Stampeders 42 - Lions 15, WDF Post Game Comments

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Blitz
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The Football Gods often like an underdog. It makes them feel like they are doing good work. We often cheer for the underdog. But the Football Gods do not reward rigid thinking or 'superior' thinking, nor do they treat 'legendary' status as a 'right' to victory. You have to earn it, each and every time.
The Football Gods, while having unique abilities to change the outcome of a football game by conferring a weird bounce of the football or whipping up a sudden breeze just as a kicker attempts a crucial field goal, are restricted by the laws of nature. The evolutionary process rewards intelligence more than any other factor. Adapt or die. Change or lose. Eat or get eaten.
In Calgary our Leos team got eaten. They symbolically died on that football field for one key playoff game. We didn't change and therefore we lost. Even the inspiration of a Manny Arseneaux, who defied great odds, to came back to play in this game, was not enough.
Before sharing my analysis of this game, on this great website, with so many incredibly knowledgeable Leos supporters, I just want to say that even yesterdays brutal loss can't take away the joy of a special season. The regular season of this 2016 campaign is my favorite Leo season of all time.
Why? Because I believe we saw more great plays from some very special players than we have in any regular season before. Jonathan Jennings, Manny Arseneaux, Bryan Burnham, Jeremiah Johnson, Chris Rainey, and Sol E. gave us 'the incredible', the 'magical', and the 'awe inspiring' on many, many occasions. They were the main storyline of this season. They were its theme. Without them, this season might have been very ordinary, in terms of success and in terms of football enjoyment.
That this special season ended the way that it did in Calgary was more than disappointing. My disappointment was not selfish. I've seen Leo Grey Cup victories. I just wanted us to win it all because those players mentioned above played their hearts out for us. They gave this season their souls. They gave it everything they had and more. But it was not to be.

Quite often, I write 'the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly after a game. But so little good happened on Sunday in Calgary, instead I'm going to go back to the insightful quotes of Forrest Gump that I used this past week, as our Leos 'prepared' for the Stamps, to hopefully provide some post-game analysis, in terms of what went so wrong against the Stamps.

But before I do, I'm not going to spend a lot of time analyzing player changes for next season. Obviously some personnel changes are needed. Those changes were often discussed much earlier this season and we did nothing about them, when we had the opportunity to.

For example, you can go back to before mid-season and read on Lionbackers that Brandon Stewart was not the answer at field corner and we should start Parker. You can go to pre-season and read numerous posts that we badly needed a rush end to compliment Bazzie. Did we do anything about it? No we didn't.

Corderro Law had two sacks for Calgary yesterday as a late NFL cut. Calgary brought him in and played him. We did NOTHING to address our weakness at field corner or rush end. In fact, it took us most of the season for our Leos brain trust to bench the mediocre Darius Allen and instead start Bryant Turner Jr. - a player that numerous Lionbackers pleaded to be in our starting lineup much sooner. WCJ and many others, in fact, discussed the need for an International nose tackle type to compliment Brooks and have a good inside tackle rotation, before our 2016 training camp.
When Lionbackers is often repeatedly ahead of our coaching staff, in numerous areas, it begs some serious questions.
There are many serious questions to be asked of Buono and Company. For example, Marco Iannuzzi had 5 receptions all of last season. Stephen Adekolu never saw the field on offence, nor did he all this season until Gore got hurt. With only 2 pass receptions in his career, Adekolu started at wide receiver for our Leos in the Semi-Final against Winnipeg. He led the way, with 5 receptions in that game, including one on our key final drive. Yesterday he never saw the field yesterday.

Hunter Steward and Antonio Johnson were pined for a number of games, as our 'brain trust' decided to go with McNeil and Adcock. You'd almost have to be brain dead to not see how much they struggled. And yet we kept on playing them until a kindergarden kid would have been able to see how misguided the decision was.

Prior to yesterday's WDF, I noted that, after putting up 37 points against Calgary in our second game against them, that we did not score a touchdown against Calgary in our third game and we were completely shut out in the second half of that game. We did not score a point against Calgary in the first half of the WDF.

That was four consecutive quarters in a row that Calgary held down our explosive offence to NOTHING. That is not just an execution problem.
Calgary scored 32 points first half points against our defence yesterday. Some might say that Calgary's offence is that good. Well, the Bombers non-explosive offence put up 25 first half points against our defence in the Semi-Final. Why the success? The answers will not be found in personnel changes. Yesterday we could have put a much superior team on the playing field, in terms of talent, and we would have lost. We only came back to beat Winnipeg, because our gifted players overcame what ails us.
Here are some WDF post game thoughts, themed thought the eyes of Forrest.

