DanoT wrote:Great post Blitz as it covered most of what I was thinking.
That was one of the rare times when Wally admits that he got out coached
Levy Adcock was, no surprise, not in game shape. So why didn't the Lions rotate Hunter Steward to RT? or is Steward a LT only? OTOH with all the 2 and outs for the Lions and long drives by Stamps I guess Adcock was getting rest.
mos
How is Steward suppose to learn the LG position if he backs up a 36 year old who may not be here next year? Based on the play of the O line, I would expect Steward and perhaps Vaillancourt to start next game.
Broken record time: When are we going to see some screen passes and quick developing plays? The Stamps on D were playing like they recognized the play call, pre snap, and at times were running the routes for the Lions receivers. Time to turn to a new page in the playbook and use some deception especially when the team is not winning the man on man battles.
For the Stamps on O this was a classic Dave Dickenson game with lots of short and medium quick passing plays, dinking and dunking their way down the field with possession football.
One thing as a fan about having our team so thoroughly outplayed, there is no agonizing the next day about "what if" or "if only". The turning point of the game was the opening whistle.
We've almost always been a predictable offensive team because we've run the same spread offence for so long in the Buono era in B.C. The only two seasns in which our offence was not very predicable was in 2011 and 2012. Historically, defenses have been been able to shut down our offence in big games. You just have to look at our Grey Cup loss in 2004, our WDF loss in 2005, the fact that Montreal, with its 6th rated defence, was able to shut down our offence for most of the 2006 Grey Cup game and we lost the WDF in 2007, with our offence mostly shut down again. Fast forward from 2008-2015, outside of our 2011 Grey Cup season and you can see the pattern.
We've been fortunate to have the quality of quarterbacks we've had here in B.C. from Dickenson to Printers in 2004, to Lulay in 2011-2012, and Jennings right now, along with big play offensive players such as Simon, Clermont, Thelwell, Harris, Arsenault for many of those seasons.
But our offensive play book has never been very imaginative, outside of 2011 and 2012, when we used a lot of formations, misdirection, play action, and motion and a more diversified offence.
Our running game consists of the inside zone read run. That's it, with a quick toss thrown in every few games. Our passing game is mainly a deep intermediate or long passing attack. If a defense is able to get pressure on our quarterback, our offence has few strategies and relies on our quarterback making great passes under duress or being able to escape. We're a pocket passing spread offence team that doesn't fool anyone. Great quarterbacking is required to make it work.
Put Bo Levi Mitchell into our offence and he would have his struggles. Bo Levi can take a look for a deeper pattern and always has a second read underneath that gives him a high percentage play. We don't.
Defensively, we've played a lot of soft zone coverage and once again rely on either getting pressure on the quarterback or great play by our linebackers and secondary. We don't take away the opposition's strenths. For example, we know that McDaniel is Bo Levi's go to guy on second down. We could run a combination coverage on him with man/zone to take that away. Do we try to do that? No! We play the same way, no matter what or who.
You cant' always just out execute another team with the same stuff. That only works when you have superior talent. As you point out Dano T, a little deception or unpredictability can go a ong way. Throw in a fake play action bootleg for Jennings. Add a quick reverse for Rainey. Line up two tight ends and an extra back and throw off it on first down. Run a rub route on a linebacker and hit the back out of the backfield. Sprinkle in a misdirection screen for Lumbala. The play that got us a lot of yardage in 2011 was a fake handoff to Harris, a fake reverse, and a bootleg by Lulay, who threw it to Harris coming out of the backfield off the fake and getting open downfield.
To answer your question, Dano T. Steward has always played the left side. He is a natural left tackle but Wally did not have a National backup for him so he wanted to move him to guard, where if he gets hurt, we have depth at that position. But we certainly agree that Steward needs to play, if he is going to learn the left guard position and I didnt' see him play badly at all. Our offensive line looked its best with Steward and Vaillencourt at guard in our first two games.
No question Dano T, that Calgary was using a lot of pre-snap reads on defense and jumping some of our routes.
I also really wish that we would give Adekolu some rotations at the field wide out position. He is a big target, with excellent hands. Marco Iannuzzi has been our starter since 2011. He's started 88 games for us and has 90 receptions, an average of 1 catch per game. Quarterbacks talk with their throwing arm, no matter who the coach starts. For example, just watch the Grey Cup game of 2011, with Iannuzzi hurt and Paris Jackson playing in his place or whenever Paris Jackson came into a game in his final years here. As soon as he entered the game, Lulay threw to him. Iannuzzi had 3 catches last night, because our slotbacks were blanketed. But Iannuzzi is often ignored by Jennings, as he was by Lulay, even when he is open in the flat.
And I totally concur Dano T - the turning point of the game was the opening whistle.
"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)
