Manny may or may not play. Its going to be a Sunday decision and Buono has informed the league of such. Manny is concussion free but his ankle is still iffy.
Our Leos are taking McNeil on the trip to Calgary.
If I'm a guessing man, Manny won't play. Buono and Company are just trying to keep the Stamps guessing. But who knows for sure.Confidence isn’t an issue when Arceneaux’s in the lineup.
“If I have to hop around I might as well not play,” said Arceneaux. “My thing was to get as healthy as possible and move the way I needed to move to play my kind of football.
“Every day has been better. If y’all would have seen my ankle two days ago you’d say this man is a fool to even consider playing … I’m just blessed.”
We’re going to do what we have to do,” Buono said after Friday’s practice. “We’ve notified the league of where we’re at. I’d rather be playing the Calgary Stampeders with Manny, but if an injury occurs, the show goes on.”
Buono was asked to handicap Arceneaux’s chances of playing
“I don’t gamble and I don’t play the horses so I don’t know how to handicap,” he said.
JEREMIAH SAYS JENNINGS CAN BEAT YOU IN SO MANY WAYS
Jonathan Jennings showed last Sunday that he can beat a team with short throws. With Manny out of the lineup for a good chunk of the second half of the game, our Leos used shorter routes and with great success, with two fourth quarter touchdowns.
Jonathan Jennings is not just a long ball and deep intermediate throw quarterback. He completed his last 11 passes with more possession type throws.
What Khari gives Jennings, Jennings will 'execute'. The big question is what will Khari Jones/Buono give Jennings in terms of scheme and plays on Sunday.
Jennings has also used his feet in recent games. When defenses play Man/Cover 2, it opens up the outside run. How our Leos 'brain trust takes advantage of that, or not, will be one key to the game on Sunday.
SEE JEREMIAH RUNJennings can beat you in many ways. On Sunday, it was with short throws and the escapability of a contortionist and cat burglar’s feet, scoring the winning touchdown on a nine-yard run after the Blue Bombers had exhausted all known methods of burying him in the pocket. He pulled the ball down, faked out Loffler in the open field, then vaulted cornerback Terrence Frederick to reach the end zone.
“Jennings is not your standard drop-back quarterback,” Johnson says. “Most quarterbacks don’t have the mindset ‘I’m going to run through you to get this.’ You want to leave defenses second-guessing their first decisions. That gets them off their rhythms. Ed Willes.
One of the key plays last Sunday in the West Semi-Final was a 40 yard touchdown run by Jeremiah Johnson, with 1:35 to go in the first half, bringing the score back to 25-12. Without that run or a touchdown drive before half time, we likely would not have been able to mount our comeback.
A very important aspect of our Leos recent victories has been that our running attack. When we have a balanced offence, its just so much more dangerous.
THE 'RAIN MAN BRINGS LIGHTING AND THUNDER TOOJohnson has rushed for more than 100 yards in three of his past four games — all Lions victories. His recent run began with four rushes of 10 yards or more, 108 yards in total, Oct. 22 against Edmonton. A week later, he had 101 yards rushing against the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
Johnson took a backseat to Chris Rainey in the Lions’ regular-season finale, a 41-18 drubbing of the hapless Riders. The Rain Man picked up 89 yards nine carries in the game that secured second place for the Lions.
But back Johnson came last Sunday, with 110 yards on just 10 carries against the Blue Bombers. He might have been the man of the match had not quarterback Jonathon Jennings rushed for two more scores in the second half, when Jennings was doing as much damage with his legs as his right arm.
If Johnson seems too good to be true on the field these days, he is that way in everyday life, his savviness as a runner and his humility as a person being his defining characteristics.
When Wally Buono returned to the sidelines this season, he did so with some exceptional players to coach. Of course, we all know that one of those exceptional players has been Jonathan Jennings, who over the past 13 games has outplayed Bo Levi Mitchell, in terms of quarterback efficiency by 20 points.
But Jonathan Jennings is not the only exceptional player that has enabled Buono to fatten his career victory stats. Chris Rainey has been other worldly too.
Chris Rainey is lighting fast. He can cut on a dime. He can juke defenders out of their cleats on a punt or kick return. He can make clutch receptions out of the backfield, as he did twice last Sunday on our game winning drive. He can hit a seam narrower than a telephone pole and be into the second layer in the blink of an eye. Rainey's speed is like a Mig 25, when he turns on the jets.
