Lions-Eskimos post-game stats and comments

[Blitz]

I didn't think the bye week hurt us. We jumped out to a 14-0 lead and looked fresh to start with. Edmonton was playing its 4th game in 18 days and had only one practice to prepare for us.

Edmonton should have gotten tired as the game wore on and we should have become more dominant. But time of possession was a factor. Edmonton had the football for 33:31 vs. our 26:29. Ourlack of rushing showed up. Edmonton ran the football 30 times compared to our 14 times and Edmonton almost doubled us in rushing yards

We had 55 defensive tackles to Edmonton's 29 defensive tackles. That meant our defense had to put out way more energy than Edmonton did.

Our penalties hurt us a bit - we had 11 penalties for 110 yds. (6 on offence, only two on defense) but Edmonton overcame 17 penalties for 161 yds. We overcame the two sacks we took in the second half. Jennings completed an 18 yd. pass to Gore after the Sewell sack. Willis sack was negated by a hit to the head on Jennings.


But in the second half, two pass knockdowns killed one drive, Gore's holding call killed another, after Johnson had ran for a first down, killed another.

A really huge negative play in the second half was when Johnson was stopped dead on second and 1 and Leone had to kick a field goal.

But the most painful offensive scenario took place in the fourth quarter. With first down on the Edmonton 5 yard line, Jennings threw to Iannuzzi, the third time he had tried to throw to him unsuccessfuly in the fourth quarter. Then Jennings was sacked by Willis on second down. A quick swing to Rainey, who was open in the flat would have been an easy play. A quick cross against man would have been difficult to defend. We had to kick the field goal. Bad play calling. The four exta points would have been huge at that point in the game.

[Dusty]

Excellent (and educational !!) analysis of last night's game. Lots of comments on the play calling. I'm a cable cutter so I did not see the game, so I am assuming that Kahari is on the sidelines calling the play. I'm wondering what the role of the spotters in the upstairs booth in this. Who is the Offensive spotter upstairs and why can't they see the game unfolding such that they influence the OC calls on the field?

Is it a lack of suitable plays in the play book or is it a lack of innovation (and influence) from the spotters?

[maxlion]

Overaall just a disappointing and error-filled game. Jennings wasn't very sharp--interceptions, poorly thrown balls, ignoring open receivers. Dropped passes and untimely penalties didn't help, nor did having 2 passengers among the receivers (Sinkfield and as usual Ianuzzi). The run game would've likely opened up if the offense had established some rhythm and momentum, but it never did, and just didn't end up running enough plays to establish the run.

Defense had its moments but game up some big plays. Brandon Stewart doesn't impress me too much, but it's lucky we have him given the injuries.

The team just lacked focus and execution. Offensive schemes are not innovative, but will work more often than not if the players perform. Last night they didn't.

[CardiacKid]

Disappointing the run game for the Leos was such a non-factor, particularly when it seemed to be largely due to the offensive game plan and not what Edmonton did. I got to think that more plays involving the run would have helped the Oline get in their groove... Plus this time of year you don't phase out the run game, you do the opposite.

Any word on Steward's injury? His reaction on the field made me think his foot was broken....again. I did happen to catch sight of him later on walking under his own steam so at least that was encouraging.

The defense needs to start making plays that result in points. Obviously easier said than done but for a defense that is as talented as ours, it is bit of a puzzler that our take-away numbers are not terribly good. Defensive end (aside from Bazzie) is not making the impact that is needed; sacks are the paramount measure and Roh has 3? Perhaps Turner or Hudson should get tagged as the starters. That Edmonton offensive line may not get the credit its due but I think it flattered to deceive last night.

[TheLionKing]

Buono said in the postgame that Steward's injury does not seem serious.

[Blitz]

Disappointing the run game for the Leos was such a non-factor, particularly when it seemed to be largely due to the offensive game plan and not what Edmonton did. I got to think that more plays involving the run would have helped the Oline get in their groove... Plus this time of year you don't phase out the run game, you do the opposite.

Any word on Steward's injury? His reaction on the field made me think his foot was broken....again. I did happen to catch sight of him later on walking under his own steam so at least that was encouraging.

The defense needs to start making plays that result in points. Obviously easier said than done but for a defense that is as talented as ours, it is bit of a puzzler that our take-away numbers are not terribly good. Defensive end (aside from Bazzie) is not making the impact that is needed; sacks are the paramount measure and Roh has 3? Perhaps Turner or Hudson should get tagged as the starters. That Edmonton offensive line may not get the credit its due but I think it flattered to deceive last night.

