Lions at Redblacks postgame stats and comments

[SammyGreene]

It was a game in which to lionize the versatility of Rainey and the leadership of Jennings, who put together a winning drive late in the fourth quarter, after the Lions trailed 23-21.

On that critical, eight-play drive, Jennings connected with Manny Arceneaux (24 yards) and Bryan Burnham (34 yards) to put Travis Lulay into position for a one-yard touchdown run, the winning score.

In only his 15th regular-season career start, Jennings paid a heavy price, however. He was buffeted by a furious rush and sacked six times. Nonetheless, he managed to throw for almost 300 yards (289) without a pick and represented leadership incarnate.

“He made some big-time plays when the pressure was on him,” Buono said. “Jonathon’s growing, he’s learning, and he will continue to grow. He’s a soft-spoken kid, but he’s tough. He’s physically tough and mentally tough.”

“He’s a commander, a leader in the huddle,” added running back Anthony Allen, making his first start since July 29. “The players have a lot of faith in him.”

Vancouver Sun

For me, the offensive player of the game was Jennings. He completed 23 of 31 passes, most while under heavy pressure. He threw accurate passes with defenders in his face and surrounding him. His mobility enabled him to buy time to throw a number of times. Jennings also ran five times in the game and had to. He also had a first half drive end up with only one point on a missed Leone field goal and a second half drive wiped out by Arsenault's fumble.

Bazzie had two sacks and a knock down and it was his key sack on Harris, on a rollout, on second down, with the Red Blacks threatening to score the winning touchdown towards the end of the game, that was so important, forcing the Red Blacks into a third down and 17.

Rainey had 182 all purpose yards in the game. He has been asking Buono for more opportunities to play offence and got more in this game.

I thought our defense played well overall but five defensive lapses led to Harris completing passes of 44, 39, 30, 52 and 53 yards.The total of those five pass plays total was 218 yards and comprised the majority of the Riders passing offence.

With the six sacks on Jennings, my hope is that we will see some offensive line changes. Dorazio started the year off well but the mad professor always needs to erexperiment. Get Vaillencourt and Steward back in the starting lineup. Determine if Adcock is Lgoing to get better quickly or get Antonio Johnson back in there.

On defense, I didn't focus on Gaitor's play for his first game but he didn't look like he was particularly picked on. It wouldn't upset me if we replaced Stewart at corner. It would be interesting to see Fenner given a shot at corner.

In terms of kicking and punting, I always preferred Fera to Leone, while realizing that Leone was the better punter. I wonder if we shouldn't be looking for a Canadian field goal kicker to replace Leone's field goal kicking duties. We could use Leone for kickoffs and long field goal attempts. Taking Shaq Murray Lawrence out of the lineup for a Canadian field goal kicker would make sense to me. Perhaps it would have to wait for next season but we should think about drafting a National field goal kicker.

More great thoughts as usual Blitz!

First off kudos to the Lions for pulling out a big win in the 2nd half. Was very concerned at halftime watching constant pressure disrupt the offence for what had been going on for the better part of 8 quarters. In the end, Jennings threw for close to 300 yards when he was sitting at 75 after 2 quarters. Made some big throws and some terrific YAC work by Manny and Burnham, especially on that winning drive. The hitch to Burnham and the subsequent blocks in front of him might have been the Lions best executed play of the night.
But as Blitz, Cro and others have mentioned, we are relying too much on Jennings to make plays. Nothing seems to come easy compared to watching Calgary and even Ottawa the past 2 weeks. Hell, Harris had thrown for nearly 300 yards in the opening half alone and I thought the defence wasn't even that bad.

Lions were way too vulnerable on the deep ball last night. That long play to Ellingson before the half and Williams in the 4th quarter just can't happen. And both were wide open. Almost like waiting for the ball on a kick return.

Bazzie was a beast. Best game I have seen as him as a Lion. Amazing 2nd effort for that huge sack on Ottawa's final drive. Basically tripped up Harris while lying on the ground.

Rainey is having a monster season. One of the league's most dynamic players and a thing of beauty watching him kick it into high gear.

Good call by David on the post game show last night regarding Leone and the Lions o-line personnel. I keep saying Leone NEVER kicked FGs in college at Houston. We are seeing why. Is it going to take losing a game before Wally finally does something? He is frickin 65 percent (17 of 26) on accuracy. That is horrendous!