LIFE IS LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES. YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO GET

Prior to our Leos/Stamps WDF I used two theme lines for this game. The first was Forrest Gump's quote "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get'. The second line was "Life is like a Box of Italian Biscotti, you know what you are going to get, so you gotta eat 'em right".
This was going to be a game of two coaching different philosophies.


We knew Calgary would scout and self-scout, looking for our Leos weaknesses and tendencies, examine their own tendencies and develop a game plan that would include adaptions specifically designed against our offence. Their offensive philosophy would be ' You never know what you at going to get". We couldn't anticipate what Calgary's offence would throw at us. We were down 32 points before we even got a little closer to figuring out Calgary's offence.
Before this game, I wrote this is a game in which "Our coaching staff has to make plays".


In other words, it was not just up to the players to win this game. We needed our coaching staff to step up to the plate.

Calgary's talent was as good as ours and even a little better. We had the better play makers, Calgary had a bit more strength throughout their lineup. Not much separated these two teams statistically throughout the regular season. We didn't have to outcoach Calgary to have a chance to win but we could not be badly out coached. We were!
There are two basic philosophies to leadership. They are "The One Best Way' and "Contingency Leadership". The first philosophy basically is one of superiority. It basically says "I know best. You just have to execute my 'superior thinking'. The second philosophy says "I am humble. I know I need to constantly adapt to stay on top. I can't just ask my players to execute. It won't be enough.


Before this game, Calary's Junior Turner said our Lions would "want to control the line of scrimmage, run inside, and throw to Manny deep". Calgary had adapted by the time they played us in the third game of this season. Calgary was used to playing a lot of defense a lot of zone defense but Calgary changed and they were the first defense to play us using a heavy Man/Cover 2. They did again yesterday but they adapted again, taking way our inside run even better and shutting down our key receivers with even tighter two deep coverage.

Khari Jones made some adaptions to our offence late in the season but they were not enough, even though he had mostly seen Man/Cover 2 for the second half of the season. I had hope in Khari for a few games but he reverted back to "One Best Way". This philosophy is blinding. Here are some examples.

He went back to a single running play. He went to the inside zone play and our tailback got stopped, as has happened so often in the second half of the season. He used the telegraphed swing pass to Rainey. He shut down a number of crossing patterns. He didn't use the bunch formation, an excellent formation against man. He cut down on the motion he had begun to introduce.

Washington did the same. He had begun to play more aggressive in the last couple of regular season games. But he reverted back as well.

Calgary exploited every opening and seam in our zone defence. We had Sol E. covering McDaniel by himself 20 yard downfield by himself, with out safeties playing too deep. We had Daniels beating Stewart on a double move he often gets sucked in on. We had Mike Edem beaten by the same 'fake dig-up move that Winnipeg beat Phillips with last game. Calgary marched at will for a 103 yard drive for their second touchdown of the game. Calgary's coaches and players, played with our heads and we had no answers on defence.
Bo Levi Mitchell comes out and fires an 18-yard dart to Bakari Grant on his first pass attempt and the Calgary Stampeders go 57 yards in four plays, complete a two-point convert and go up 8-nothing before the game is two and a half minutes old.

The Stampeders installed some new and surprising plays and formations during their time off and those formations and plays had our Leos defense completely off- balance.


Most Leo supporters have been brainwashed by Wally and Company Calgary for so long, its become a religion here to believe that its all up to the players executing Wally's 'One Best Way". This is what Wally said pregame. Its the kind of mantra that's been said repeatedly over the years by Buono, its become etched in too many brains:
Buono said “ We can only give the game plan and make minor adjustments. But we can’t do the rest for them. Now it’s on them". That superior thinking got us beat badly yesterday by the Stamps.
The players have been brainwashed by the "We Just Gotta Execute" mantra and so have the press and media. Its good that the players buy into it or at least spout it. They have to "believe' in their coaches or they wouldn't play hard.

But smart Lionbackers, who are 'students of the game" are not. I'll leave it to my fellow Lionbacker colleagues, as well as Jonathan Jennings and Bo Levi Mitchell to wrap up this 'life is a box of chocolates/biscotti section up with their quotes.
They had a good game plan,'' -- Jonathon Jennings. "Hats off to Dave for the game plan today." -- Bo Levi Mitchell.
Space Age vs Old School. Dynamic philosophy vs conservative philosophy. Play to win vs play to not lose. Sophisticated, detailed game planning vs bread and butter, base level, generic for any opponent, game planning. Seemed like professional vs amateur. WCJ

Some people make things happen.Some people watch what happens.Some people wonder what happened.