But what is often missed is how tough an inside runner Chris Rainey is. He gets tough yards, He fights for extra yards. Rainey is deceptiivly tough. He makes Jeremiah Johnson better. Rainey lobbied Buono hard for offensive reps this season and got them. Then he lobbied for more offensive reps and got them.
Rainey makes Jeremiah Johnson better. Rainey makes our offence so much better. We need to get Rainey outside with a quick pitch as well as run him inside against Calgary. We also need to use Rainey as a decoy at times, for a quarterback draw, a fullback screen, or to open up another receiver.
What we should not do is throw the quick swing pass to Rainey. Its better to delay him out of the backfield, if its a swing pass, and let our receivers take their man defenders downfield first, to open up space.
THE MENARD BRYANT TURNER JUNIOR FACTORAs the dangerously fast and deceptive Rainey has been incorporated more into the Lions offensive scheme, Johnson’s rushing totals have begun to soar. He’s not unappreciative of what Rainey has done to make him better.
“Chris has tremendous athletic ability,” Jeremiah Johnson says. He just gets me amped up.”
A genie in a half-pint jar, Rainey is 170 pounds of spritely all-rounder who seeks a heavier load. Poison to the Stampeders as a returner — he has four return touchdowns against Calgary in the past two seasons, totalling 373 yards in elapsed distance — he is calling for more touches as a rusher and receiver.
“They’ve got to empty the tank with me,” Rainey says. “You got to. It’s win or go home. I don’t care if I stagger to the finish line. I’m just trying to help us win.”
David Menard is one of my favorite Leo players. For most of this season he languished on the bench while we used Darius Allen as a rotational defensive end and parked Bryant Turner Jr. Not the way I thought we should be doing things on our defensive line. Two key factors in our winning streak has been the play of Bryant Turner Jr. and David Menard.
In order to line up both Turner and Brooks, at times, at defensive tackle, its meant that we needed to play a National at defensive end when our two National defensive tackles are on the field. Enter David Menard. Menard has a motor. He brings intensity to each rush. He's made Craig Roh better too because Roh is fresher.Bryant Turner Jr. has elevated our interior defensive line play. He's made Mich'ael Brooks better. He gives us a very good defensive tackle rotation, with Westerman and Brooks. We've used more four man rushes in recent weeks and cut down on our three man rushes.
It will be difficult to sack Bo Levi Mitchell. Defenses only averaged around one sack per game on Bo Levi this season. Calgary's offensive line is that good. Bo Levi Mitchell is very good at sliding in the pocket or going with a semi-roll. The Calgary offence has one or two players on every play that are 'hot' so Mitchell can get the football out of his hands quickly.
But we need to pressure Bo Levi and make him throw earlier or go to a receiver who was not his first choice. We may or may not be able to do that on Sunday. But if we are able to, it will be due to putting our best defensive lineup on the field. We waited for most of this season before doing that. Thankfully we have recently.
Turner and Menard, rotating in with Bazzie, Brooks, Westerman, and Roh, give us the best chance to hold down Messam and get better pressure on Bo Lev. This defensive line lineup also enables our Leos linebackers to make more plays because we get better defensive line penetration.
A real key to playing defense against the Stamps is interior line penetration and pressure. The Stamps, remarkably, have the CFL's best offensive line and yet this position group has been ravaged by injuries all season, using 10 different starters.
The Stamps are mind blowing huge on their offensive line, as well as talented. Their guards Spencer Wilson is 331 pounds and . For this game, they have Shane Bergman (347lbs. and West All-Star Spencer Wilson (331 lbs) at guard. At offensive tackle they have West All-Star tackle Derek Dennis 341 lbs. and Dan Federkeil (320 lbs). These guys are MASSIVE.
But the Stamps starting center Pierre Lavertu will not play - instead former Leo Cam Thorn (305 lbs) will start at center for the Stamps. It might be a spot that we can exploit and we should attempt to.But there may be an area on the Stamps offensive line that we can take advantage of.
DEVARIS DANIELS CAN MEAN DESTRUCTION
Our receiving crew (if Manny is in our starting lineup) has been rated above the Stamps receiving crew in most write-ups for this game. Reasons for ranking our receiving crew higher than the Stamps positional group have included 1) Manny and Burham's CFL third and fourth place finish in receiving yards, the solid play of Shawn Gore, and the threat of Sinkfield, plus Chris Rainey out of the backfield and 2) only the Stamps Marques McDaniel finished in the Top 10 in CFL receiving.
But that is deceiving. The Stamps spread the ball around more than any other CFL team, spreading the wealth to McDaniel, Parker, Daniels, Grant, and Jorden. They use Charbonnneau, Durant, and Cote in 'packages' and throw to them also.