The mismanaging of Steward, Valliancourt and now Antonio Johnson is truly baffling. The offensive line has struggled mightily at times the last couple of weeks. LU suggested last night maybe the Lions aren't interested in extending Steward beyond this season so they aren't concerned so much about his development, although Moj said he has been told he will eventually be back in as a starter for O'Neill. Just truly bizarre.

[B.C.FAN]

I give the coaching staff and players full marks for in-game adjustments. Despite the nail-biting score, that was a dominating performance by the Lions in the second half. They had three trips inside the Ottawa 10-yard line in their first four possessions of the second half but came away with only one TD, thanks to a fumble and missed FG. Jennings also took a bad sack on their next possession that took them out of FG range. The Lions should have had an extra 10 points on those possessions, which would have made it a 39-23 game and been much more reflective of the play.

Wally said Ottawa caught the Lions off guard in the first half by playing more zone defence than the Lions expected. Jennings struggled to find the open receiver and often held the ball too long. The passing stats for the two QBs show the effects of B.C.'s halftime adjustments on offence and defence. Harris completed 15 of 16 passes in the first half but only 8 of 14 in the second half. Jennings completed 8 of 12 pases for 71 yards in the first half and 15 of 19 for 218 yards in the second half.

Overall, the Lions dominated in time of possession (36:31 to 23:29) and first downs (26-16). Most of Ottawa's offence came on five long pass plays.

I agree with those who have said the Lions have to work on their anti-blitz packages. They have called a few screens in the past two games and the wide-receiver screen to Burnham that set up the winning TD was a thing of beauty. Part of the problem is that Jennings has to do a better job of recognizing defences. He is still a young player who has started only 15 games. On one sack last night, it was clear before the snap that Ottawa was blitzing off the edge to the right of Jennings. Instead of getting rid of the ball, he held it for a sack that took the Lions out of field goal position. On another sack, Ottawa rushed three players. The tackles kept the defensive ends to the outside, leaving three interior linemen to handle the nose tackle. Instead of stepping up in the pocket when his first read wasn't open, Jennings tried to escape to the right, right into the path of the DE who had been pushed there by Adcock.

[The_Pauser]

I would seriously consider bringing in Swayze Waters, either to take over both punting and place kicking duties, or dress them both and work out the ratio elsewhere (maybe this means we start one less import linebacker in favour of the extra import kicker? Or we drop Boldewijn off the roster in favour of Blaszko?)

Our O-Line was awful again last night. Levi Adcock got beat and was made to look foolish on several plays. Even Olafioye didn't have a strong game. At this point I would put Johnson back in and cut Adcock (or at least bench him for now). He's clearly a step behind.

[Blitz]

I was going to suggest we pluck Quinn Van Glyswick off the Riders practice roster....partly to fill a need but also to stick it to Chris Jones. Alas he is on the 6-game IR and not the PR.

Would folks say Adcock at least improved this game versus the game against Calgary? As for Vaillencourt and Steward, I think they need to get back in there regardless of past indiscretions with penalties (Steward I am talking about). Wally talked up the size and physicality of the O-Line, let's get back to implementing that and give the unit a chance to operate as a cohesive unit before the playoffs are well and truly looming.

Right now, teams have virtually abandoned the run. The Leos lead the league in yards rushed. IMO the Leos need to entrench this strength because at some point, the tide will turn back towards the run. Probably not in huge numbers but as defenses adjust to the pass, the run is going to become more vital as the year progresses. I think the Leos will rely on their running game (and its depth) to a greater degree and the O-Line with Steward and Vaillencourt did really well at the start of the year with pounding out yards, taking time of the clock etc.

Dunigan made a good point last night regarding passing yard stats for QBs. It used to be that if a QB got over 300 yds in a game, you pretty much assumed they did pretty good. But now, everybody and their dog seems to be cracking 300 y. ds because the run has gone out the window.

And kudos to the RedBlacks for having 3 Canadians start on their d-line; the fact they lead the league in sacks makes it all the more intriguing.