Wally has earned lots of loyalty and Teflon. Plus we had a good regular season. But we were outcoached for this game, by a first year Head Coach. Well OK, most CFL observers might credit Dave Dickenson with being an Xs and Os expert. And it seems to me that we were outcoached versus the Bombers. Jennings got us through that one

Were we outcoached? This fan thinks so. What if the players just showed up and played sandlot ball (or grass field, fully equipped) the way a lot of us did in our youth? I think our talent would do very well. The difference then, in a game like this? Coaching. Planning. Leading. Attitude. Details. Tendencies. Vulnerabilities. WCJ
The game has passed by the "Being the best at what we do - aka - Execute the game plan" philosophy. Each week, the game plan must be different based on what is expected from opposing lineup and even within a game, the drives must adapt to conditions on the field. Today, we looked surprised and reactive on defence and even more importantly, we did not create uncertainty by our offensive play-calling. Will we learn?? I dunno. Dusty

The long layoff really gave Dickenson, who is the best X and O guy in the CFL, the time to really detail their game plan. Dano T.
They confused us on D, we couldn't get out of our own way with penalties and dumb mistakes, and failed to convert our 2nd and short opportunities. Game. Set. Match. 3rd year in a row our season ends in a pasting. This one stings more as more was expected from this team. We knew who we were last year in Calgary - and the year before in Montreal. David
After watching Matt Nichols carve up the Lions for nearly 400 yards last week, I figured our defence was in a heap of trouble. How many guys have looked ordinary or downright awful in Mark Washington's system over the last half of the season? Sammy Greene
Not much more needs to be said. If you are going to call yourself "a Legend" you need to come up with better game plans that this. What should have been a very close contest between the two best teams in the CFL turned into a wipeout for the Stamps.

STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES

In the pre-game thread I wrote "When Forest Gump said "Stupid is as stupid does' he was saying that its our actions, not our words that count and that our previous actions tell us everything. You either repeat the past or you learn from it".

For this section the pre-game keys were to 1) mentally prepare our players for the start of the game to come out 'ready' 2) Buono to present himself as confident and poised and not nervous and uptight because too many of his playoff teams have come out nervous, uptight, flat, and mistake prone too often 3) to not be predicable with plays such as the quick swing pass to Rainey but instead to delay Rainey out of the backfield 3) to not be "Manny-cetric to begin the game and 4) to use the inside read option on second and short, to avoid defenses crshing down on our inside zone run play to Jeremiah Johnson on shorter yardage plays.

So what happened? We came out nervous, uptight, and flat. We were mistake prone due to it. Wally was uptight, nervous and detached. He had reverted back to his 'old self' rather than his 'new self' in some of our most recent games regular season games and the playoffs. Yesterday, he yelled at players coming off the field and he yelled at coaches and players on the sidelines. He was detached and never offered coaching advice. Players avoided him coming off the playing field. They stayed away from him on the sidelines too.
Of course we ran the same quick swing pass to Rainey for low yardage, as Calgary's press man coverage meant that their defenders, covering our receivers close to the line of scrimmage, would be able to react quickly. You almost have to be brain dead to not see that the play has not worked for a number of games. All we had to do, was let our receivers clear out the area, while delaying the swing pass, giving Rainey tons of space to work with - with only the middle linebacker to beat in the flat (if the ML could even get there in time.


Lionbacker posters can see it but somehow Jones can't. That's what 'one best way' thinking gets you. It blinds you. "Keep on keepin' on" means doing the same thing and getting the same result.

Mark Washington said, after the Bombers game "The reason I don’t have hair is because of the first half. “We changed our scheme a little bit (in the second half). Well, guess what. Washington did the same thing again. He changed his scheme a bit in the second half. But by that time, we were down 32 points and more of his hair was lost. That's because you either learn from the past or repeat the same mistakes.
Obviously Washington didn't learn. LaPolice and Dickenson gave Nichols and Bo Levi the tools to shred our defence. They knew every weakness in his passive zone scheme.
We all knew, before this game Washington needed to be well prepared, with a great defensive game plan and our defense had to be ready to play from the opening whistle (or Washington would have no hair left at the end of this WDF). In other words we had to play a smart but an aggressive smart game. We didn't. We had Sol E. trying to cover McDaniel by himself 20 yards downfield as Calgary's offence created bad matchups.

