Leos Early Season Success Entering the First Bye Week

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Blitz
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Posts: 9094
Joined: Fri Jul 22, 2005 8:44 am

While we are 3-1, I'm hoping that our Leos coaching staff are taking a closer look at our passing attack during this bye week and making some adjustments.

One of those adjustments needs to be ball distribution. Manny Arsenault, going into this week, was the most targeted receiver in the CFL (40 targets) and yet he only had 20 receptions.

Secondly, we need to examine why our passing percentage is so low. It should be higher, especially with our successful running game. Jonathan Jennings has the lowest completion percentage in the CFL....a non-impressive 59.8 %. The only CFL quarterback who has started a game this season, who has a lower completion average is Mitchell Gale.

When one looks at quarterback efficiency, its not very good either. For example here are the quarterback effiency averages for some of the other CFL quarterbacks: Trevor Harris (139.0), Mike Reilley (115.7), Darian Durrant (111.1), Mike Reilley (108), and Bo Levi Mitchell (104) Even Mitchell Gale (98.1) has a better quarterback efficiency average than Jennings 93.2 (and Jennings quarterback efficiency really was given a lift by his performance against the Riders and the touchdown passes he threw.

Jennings has an accurate arm and throws the football with zip. I think we really need to make some adjustments to how we are attacking secondaries with out passing game. One area where we could definitely make adjustments to our passing attack is to have at least one receiver running a short route on second and short. Too often we've had all our receivers running an intermediate or deep route when we only need second and five.

Another area that stood out against the Riders, was when they had in injury to their cornerback. Instead of lining up Arsenault against the new Canadian corner Tevaughn Campbell inserted into the game, we threw deep to Arsenault against the Riders Tristan Jackson. We need to take better advantage of mismatches, when they present themselves. Yes, Gore got in behind Campbell later in the game.

We're 3-1, our run game has been very good, .our offensive line dominant at times, our defense has done a good job against the run (with the exception of the second half against Toronto, we gotten good pressure on the quarterback and our pass defense has been solid. If we can improve our passing attack, this Leo team could really go a long way.
"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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B.C.FAN
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Posts: 12581
Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2004 10:28 pm

The Lions' offensive tendencies early in the season hurt Jennings' efficiency. His tendency against the blitz was to throw low-percentage deep passes and hope that his receiver could get under them. Against Saskatchewan, he completed some deep passes against the blitz but he also completed short and intermediate passes, and his receivers helped him by picking up first downs after the catch.

Jennings' passing percentage has improved each game:

Game 1: 24/42, 57.1%
Game 2: 16/27, 59.3%
Game 3: 11/18, 61.1%
Game 4: 25/40, 62.5%

Against Saskatchewan, the Lions also went away from their tendency to run on first down and pass on second down. They've still run the ball more than any other team, but against Saskatchewan they ran the ball just over a third of the time on first down. The run/pass ratio was even lower before the Lions took the lead in the fourth quarter and started pounding the ball on the ground to control the clock. Breaking tendencies keeps defences off balance and opens more opportunities all over the field.
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