Like you CardiacKid, I'm happy that we are sticking with the running game. When we do that, it usually pays dividends in the fourth quarter. I thought Allen played well. He's not a break away runner but he's a tough runner. If we had him running behind 223 pound Steward and 330 pound Vaillencourt at guard, I believe our running game would be better.

Adcock was better in this game but he still didn't play well nor did Fabian. Adcock looks really slow on pass protection. We opened holes more often with Steward playing than we have with O'Neil. Johnson was a better pass protector because he is quicker than Adcock. Dorazio recommended Adcock to Wally so he is going to play him to rationalize his decision.

We run the football on first down more than any other CFL team. What I would like to see us do more is to line up double tight ends and play action off it more on first down. It would get defenses to back off stacking the box so much on first down.

We also need to find a way to attack the outside with our running attack. Its almost all inside zone runs. Its hard to do from the spread formation. Instead of just inside zone read, we could run some zone read option, an occasional fly sweep, the quick pitch toss, etc. to attack the edges with the running game to help open up the inside run more.

Our receiving crew has sure improved this season. Manny has been so much better since we moved him to slot back a season and a half ago. But its been the improved play this year of Burnham and Gore that impress. Burnham has great hands and he is a deceptive runner after making a catch. Gore has been a different player since we moved him to boundary wide receiver. Boldewijn had four catches in this game and looked much more confident. He is a big target.

We've also moved our recievers around a bit more this game, in terms of pre-snap. I still wish we would play Adekolu at field wide out and just use Iannuzzi for punt returns and add him to the kickoff return unit, in place of Shaq Murray Lawrence.

You could see the difference between the range of Edem and Fraser, when Edem went out of the game. Fraser was slow getting over on Ernest Jackson's 30 yard touchdown reception.

One defensive player who often goes under the radar is Ronnie Yell. He is an outstanding corner. He is a very good cover guy and he is a very good tackler. He's also had to play with three different boundary halfbacks so far this season. On the other side, Stewart's play has not been anything to write home about. He has experience but his play has not been impressive but rather average at best.

This was the second time in three weeks that Jennings has led a game winning drive in the fourth quarter. We began to use shorter pass routes in the fourth quarter. The short cross to Arsenault led to a big gain. The hitch screen to Burnham turned into a huge play. We need to do more of those kinds of plays. The short cross to Rainey led to a touchdown. In the first half, on second and four, we had all our receivers running deep intermediate routes.

[WestCoastJoe]

Some good. Some bad.

Good result.

Jennings is a rare talent, as this fan has noted repeatedly. His work as a QB is oftentimes done without the essential help of anti-blitz packages. Amazing. And foolhardy of the staff to go this route.

He is helped enormously by our receiving crew, which has risen to high levels with him as QB.

OL? We have been down this road repeatedly since 2003. It ain't good. Diversity in run game missing in action. Pass protection missing in action.

Team talent. Outstanding.

Team character. Outstanding.

Defence. Keep the foot down hard on the pedal, MW.

Gotta fix the FG situation. Fast.

If we slip back into ultra conservative philosophy, we die as a team.

Khari needs to accelerate his development as an OC. Fast. As OC, he should be higher than Dan D on the management grid. They need pro level pass protection schemes, not what they have, which is really just JJ's quick reads, quick release, and quick feet.

Excellent comments, Guys.

[maxlion]

Good call by David on the post game show last night regarding Leone and the Lions o-line personnel. I keep saying Leone NEVER kicked FGs in college at Houston. We are seeing why. Is it going to take losing a game before Wally finally does something? He is frickin 65 percent (17 of 26) on accuracy. That is horrendous!

The mismanaging of Steward, Valliancourt and now Antonio Johnson is truly baffling. The offensive line has struggled mightily at times the last couple of weeks. LU suggested last night maybe the Lions aren't interested in extending Steward beyond this season so they aren't concerned so much about his development, although Moj said he has been told he will eventually be back in as a starter for O'Neill. Just truly bizarre.

I said in the spring that we should be targeting Lirim Hajrullahu in free agency, who is averaging 44.9 yards on punts and is 85% on FGs, and is a young Canadian to boot. Perhaps he'd rather play in Toronto anyways, but he would have solved all of our kicking problems for years to come.