No word on Steward's injury so far. I watched him line up beside Olifioye last night and he made Jovan look small beside him. Steward is too tall to be a guard. He really should be playing tackle. Sure hope his foot is not broken. Vaillencourt made a great run block for Johnson in the second half but looked a bit slow on twists...but he hasn't played in a long time.

I just watched Calgary and Winnipeg play. What a game. The Bombers came back from a 24-0 and 31-7 deficit to go ahead by 1 with 20 seconds left. Two pass plays later and Paravedes kicks the game winning 52 yard field goal. I started pulling for Winnipeg but happy they didn't end up winning after all. They are going to be a tough team to play against.

Calgary got a great rush with only four defensive linemen in the first half. They didn't blitz once because they didn't need to. I wish we could get that kind of pressure from our front four.

Offensively, Calgary has used 10 different offensive lineman this year. They couldn't even practice with their offensive line one week this year because so many were injured. Yet they protect Bo Levi like no tomorrow. Wish we could give Jennings that kind of time to throw.

Offensive and defensive line play can make such a huge difference. So does offensive scheme and play calling. We need to get a lot better in these areas. Time for Adekolu to play some.

[CardiacKid]

Any word on Steward's injury? His reaction on the field made me think his foot was broken....again. I did happen to catch sight of him later on walking under his own steam so at least that was encouraging.

No word on Steward's injury so far. I watched him line up beside Olifioye last night and he made Jovan look small beside him. Steward is too tall to be a guard. He really should be playing tackle.

Steward has actually shrunk. In speaking with his mum after the last home game, I learned he was about an inch taller in high school.

[B.C.FAN]

Any word on Steward's injury? His reaction on the field made me think his foot was broken....again. I did happen to catch sight of him later on walking under his own steam so at least that was encouraging.

According to Mike Beamish, Steward hopes it's only a mild ankle sprain. Steward knows a few things about foot injuries. I hope he's right about this one.

Late in the second quarter, Lions starting left guard Hunter Steward was helped from the field after suffering what he hopes is only a mild ankle sprain.

“I’m not going to say too much on it right now, because I don’t know,” Steward said. “But I think I’m going to be OK.”

Five Things from Friday’s Lions-Eskimos game

[maxlion]

Any word on Steward's injury? His reaction on the field made me think his foot was broken....again. I did happen to catch sight of him later on walking under his own steam so at least that was encouraging.

According to Mike Beamish, Steward hopes it's only a mild ankle sprain. Steward knows a few things about foot injuries. I hope he's right about this one.

Late in the second quarter, Lions starting left guard Hunter Steward was helped from the field after suffering what he hopes is only a mild ankle sprain.

“I’m not going to say too much on it right now, because I don’t know,” Steward said. “But I think I’m going to be OK.”

Five Things from Friday’s Lions-Eskimos game

Just read this article and Purifoy's comments caught my eye.
“I tried to lay him out,” Purifoy admitted. “He better slide next time. He should be a running back, if he wants to do all that dumb (bleep). I told him, straight up, ‘If you don’t slide, bro’, I’m going to give you a lick "
This was a blatant headshot that I noted in the game day thread. Apparently, Purifoy is an idiot. Stuff like this makes me want to quit watching football.

[B.C.FAN]

Just read this article and Purifoy's comments caught my eye.
“I tried to lay him out,” Purifoy admitted. “He better slide next time. He should be a running back, if he wants to do all that dumb (bleep). I told him, straight up, ‘If you don’t slide, bro’, I’m going to give you a lick "
This was a blatant headshot that I noted in the game day thread. Apparently, Purifoy is an idiot. Stuff like this makes me want to quit watching football.

From the replays I saw, It looked like a clean hit to the upper back of Reilly. The TV commentators also said it was clean. I'm with Purifoy on this one. If a QB is running downfield with the ball, he's a fair target. QBs and coaches know that.

[SammyGreene]

Have to hang this loss on the offence.
As Blitz so meticulously has pointed out, Benevides made adjustments to his coverage after the 2nd Manny TD strike and the Lions never countered or improvised.
Jennings was well on his way to a huge night passing and finished with a very pedestrian 278 total with the bulk of those yards accomplished by early in the 2nd quarter. Just stunning to see not another ball thrown Sinkfield’s way the rest of the night.
Burnham was extremely quiet too except for a telegraphed hitch pass where he got absolutely rocked.

Lions were dominated in the trenches on both sides of the ball. Our offensive line can look dominant and extremely ordinary too. Fabien and a rusty Valliancourt where overmatched often at the guards spot once Steward went down.
Relieved to hear it doesn’t sound serious but based on his past history with injuries and his reaction after he was hurt, I’m not totally convinced.

Thought Mark Washington did all he could to put the Lions in position to win the game. Not sure if there is a defensive coordinator getting more out of his unit than him this season.