We gave up a 103 yard Calgary second quarter drive that dissected every defensive short coming in our passive zone scheme. Calgary exploited Brandon Stewart on a wheel route because he is 'skilled' at being burned on a double move. We had Edem being burned on the same 'fake dig, up move' that got us burned against the Bombers.
Washington's defence gave up 57 first half points in our two playoff games. That's not preparation or game planning. That's ineptitude
Our defensive players, quite simply, are not that bad, execution wise, to give up those massive number of points in the first half of two games in a row.

The past is either your friend or your enemy. It you don't use the past as a magic wand to adapt, the past repeats itself and the pain just keeps on going.

WE WERE LIKE PEAS AND CARROTS

Jennings and Manny were like 'peas and carrots' all regular season. So were Jennings and Burnham. But we went to Manny and Burnham too often, into double coverage, during the regular season. In the Semi-Final, that cost us, as Manny hurt his ankle on the first play of the game, we were intercepted on the second play of the game, as we unwisely used Manny on a comeback route, and in the second half, Manny was knocked out on a deep pass attempt into double coverage, on a route he should never have been given in that game.

In this game, with Manny's ankle obviously not recovered and with an inability to cut, we should have used him more often as a decoy. But instead we threw to him more than any of our other receivers. We targeted Rainey on the quick swing pass too often on obvious plays. He had 3.5 yards per catch on 5 receptions. We came back against Winnipeg with two long winning touchdown drives using Adekolu, Iannuzzi, Sinkfield and Burnham. We didn't even use Semi-Final reception leader Adekolu in this game. We didn't throw to Shawn Gore in the first half.

We need different pass plays to exploit Man/Cover 2 defenses. A vertical passing attack is too restrictive against a Man/Cover 2 type of defense.
Sometimes it feels as if our Leos offensive coordinators are trying to drive us Leo fans crazy. From 2005-2010, we got an overdose of crossing patterns in a horizontal passing game offence against zone defense. Got some of our receivers almost killed. We got some variety from 2011-2013. Then, from 2014-2016, we got an overdose of deep vertical patterns against man defences, with zone over the top.
The better CFL offensive coordinators are adapting away from the vanilla version of the pocket passing spread offence. Winnipeg uses a lot of misdirection play action rollouts and screen passes. Calgary stretches the field both horizontally and vertically. They rotate in receivers, as part of packages.

They use their tailback in the passing attack very effectively and not just for swing passes. Messam caught 54 passes this season. They use their fullback as part of their passing scheme and not just as an afterthought, as we do with Lumbala.

Calgary is not just a one play inside zone read team. They run sweeps. They run reverses. Yesterday, Calgary's Lemar Durant scored a touchdown on a reverse.

Next season, we need to have more "we were like peas and carrots' with more of our receivers for a better balanced attack.

ALWAYS BE ABLE TO LOOK BACK AND SAY I DIDNT' LEAD NO HUMDRUM LIFE

Prior to the WDF, Foresst Gump's inspiration was not to be 'humdrum', in other words our Leos brain trust needed to face facts. You don't beat a team like Calgary playing afraid to lose, or play 'hide under your mother's dress' style of defence, as we were the underdogs. We had to do something different.

But we didn't. We tried to mix up some things and provide different looks. We ran some zone blitzes. But the fact was that we played zone defence almost all game.
It was like putting a pretty dress on a pig. Calgary knew we would play zone and they ran all their patterns into areas that exploited it.


Before this game, Forrest Gump's inspiration also was to change, to be adventurous, to get out of our 'box' way of thinking. Before this game, Lionbackers suggested the following:
"We need to blitz Sol E. and Biggie differently and use Lokombo and Purifoy on some blitzes. We also have to play Calgary's receivers tighter than we usually play most team's receivers. Calgary is too good to just sit back and hope that mistakes will be made on throws or we can just come up and make tackles short of the first down. In other words, we can't just play hum drum defence.We have to be well prepared, with a great defensive game plan and be ready to play from the opening whistle.
Didn't happen. Was not going to happen. No press man coverage at any time. No innovative blitzes. Game over and early.

MAMA SAYS THEY WERE MAGIC SHOES. THEY COULD TAKE ME ANYWHERE

Jonathan Jennings wore magic shoes many times this season.
Without Jennings there would not have been a special 2016 regular season and Semi-Final win. Manny wore magic shoes as well this year as did Chris Rainey, Bryan Burnham, Sol E. and Biggie at times too. Paul McCallum put on his magic shoes in his first game back in a Leo uniform and would have been ice cool automatic if we had needed him to be.
Jonathan Jennings accuracy this season was almost unworldly. His deep throws this season were so consistently accurate, it was almost surreal. He could flick his wrist, while off balance, and throw a bullet 30 yards into a tight window. However Jennings and our receivers had to be almost purrfect. Most of the time our receivers were quite well covered.