The one time I paid attention to Steward last night was when a RedBlack blew by him untouched and sacked Jennings. Hard to see what Dorazio sees in Adcock so far. Last year was the first year in a long long time that our QBs got adequate protection from the Oline. This year, our QBs are back to running for their lives again. I want to like Dorazio and hoped this year would be different, but it's not!

We beat a good team with an excellent QB, but there were a lot of warts in this win. That said, we've had a lot of exciting games this year, so can't complain too much!

[maxlion]

This was the second time in three weeks that Jennings has led a game winning drive in the fourth quarter. We began to use shorter pass routes in the fourth quarter. The short cross to Arsenault led to a big gain. The hitch screen to Burnham turned into a huge play. We need to do more of those kinds of plays. The short cross to Rainey led to a touchdown. In the first half, on second and four, we had all our receivers running deep intermediate routes.

IN my view, this should be our bread and butter. Jennings is great at this game when he gets the chance, and we have the receivers who can muscle their way to first downs. Add in some deep routes to Rainey or Arseneaux and we'll be unstoppable.

[Blitz]

First off kudos to the Lions for pulling out a big win in the 2nd half. Was very concerned at halftime watching constant pressure disrupt the offence for what had been going on for the better part of 8 quarters. In the end, Jennings threw for close to 300 yards when he was sitting at 75 after 2 quarters. Made some big throws and some terrific YAC work by Manny and Burnham, especially on that winning drive. The hitch to Burnham and the subsequent blocks in front of him might have been the Lions best executed play of the night.

But as Blitz, Cro and others have mentioned, we are relying too much on Jennings to make plays. Nothing seems to come easy compared to watching Calgary and even Ottawa the past 2 weeks. Hell, Harris had thrown for nearly 300 yards in the opening half alone and I thought the defence wasn't even that bad.

Lions were way too vulnerable on the deep ball last night. That long play to Ellingson before the half and Williams in the 4th quarter just can't happen. And both were wide open. Almost like waiting for the ball on a kick return.

Bazzie was a beast. Best game I have seen as him as a Lion. Amazing 2nd effort for that huge sack on Ottawa's final drive. Basically tripped up Harris while lying on the ground.

Rainey is having a monster season. One of the league's most dynamic players and a thing of beauty watching him kick it into high gear.

Good call by David on the post game show last night regarding Leone and the Lions o-line personnel. I keep saying Leone NEVER kicked FGs in college at Houston. We are seeing why. Is it going to take losing a game before Wally finally does something? He is frickin 65 percent (17 of 26) on accuracy. That is horrendous!

The mismanaging of Steward, Valliancourt and now Antonio Johnson is truly baffling. The offensive line has struggled mightily at times the last couple of weeks. LU suggested last night maybe the Lions aren't interested in extending Steward beyond this season so they aren't concerned so much about his development, although Moj said he has been told he will eventually be back in as a starter for O'Neill. Just truly bizarre. Sammy Greene

It is bizzare Sammy! Of course don't forget this is the same Dorazio that changed his entire blocking scheme post mid-season in 2013, who tried to convert Valli into a center, when he believed Angus Reid was washed up, who tried to convert a rookie right guard into a center during training camp in Matt Norman, who used Mo Elonowibi as a left tackle in the 2005 WDF, whose offensive line gave up the most sacks in the CFL, during the first time of his tenure as our Leos offensive line coach...and he either had Dickenson or mobile quarterbacks like Printers, Pierce, Jackson, and Lulay during those seasons. and whose offensive line gave up the most sacks in 2005 and 2006, even though we had an offensive line anchored by of Angus Reid, Jason Jiminez, and Rob Murphy.

We went into this season thinking O'Neil, at 36 years old, a backup center/guard for Hamilton last year, would be our center. Husband surprised at training camp. We switched Oliofoye to left tackle, believing Dorazio was right about Adcock, we moved Steward to guard, and Vaillencourt impressed at training camp. We wanted a bigger, meaner, more aggressive offensive line. Steward is a talent. He is a tremendous athlete for an offensive lineman. Vaillencourt is 330 pounds of meanness.

Obviously Adcock was not ready for regular starting duty at right tackle. Not even sure if he is good enough.