If there are two keys to a win against the Stamps its making sure that Davaris Daniels and Jerome Messam don't do too much damage in the Stamps passing attack. Davaris Daniels only started 11 games for the Stamps, as a rookie, replacing Joe West. Yet he had 885 yards of receiving, was the Stamps second leading receiver, and had an 17.4 yards per catch average. He has the speed to beat a defence deep and often has.
Jerome Messam had 54 receptions for the Stamps this season. They just don't swing him out of the backfield. They send him on patterns downfield. Paying special attention to Daniel's and Messam is a key to stopping the Stamps offence.To put Daniel's season in perspective, had he played a whole season, he would have finished with 1155 yds. in receptions, making him the Stamps best receiver. He needs to be contained.
PURE PASSIONATE PURIFOY
Sol E. and Biggie soak up most of the media attention on our defense. Team 100 made a ton of tackles this season. They fly from sideline to sideline. They scrape and charge into tailbacks. They blitz inside and sack opposing quarterbacks. That commands both respect and attention.
Biggie gets addional special attention because we've often used him as a two deep or three deep safety, as well as a linebacker. Most of the time, using Bighill as a deep safety has been a waste of time. It fools no one, as Biggie starts racing back from his linebacker position twenty - twenty five yards deeper. Sometimes it makes our defense either look paranoid. Most often Biggie covers no one and ends up looking around at a lot of space. He also is not a good deep cover guy, nor should he be.But we probably wouldn’t be in the West Final, playing Calary without Loucheiz Purifoy. Purifoy's diving tackle that tripped up Ryan Smith, when the receiver appeared headed to a touchdown, was a total hustle play that may likely saved the season. The nickel back also had two key pass knock-downs in the 32-31 semifinal win over Winnipeg.
Using Biggie as a deep safety should be done rarely. If we need a two deep safety, Thompson, Fraser, or Parker are better options for that type of defense, when we want to use it.
Another good thing lately has been to get back to some common sense, in terms of utilizing Bo Lokombo in defensive packages. He's 230 pounds of chiseled muscle and he's incredibly fast and athletic. Using Lokombo, as well as Purifoy on an occasional blitz in this game would be wise. We just can't use the A/B gap Sol E. and Biggie blitz.
The play of Purifoy and Lokombo (if we insert him) that could prove to be key factors in this contest.
OUR LEOS TAKE AND THEY GIVETH AWAY
Our Leos have taken away the hope of victory for a number of teams recently. But when we play the Stamps, we're going to be looking at a number of ex-Leo players that we didn't want but Calgary did.
The first is backup center Cam Thorn, already mentioned, who will start this game for the Stamps. The Stamps also have ex-Leo Josh Bell as their starting safety, ex-Leo Glenn Love as a starting linebacker, Cedric Minter as a defensive tackle. Stamps 230 pound National receiver Lamer Durrant also hoped to be drafted by our Leos but we chose Ese Mrabure-Ajufo and Brett Boyko over him instead.
SHADES OF RITCHIE, FLUTIE, AND THE '94 MIRACLE UPSET
Our Leos are underdogs for this game, as we were when we played the Stamps in the WDF '94. In that game, we were 14 point underdogs. Darren Flutie caught his third touchdown of the game, besting his brother Doug Flutie, who was quarterbacking the Stamps. With 12 seconds left, our Leos on the Calgary 5 yard line, Daren Flutie came down with the football against double coverage, we won the game 37-36, and the rest is history.
Ritchie cried after the win, as he hugged Darren Flutie.
At heart Dave Ritchie was a gentle soul, with a very smart football brain. (Kent Spencer)
No question that Ritchie didn't usually get outcoached. In fact he outcoached the opposition most of the time.
I really don't believe we should be big underdogs in this game. Yes the Stamps won 3 more games this season but really, with a decent field goal kicker or a few less turnovers at critical times, our Leos could easily have finished this season 16-2. The only games we got outplayed was the third game against Calgary and the Toronto game in Vancouver.
I believe, overall, we are more talented than Calgary and if not, its at least close. We have more playmakers on offence, with Jennings, Manny, Burnham, and Rainey. We have a return man in Rainey that the Stamps can't match. Defensively, its close also. Both defensive lines match up, we've got the edge at linebacker while the Stamps ge the edge in their defensive secondary.
Where the Stamps have the edge on us is coaching, in terms of strategy.
If we can match the Stamps in that area for this game, I believe we'll win.
