season - a total of 40 times and yet he has 20 receptions from those 40 attempts. In comparison, Shawn Gore has been targeted 27 times and has 22 receptions.

Shawn Gore continued his successful play and moved up to 5th in CFL receiving. But gratifying was that Nick Moore and Bryan Burnham had big games as well. Bryan Burnham especially made some very tough catches and fought yard for after catch yardage as well.

But I thought the key to our second half offensive play was that we adjusted and went with more pro sets rather than using the spread offence - we used a lot of tight end sets and two back sets. Without that change I doubt we would have won the game.

Even though the Riders offence were unable to get a first down in the third quarter, we still trailed 23-19 going into the fourth before our offence exploded. We also benefited from two blown coverages by the Riders defense. On the Moore touchdown, the Riders only had Canadian corner back Tevaughn Campbell (who had to replace starter Justin Cox in the game, covering both Moore and Gore. On Gore's 59 yard touchdown reception he was let go by the Rider corner with apparently no deep help. Jennings took advantage of both.

We ended up with 509 yards of total offence in the game.

Defensively, the key again was making second half adjustments. Durrant had completed 7 of 10 passes, had thrown a touchdown pass to Rob Bagg, and had a 131.7 quarterback efficiency rating before he sprained his ankle. Gale had driven the Riders offence down the field in the second quarter for a touchdown as we played passive defense but in the second half we blitzed a lot more and it was the difference maker.

Rider Injuries also helped our defense. Andrew Jones, the ex-Leo and Riders backup center started the game. Riders left guard Brendon LaBatte left the game in the second quarter and was replaced by Josiah St. John, who was seeing his first action of the season. Gale replaced Durrant. Wide receiver Shamawd Chambers was also hurt, which forced Canadian Matt Walter to play tailback in place of of Curtis Steele.

Anthony Allen is now 4th in CFL rushing, even though we only really used him in the 4th quarter and he has only played two games. He had 11 carries for 61 yards. He made a smart play on his toss back to Jennings for our first touchdown and he read the play perfectly for his 7 yard touchdown score. I prefer him as our tailback. He is big, he's a powerful runner, and he reads blocking very well. We came out of this weekend still leading the CFL in rushing and rushing touchdowns.

Rolly Lumbala had an excellent game. He had a nice catch out of a tight end set, he ran the football on his first carry of the season for a nice gain in the fourth quarter, and he did a great job of reading the blitz and pass blocking.

Brooks picked up three penalties but he also showed how tough he is to block one on one, especially with a Rider offensive line missing its starting center and all-star guard.

We're 3-1 and the positives are that this Leo team can still play a lot better. Turnovers and penalties in the last two games have hurt our production and they are areas that can be cleaned up.

Beginning the first of two bye weeks in the 20-week CFL regular season, our Lions have a 13-day break before playing the Calgary Stampeders July 29 at McMahon Stadium.
"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)
South Pender
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Does anyone know the extent of Durant's leg/ankle injury?
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DanoT
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South Pender wrote:Does anyone know the extent of Durant's leg/ankle injury?
They are saying over on Riderfans that he has a lower ankle sprain, so speculation as to whether he plays against Ottawa in 6 day's time. It is the same foot as last season's Achilles injury. While he is likely pain free from the Achilles injury there might be post game swelling that could be impacted by the twisted ankle.
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Belize City Lion
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MikeAK wrote:
TheLionKing wrote:Riders must be regretting the day they released Jennings.
No doubt. But every team goes through that. We basically gave Mike Reilly away for peanuts and look how that turned out for us. What goes around... as they say
The Lions really had no choice with Reilly. They could have kept him around to backup Lulay for 1 more season but then would have lost him to Ottawa in the expansion draft. BC knew what they had in Reilly but their hands were tied with the pending expansion draft. I don't think the Riders had any idea of what Jennings would become.
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MikeAK
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Belize City Lion wrote:
MikeAK wrote:
TheLionKing wrote:Riders must be regretting the day they released Jennings.
No doubt. But every team goes through that. We basically gave Mike Reilly away for peanuts and look how that turned out for us. What goes around... as they say
The Lions really had no choice with Reilly. They could have kept him around to backup Lulay for 1 more season but then would have lost him to Ottawa in the expansion draft. BC knew what they had in Reilly but their hands were tied with the pending expansion draft. I don't think the Riders had any idea of what Jennings would become.
Hard to say though, isn't it? Did we really know what we had in Reilly? I have issues with that idea. Did Wally really see Reilly as being able to be what he's become? I don't think so. Either way, my point was more about how every team has those "Do-over" moments. So many things go into a players development and maybe Jennings never showed signs of being the player he is today and is looking at becoming. Maybe it was being told you're not wanted that made that hunger in him grow stronger. Who really knows. I'm sure Jennings is definitely one of those do-over moments. At the end of the day though, every team has them.
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DanoT
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The expansion draft had nothing to do with Reilly going to the Esks. He is 2 years younger than Lulay who was the MOP, MVP, franchise QB, and Reilly was due to become a free agent and ready to be a starting QB.

The Esks had Nicols at QB and were the best team for Reilly to compete for a starting job the following year. The Esks came to BC to play when Lulay was injured and Reilly started and was lights out throwing for 4 TDs. That was all it took for Hervey and the Esks to take no chances and decided to not wait for free agency, but to trade for and sign Reilly after that season ended and before FA started.

At the time I recall thinking that the Lions might be letting the better long term QB of the two go, but really there was nothing that they could do to keep Reilly. So, while the Lions have suffered in the short term due to Lulay's injuries, the timing of the arrival and emergence of Jennings and Lulay's accepting of his new role looks great for the long term.

The trend towards shorter pro careers resulting in less physical pounding and less negative post football health issues dovetails nicely with Lulay's new QB mentor role as he is the de-facto QB coach at game time, leaving K Jones more time to be OC/play caller. Lulay is a sort of Coach-In-Training so if he wants to be a coach when he retires...he will be in demand.
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