You are so right on about Jennings. He doesn't get to nickel and dime. He does not get a moving pocket. He does not have anti-blitz strategies to work with. Its simply Jennings in the pocket, expected to make great throws while usually under a lot of pressure to throw to fairly well covered receivers who are usually 15-20 yards downfield.

You only have to look at Dickenson in the 2004 Grey Cup, the 2005 WDF, the 2006 Grey Cup, and the 2007 WDF to realize that even a great quarterback will experience struggles in our spread offence when he is asked to almost do it all...and we had Simon and Clermont and Thelwell in those days.

I would love to see us back using the type of offence we used through the second part of 2011 and the 2012 season. We used a lot of motion, misdirection, formations, and more deception in those two seasons, at least most of the time. Me moved the pocket a lot more, most of the time.

Lose Jennings to injury and our offence will struggle....even if Lulays' arm is healed. We didn't just struggle offensively in 2014 and 2015 because of Glenn and Lulay. We struggled due to an unimaginative, predictable spread offence.

Some could say...we just won a big game and we're having a turnaround season - quit *beeotch*. I am enjoying this season but its frustrating to realize we could be doing so much more with our talent on offence. In 2005, we won 11 games in a row and I was *beeotch* about our offence. Our loss in the 2005 WDF was predictable as Edmonton defenders called out our plays and their pass defenders ran our routes before we did.

Keep Rainey involved in our offence - he has lobbied to play more. Get the offensive line solidified. Move Jennings around more. Give him more options against blitzing defenses. Take some weight off his shoulders. He can't have a great game and make great throws under pressure every single game.

[TheLionKing]

On Burnham's big play to set up the winning TD, I think it was Iannuzzi and Boldewijn who threw the purrfect Olympic style choreographed Synchronized Blocking.

Perfectly executed. You can't ask more than that. Burnham had the whole sideline to himself.

[TheLionKing]

On Burnham's big play to set up the winning TD, I think it was Iannuzzi and Boldewijn who threw the purrfect Olympic style choreographed Synchronized Blocking.

Perfectly executed. You can't ask more than that. Burnham had the whole sideline to himself.

[BC 1988]

Good call by David on the post game show last night regarding Leone and the Lions o-line personnel. I keep saying Leone NEVER kicked FGs in college at Houston. We are seeing why. Is it going to take losing a game before Wally finally does something? He is frickin 65 percent (17 of 26) on accuracy. That is horrendous!

I said in the spring that we should be targeting Lirim Hajrullahu in free agency, who is averaging 44.9 yards on punts and is 85% on FGs, and is a young Canadian to boot. Perhaps he'd rather play in Toronto anyways, but he would have solved all of our kicking problems for years to come.

At that time Hajrullahu was coming off a sub-par 2nd season with WPG. Too bad Waters isn't a NAT, he would probably be back in the CFL already if he was. He has had an injury-filled last 2 seasons though.
The bright side of Leone is he has greatly improved his kicking on PAT. Last year he was terrible there as well. The Lions need to face the facts that it's too much to expect one player to handle both punts and PK. Mccallum in his old age lost his punting range, so Wally probably places more value on the field position advantage we have with Leone.

[TheLionKing]

In fairness to Adcock, this is his first live action since last year. He wasn't able to really practice in training camp due to illness. Let's give him a few games before passing judgment.

[David]

In fairness to Adcock, this is his first live action since last year. He wasn't able to really practice in training camp due to illness. Let's give him a few games before passing judgment.

I am not sure we have the luxury of giving him a few games to get it right. Really surprised they chose the biggest game of the year (Calgary) to insert him into the line-up, when he was clearly not up to game speed. It's like dropping someone off on the shoulder of Hwy 1 and saying, "here you go. Now get to the other side!"

O-line is not ideal to spell guys off due to timing, footwork, and trusting the guy beside you, but the Lions should be replacing Adcock when he struggles (i.e. at half-time last game) with Hunter Steward. I thought Steward acquitted himself very nicely at tackle when he played there. He is not a natural guard with that height and big wingspan.

I think Calgary just wrote the manual on how to disrupt Jennings. Watch other teams adopt the same strategies. It's now up to us to counter attack.


DH

[B.C. bound]

I will take the win, but lots of room for improvement. If that was Calgary they were playing again, it would have been another loss.