It was rare to see a receiver wide open. Jennings either threw a long ball a couple of inches over the defenders fingers into the finger tips of our receiver or the receiver leapt and high pointed the football against double coverage. Jennings, most often had to throw 20-25 yard purrfect strikes into tight windows, while under pressure. That is a high degree of difficulty.

In the WDF, Jennings was slightly off, at times, in the first half of the game. That didn't help because our offensive passing attack has little margin for error.
We passed for 293 yards in the WDF. Jennings completed 71% of his passes but this game, he wasn't able to overcome our restrictive offensive scheme with purrfect passing, like he so often does.
Travis Lulay came in to start the second half. Lulay hit Sinkfield deep but what made Lulay successful during the third quarter was that he ran and he scrambled to buy time.
That enabled Travis to overcome our restrictive offensive scheme. Travis did what Travis does best.
Lulay threw for 86 yards of passing, with 54 yards coming off his deep throw to Sinkfield.

When Travis threw the interception in the end zone, he threw against the grain. He knows better and as an experienced quarterback and mentor he needed to be smarter.

Lulay was obviously upset with himself and he also looked upset that Wally pulled him. I wanted Lulay to stay in the game. It was over at that point but Lulay had worked hard and his scrambling was a positive at that point. Nothing else was working nor was it going to work. Neither Jennings or Lulay were going to bring us back from the brink and Lulay had been a good soldier and worked hard and positively all season. He was playing well and his scrambling was an asset, as the Stamps defence had us cold.
I just wish we could give our quarterbacks some plays where we could get receivers wide open, as Calgary does. Our offence should not have to rely on Jennings having to be almost purrfect or Lulay having to scramble to get receivers open, because our scheme does not exploit what needs to be exploited.


I DONT' KNOW IF WE HAVE A DESTINY OR IF WE'RE JUST FLOATING AROUND ACCIDENTAL LIKE A BREEZE

Before this game, Forrest Gump's question, when pertaining to our Leos, was "I don't know if this 2016 Leos team has a destiny or if we're just floating around in the breeze". Well, destiny happened. It was not our destiny to win the Grey Cup this season.
But this is not a team that was floating around accidentally in the breeze either. We led the CFL in rushing. We averaged 401 yards of offence per game. We were third in CFL defense.


In this game we put up 373 yards of offence. But our offensive coordinator didn't prepare a game plan that would exploit Calgary, early and often, as Calgary's offensive coordinator did. Calgary played Man/Cover 2 mostly. It was not a surprise. But we didn't exploit its weaknesses. We got behind so quickly, with our offence unable to sustain drives, while our defense collapsed. We were completely unprepared for Calgary on both sides of the football.

For 2017, personnel wisse, we need to upgrade in some areas, especially the defensive secondary and defensive line.
But more importantly we really need to re-examine our offensive and defensive schemes.
On offence, we need to adapt our scheme so that we have more running plays to take advantage of defenses, if they are overplaying our inside run. We need to be able to exploit press man coverage with a more horizontal game and keep our vertical attack game at the same time, for when its advantageous to use it. We have to develop an overall offensive scheme that attacks all areas of the field, both vertically and horizontally.

On defense, we can't just be a passive zone pass defence team. Wally and Washington are using old school defensive philosophy. A lot of CFL offensive coordinators and quarterbacks are too good now to play too much passive zone against. They know how to attack it and quality quarterbacks can throw into those seams with accuracy, most of the time.

Today's receivers understand where the holes are. Dave Dickenson came up with a superb plan that Mitchell turned into a surgical dissection of our defence. Paul LaPolice and Matt Nichols did the same in the first half of the West Semi-Final.
We have to get better at game planning and scheming for big games. You can't give good teams in the playoffs huge half-time leads and expect to won, due to poor game planning and lack of preparation.


Player personnel changes alone won't get this done in the future. We've lost playoff games before with better talent. We can improve our talent level next year and still be outschemed in the playoffs, as we've been outschemed many times before.

Its time to really seriously rethink "One Best Way" and "Execution"
The Wright Brothers knew how to fly. The problem was their early airplanes were not well designed. They crashed. Once they got the design right, they executed their flying very well.
Our Leos players, no matter how good they are next year can 'execute' at a high level, and still not fly in the playoffs. Its time to go back to the drawing board.