He is often not getting enough pressure from just his 4-man front. That’s when he starts bringing mainly Bighill, Solly or Purifoy and the Eskimos did a nice job picking that up for the most part. On Bowman’s 2nd quarter TD, the Lions brought 6 and none of them got near Reilly.

You’re right on Brooks too Blitz. Was an absolute monster at the start of the season looking like the 2011 version of Khalif Mitchell. Not so much in recent weeks. Not sure if the injuries have slowed him down but he has to pick up his game.

Gaitor and Fenner more than held their own. Eskimos went after Stewart and Phillips far more often and had plenty of success. Throw in Edem too and those are 3 veterans that need to start making plays.

[Blitz]

Excellent (and educational !!) analysis of last night's game. Lots of comments on the play calling. I'm a cable cutter so I did not see the game, so I am assuming that Kahari is on the sidelines calling the play. I'm wondering what the role of the spotters in the upstairs booth in this. Who is the Offensive spotter upstairs and why can't they see the game unfolding such that they influence the OC calls on the field?

Is it a lack of suitable plays in the play book or is it a lack of innovation (and influence) from the spotters?

There are enough plays in the playbook but they don't practice or game plan all the plays. Its an interesting collection of offensive coaches....Khari Jones, Dan Dorazio, Marcel Bellefeuille.

There is something seriously wrong when a defense goes into man/Cover 2 and your offence is basically running a lot of deep intermediate pass plays. It isn't rocket science to know how to attack man defense with zone over the top. It shows a real deficit of professional competence to not have the type of plays or call the type of plays that offer a much greater chance of success.

For example, Jones knows that Edmonton has switched to man/Cover 2. He sees Edmonton, early in the game, jump a hitch screen to Burnham, that Jennings manages to see at the last split second and avoid an interception. So, when Jones calls the same play in the second half and it goes for a 7 yard loss, you really have to wonder about what is going on in his head.

Jones knows, coming into this game, that Edmonton rarely blitzes and likes to rush four defenders. When they go man/Cover 2, he knows that he has a man coverage on his tailback with a linebacker. It's football 101 to clear out a side and get an isolation play with the tailback on the linebacker. You couldn't ask for a better matchup for Rainey in the game as tailback, either in the flat or a shallow cross. Its even a good matchup for Jeremiah Johnson. It's also ideal for a screen pass. We threw to Johnson twice for 29 yards and to Rainey once for 10 yards. It was obviously there to exploit and yet we rarely did.

With a four man rush and man/Cover 2, you don't want to keep your tailback in to block. You want him to release, with no linebackers blitzing.

I'm not a huge spread offence fan but man/Cover 2 Is ideal for the spread offence, especially against a non-blitzing team. Spread the receivers out, go with an ace backfield, and attack the field horizontally is the recipe. But instead, we continued to pass attack vertically, ensuring our receivers would get double teamed by the defensive back playing man and one of the two safeties.

In that situation, there is no need for Lumbala to be in the game on passing downs. Its five offensive linemen against four defensive line players.

Most often, the running game goes against zone defense. With Edmonton playing man/Cover 2 they are focused on stopping the long and longer pass. They really only have four defensive linemen and one linebacker playing run. In this situation, an offence should attack the edge with the run. By attacking the defensive end with the run, it takes away his pass rush. If the offence can get a block on the linebacker, there is a lot of room for the tailback to run outside, with pass defenders with their backs to the football.

But instead we attacked the inside, with the inside zone read, against Sewell, who is very hard to block inside and requires a double team, therefore freeing up the linebacker. If we single blocked Sewell, which we did at times, he gets penetration.

Edmonton also ran a lot of twists with their defensive lineman to get inside pressure on Jennings. Basically, the defensive tackle went first to the outside and the defensive end twisted or looped to the inside. That was how Willis got to Jennings twice. Its a purrfect defence to roll out or semi-boot against. The linebacker is forced to cover the tailback and can't come up on the quarterback.

The defensive tackle is slow to the outside on the pass rush. Get Jennings outside and he has tons of time to throw and lots of room to run. But we kept him in the pocket all game, except one play, and he threw a touchdown on that play.


Can you imagine a linebacker covering Rainey in man out of the backfield with no help. He can outrun him. He can cut on a dime in space. He can run a wheel route if the linebacker takes the wrong angle. It should be an offensive coordinator's dream scenario.

For this game, we should have had at least one or two plays in which Sinkfield was running a short crossing route. We should have had one play at least in which Sinkfield and Rainey were running a combination low crossing route and Jennings could hit the open one. But we have not used our outside slotback (Moore, Boldewijn) on crossing routes. How hard would it be, with four practices, to add one or two plays to our passing offence?