NEVER LOSE YOUR SENSE OF WONDER

Lionbackers posters knew we were the underdog going into this game and also knew if we did not have a good game plan, we'd get beaten and perhaps badly. That happened. But already, we're looking at next season.
I never lose my sense of wonder, even when I know that our schemes are restrictive for our players. Neither do my colleague Lionbackers. Hope is eternal. There is always a next season.
We'll dissect this one and move on. We'll focus on who should stay and who should go. We'll scout out the CFL draft and select which free agents we should sign. Jennings, Manny, Burnham, Sol E. and Bighill will be back. So will many other talented Leos. We have a good base and had a solid regular season and an exciting come back Semi-Final win.

We saw so many game winning drives this season. There are issues, including some serious coaching issues. Wally has 'presence' but he is not an x and o's guy. He likely won't bring in different coordinators. But Wally could and should allow them to look at other team's schemes and playbooks and incorporate some of the best that works elsewhere, like Calgary. If you are not going to be innovative, its the next best step.
The Stampeders installed some new and surprising plays and formations during their time off and it helped keep the BC Lions off balance in the Western Final. Landy
I would love our Leos to have more of the above in 2017. Wishful thinking. Yes. Hopeful thinking. Never give up!
There is still a lot to look forward toward for 2017. This was a turnaround season. Now we have to build on it and do the things that need to be done to get to the next level.
Thanks to all fellow Lionbackers for making this the best football website out there. We did a good job. We weren't just arm chair quarterbacks being critical in hindsight. You recognized the 'good' and examined 'the not so good' with thoughtful analysis. You were positively proactive, offering great suggestions before games. There was a lot of insight on Lionbackers that made reading your posts a treat.

Have a great off-season!! :thup: :thup: :thup: :thup: :thup: :roar:
"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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WestCoastJoe
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Amazing review, Blitz. :thup:

This fan thinks Wally prevails upon his coordinators to draw up the same old, same old. He lets them expand a bit occasionally during the year. Key game? Back to vanilla, which brought him the most victories in CFL history, during simpler times.

As I noted, he has loyal fans, and he has a Teflon coat. Critics, the few that there are, seem to be howling in the wilderness, to no avail. It helps Wally that David Braley has an open, lifetime contract for him.

Twice Wally tried to ''step back.'' All the way back to The Tower, or to The Roof, overlooking, overseeing. But he could not let go.

He is a survivor, an old fox, in his own way. This fan hopes he gets tired of seeing his same old, same old get dissected, and that he lets his coordinators enter the Space Age. No hope, methinks. The old fox is also dayum stubborn, and fully comfortable with his support network. For this fan, it is just a shame to see our talent and guts get eviscerated that way. Game plans? Calgary was taking candy from a baby.

Next year? Teams see the blueprint, as drawn up by Winnipeg and Calgary. How to break the spirit of proud men. How to make boisterous, exuberant men go quiet. Back into the fray next game? Of course, with one hand tied behind the back. Calgary 32 better at the half? Nope, Winnipeg 25 better? Nope. Not in my view. Those results are shameful, insulting and disgusting. Not to this fan, but to the hard work and character of our players, saddled with ancient ways.

Next year? Soft zone defence, despite Mark W promising aggressive defence. Simple passing patterns rolled out. Predictable running game. Ya know, it's a man's game. Play like men. Hit them harder. Out execute them. But look at our stats during the year, some might say. How do they look against Calgary? Mismatch. And not with talent, in my view. Schemes. Planning. Calls. Philosophy. To this fan our preparation for a big game seems like crawling into a hole. Play it safe. Keep it ultra simple. Out execute them.

When he took over the reins again, Wally said he wanted to win another Grey Cup. IMO he will have to adapt even more than he did this year. Much more. I hope those he listens to speak from their hearts.

We got our butts kicked. The players had to endure the humiliation on the field. They put their bodies on the line. They put their pride on the line. They hit and got hit. Then they get called out for not executing. Disgusting. The plan was juvenile. Here comes Chris Rainey on a swing pass, three defenders penetrating, fully ready, fully scouted and prepped. Bo looks and Bo sees, as prepped by Dickenson, a nice easy pass into a huge gap in the zone. Jennings looks and sees a swarm coming, receivers in tight coverage. Just maybe he can execute, and squeeze the ball into that tiny window. It is a head shaker. And, in the view of this fan, it is head in the sand thinking. Dinosaur thinking.