But instead of adapting our offence to our personell, its simply plug and play.

So, without high/low crossing pass plays, without rub plays on the same side, without isolating the tailback on the linebacker in the pass game, by attempting to run inside rather than attack the edge, and by staying in the pocket, offensively, we played into the strength of that defense, rather than attack its many weaknesses. Edmonton gave up a lot on defense to take away our deep and deep intermediate passes. They had no choice.

Quite simply, its bad offensive coaching. It's rigid thinking. Every offensive scheme should have a number of passing plays to pass attack both zone and man defense. Every offensive scheme should have a number of pass plays to attack a defense both vertically or horizontally in all three layers of the defense.

Every offensive scheme should have running plays that attack both the inside and the edge. The problem is that we only have a vertical passing attack with mainly deep and deep intermediate passes and a running game that only has one play, the inside zone read, that is designed to run inside.

Every offensive scheme, in the passing game, should have the ability to get favorable matchups. That is a key to offensive football. But we always run Manny to the boundary side (except when we go four receivers) alongside Gore. We always have Burnham and our outside slot on the wide side, with Iannuzzi. We just waggle them. If we sent one in motion, at times, we could give Jennings a pre-snap read of whether the defense is in man or zone. But we rarely ever do.

If a corner gets injured and they have to send in a replacement, do we ever try to take advantage, like lining up Manny against the new defender on the outside? Nope.

Its a lack of scheme flexibility, rigid thinking, poor play calling, the inability to adjust, etc. etc. etc. and there is no excuse for it.

Basically, we expect our offensive linemen to zone block for one running play that the defense knows we run. Our quarterback has to make purrfect throws, with a lot of pressure in his face, because we run a lot of deeper vertical pass plays that the defense knows is coming. In essence, our talent has to rise above our scheme and play calling to be successful. A lot of the time we do that but we don't make it easier for our players....we make things more difficult, therefore expecting more from our quarterback, offensive line, receivers, and tailback to 'make plays'.

Why is Calgary more successful than our Leos offensively and lead the CFL in points scored? They basically run a spread offence, as we do and sometimes use Cote as a fullback/tight end as we do with Lumbala in certain situations.

Well, first of all they attack a defense with their running game inside and outside. Even though Messam will sometimes be tackled for only a couple of yards on a sweep, they attack inside and outside with their running game. They'll throw in a reverse or a fly sweep as well. They block for Messam in a variety of ways, including pulling their center. Its not zone blocking on each running play.

In the pass game, Bo Levi Mitchell is very hard to sack, even though Calgary has started 10 different offensive linemen this season and used three different centers due to injuries. Bo Levi is not more mobile than Jennings.

One reason is that Bo Levi Mitchell always has a deep and intermediate receiver to throw to on each pass play but he also has a short recieiver to throw to as well. They also throw to their back out of the backfield. Messam has 44 receptions this season and Cote has 8 receptions. That is 50 passes to their backs.

Here in Leo Land, Allen has 14 receptions, Johnson has 8 receptions, and Lumbala has 3 receptions. If Allen is not starting or Rainey is not in the game, they know that we only throw to our back less than one time per game. It makes us easier to defend and it doesn't give us an outlet against pressure. Calgary also uses Messam and Cote on a variety of routes as well and will send them on patterns down field.

Calgary attacks the field with their passing attack both horizontally and vertically. We are too one dimensional with our passing game. There is no reason why we can't continue to enable Jennings to attack te the field vertically and yet give him a shorter pass route or two, when he experiences pressure. There is no reason why Jennings shouldn't be given more crossing patterns and tailback flare and swing routes against man defense, with 7 defensive backs covering our 5 receivers and only a linebacker pass covering Johnson or Rainey in space.

Basically, this is not just unimaginative offence. Its offence that is lacking in essential elements. When your offence only uses one running play and only one type of passing attack, its more than restrictive. It's dum.

[BC 1988]

Just read this article and Purifoy's comments caught my eye.
“I tried to lay him out,” Purifoy admitted. “He better slide next time. He should be a running back, if he wants to do all that dumb (bleep). I told him, straight up, ‘If you don’t slide, bro’, I’m going to give you a lick "
This was a blatant headshot that I noted in the game day thread. Apparently, Purifoy is an idiot. Stuff like this makes me want to quit watching football.

From the replays I saw, It looked like a clean hit to the upper back of Reilly. The TV commentators also said it was clean. I'm with Purifoy on this one. If a QB is running downfield with the ball, he's a fair target. QBs and coaches know that.

Agreed that Reillý invites that kind of tackling with his reckless style of ball carrying. You don't hear him accusing defenders of intent to injure.