It's like they know what we're doing. Yup. They've seen the plan, many, many times. Old school --> Here is our plan. Try and stop us. We will out execute you. Modern age --> OK. We will dissect your simple, straightforward plans, your actions, anticipate, crash the run gap, give tight cover, jump routes, hit the soft spot in the zone, decoy, misdirect, isolate. Thank you. And being polite, and clever not to give away the huge advantage, in the post game press conference, they will talk about their fresh legs. Bo said he was fully confident going in. Fully prepped. Yup. On the field, he saw exactly what they expected to see, zone, stationary, reacting, chasing, huge gaps. Were we fully confident? Ummm ... Nope. We were shaky as can be. And it showed. It is all there on the film. Were we surprised and confused? Yup.

Just IMO ...
John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.
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David
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The Wright Brothers knew how to fly. The problem was their early airplanes were not well designed. They crashed. Once they got the design right, they executed their flying very well.
You outdid yourself, Blitz. This quote is pure gold, and exquisitely sums up our issues in The Den.

When things go awry it's comforting to be able to place blame. However, it's frustrating when we don't know whom to blame. For example, did Washington and Jones give our D and O (respectively) inferior schemes and fail to adapt in-game.....or did Wally not allow them to coach to the best of their abilities? (and you're right about our team taking on the personality of our Head Coach. When he's barking things out and really 'blinky' on the sidelines, I know we're going to come out tighter than a drum).

I have the same frustration on the Marketing side of things. Do I blame Skulsky and the Marketing Department for some obvious oversights, or is it really David Braley who's not allowing them to execute a smart plan and/or not providing them the necessary resources?


DH :cool:
Roar, You Lions, Roar
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Lions4ever
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David wrote:


I have the same frustration on the Marketing side of things. Do I blame Skulsky and the Marketing Department for some obvious oversights, or is it really David Braley who's not allowing them to execute a smart plan and/or not providing them the necessary resources?


DH :cool:
I get that it's not difficult to support a perennial winner, but attending the game Sunday was a bit of an eye opener. Unlike Vancouver where the Lions are steamrolled by the Canux (and leaving the Whitecraps out of it for the purposes of this) and seem next to invisible much of the time, the Stamps presence is strong despite Cgy being an NHL city just like YVR. The Ctrain stop by McMahon is painted with football markings and festooned with Stamps player murals and banner. The Stamps store is vastly superior to anything we have. We went to bars, including the very large Moose McGuire's and it is an absolute sea of red jerseys. It's closer to Seattle on a Seahawks game day. And it's not just old farts. Tons of 20s-30s folks wearing their stuff unironically. It was very refreshing to see.
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Lions4ever
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David wrote:* The TSN turning point came at the 1:00 mark of the opening quarter. Down by only 8-0, Leone hemmed the Stamps deep with a booming punt. On the ensuing play, a handoff to Messam, he gets stuffed at the LOS, causing 2nd down from the 2 yard line. From there Bow Legged Mitchell, the new sheriff in town, threw a strike on a dig route to get them out of trouble, and then surgically marched his team down field for a TD. We never recovered.
Great observation, but I might argue that the turning point came even before that. It might have taken place with the coin flip. Calgary won the toss, and contrary to football convention, did not choose to defer (note that there was no wind, so there was no concern about having the wind in the 4th Q). This was Dave Dickenson, as smart a football guy as there is out there, taking a page right out of the Chip Kelly era Oregon modus operandi. Take the ball, get the lead, jam a 2 pt convert down their throats for good measure and demoralize 'em in the first 90 to 120 seconds of the game (or whatever). The Lions had a glimmer of a chance for a moment but failed to bottle up the returner (Finch, I think) and the Stamps started out with much better field position than they deserved and the momentum was already swung and they were going downhill. But that 103 yard (!!) drive was a masterpiece of soul-crushing dominance.
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SammyGreene
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What a great read Blitz!

I know we often scrutinize the Vancouver media for the lack of coverage on the Lions but in this instance the team was damn lucky. I was shocked to listen to the post-game show and all the two non-football hosts wanted to talk about was how the club could sell more tickets next season. Some caller rightfully called them out on it and they just laughed saying the "football guys" had a plane to catch.

Can only imagine how Pete Carroll or UW head coach Chris Peterson would be absolutely scrutinized on the post-game and Monday Morning Quarterback Shows if their teams looked that ill-prepared for a regular season game, never mind a divisional championship game. Such is the football culture in the US.

It has been a highly entertaining and successful season. Sunday’s game doesn’t change what happened over the last 20 weeks or so but I can honestly say I was angry to see the Lions get absolutely embarrassed like that. NO WAY is the talent difference between the two teams that significant. You also can't count on being in the same position next year with potential injuries, free agency and a very competitive division factored in. It was our first West Final in four years.

Angus Reid was asked yesterday if these Lions reminded him of back in 2003 when B.C. was about to dominate the West. His answer was he thought this team has better talent on offence, than the start of that great era. So what does that say when the Lions can’t produce one stinking point in the first half, and as you pointed out, 4 straight shutout quarters, dating back to the August blowout?

Bo Levi Mitchell is a great QB. He is also an extension of his head coach. Anytime the camera was on Dickenson, the play card was in his hand and he was busy making every call for Mitchell. What an advantage that must be.

That’s what I was really hope the Lions would get from Tedford because it’s definitely not Wally. Too bad Tedford was in semi-retirement mode up here. And REALLY too bad Wally didn't recognize how Dickenson's cerebral ability translates so well into being a coach and offered him a king's ransom to stay in BC years ago.

I really hope this coaching staff does some major soul searching in the off-season and realize they need to catch up with team’s like the Stampeders and try to match the preparation and ever-changing schemes and playing calling of Hufnagel and now Dickenson. They will have to.
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Certainly not three times a charm for the Lions when finishing second in the west as it simply repeated itself from 1977 and 1986 in barely managing a win against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers at home in the WDSF only to be demolished in Alberta in the WDF all three times. So maybe better stick with 1st and 3rd in the west.

No need to add insult to injury with any trophy pictures now. But it seems like the stigma from the semi-final trophy in the NHL has spread partially to the CFL as well as the Redblacks certainly did not touch their trophy and some players drew an imaginary Grey Cup around it, while the Stampeders hoisted their trophy. Let's see if the superstition comes true.
祝加拿大加式足球聯賽不列颠哥伦比亚卑詩雄獅隊今年贏格雷杯冠軍。此外祝溫哥華加人隊贏總統獎座·卡雲斯·甘保杯·史丹利盃。還每年祝溫哥華白頭浪隊贏美國足球大联盟杯。不要忘記每年祝溫哥華巨人贏西部冰球聯盟冠軍。
改建後的卑詩體育館於二十十一年九月三十日重新對外開放,首場體育活動為同日舉行的加拿大足球聯賽賽事,由主場的卑詩雄獅隊以三十三比二十四擊敗愛民頓愛斯基摩人隊。
祝你龍年行大運。
恭喜西雅图海鹰直到第四十八屆超級盃最終四十三比八大勝曾拿下兩次超級盃冠軍的丹佛野馬拿下隊史第一個超級盃冠軍。
TheLionKing
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SammyGreene wrote:
I really hope this coaching staff does some major soul searching in the off-season and realize they need to catch up with team’s like the Stampeders and try to match the preparation and ever-changing schemes and playing calling of Hufnagel and now Dickenson. They will have to.
I would not be adverse to seeing a new offensive and defensive coordinator. Someone that can make meaningful in game adjustments rather than wait for half time. Probably not going to happen but one can hope.
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Robbie
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Robbie wrote:Certainly not three times a charm for the Lions when finishing second in the west as it simply repeated itself from 1977 and 1986 in barely managing a win against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers at home in the WDSF only to be demolished in Alberta in the WDF all three times. So maybe better stick with 1st and 3rd in the west.
And three times when the Lions finished second in the west in 1977, 1986, and 2016, the Alberta team that demolished the Lions in the west division final lost in the Grey Cup. Although in 1977 and 1986 the east division finalized won the Grey Cup in a blowout, in 2016 it was close to a blowout with the score 27-7 at one point but turned out to be an extremely close game in the end.
祝加拿大加式足球聯賽不列颠哥伦比亚卑詩雄獅隊今年贏格雷杯冠軍。此外祝溫哥華加人隊贏總統獎座·卡雲斯·甘保杯·史丹利盃。還每年祝溫哥華白頭浪隊贏美國足球大联盟杯。不要忘記每年祝溫哥華巨人贏西部冰球聯盟冠軍。
改建後的卑詩體育館於二十十一年九月三十日重新對外開放,首場體育活動為同日舉行的加拿大足球聯賽賽事,由主場的卑詩雄獅隊以三十三比二十四擊敗愛民頓愛斯基摩人隊。
祝你龍年行大運。
恭喜西雅图海鹰直到第四十八屆超級盃最終四十三比八大勝曾拿下兩次超級盃冠軍的丹佛野馬拿下隊史第一個超級盃冠軍。
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