SammyGreene wrote: ↑Sat Jul 08, 2017 7:46 am
It was a pretty familiar print to the Toronto win and the way the season has gone so far.
Don't think the Lions can afford to look past anyone but have to admit it is getting to the point where the measuring stick is Calgary and how the Lions will fare against Edmonton and Winnipeg as well. Everything else, with the excpetion of Ottawa, almost feels like "holding serve."
So far they are 0-1 in that department with the season opener loss but the jury is out on how good this team is or how much it has improved. Beat Hamilton and it's a fantastic road trip but two big games up next against the Bombers and Eskimos, then the ultimate mid-August test at home against the Stamps.
I think Ed Willes pointed out Jennings is 2-10 as a starter combined against the Stamps and Eskimos. That is hardly a reflection of him but rather the team assembled on both sides of the ball that started late in Jeff Tedford's one and only season. Last year started out very well with home opener win against the Stamps then what should have been another victory at McMahon before being embarrassed in the Western Final.
Now Edmonton looks to be back in the mix along with the Bombers who self-destructed agains the Stamps last night.
I believe our talent has enabled us to win against most teams. But when we play other CFL teams where there is very little talent difference, such as Calgary, Edmonton, then scheme, game planning, play calling and coaching become more important...and that is where we are most deficient.
The best example of this was when we played the Stamps last season. We beat the Stamps in the first contest in 2016, early in the season, when schemes are more simple and pre-game scouting is more limited. We lost a close one to the Stamps in the next contest. But the next two times we played Calgary, they completely dominated us on offence and defense.
What would cause that? The talent on both teams had remained basically the same. The difference was that the more Calgary knew our Leos team, the better prepared they were to play us. But knowing Calgary's offence and defense meant nothing. That's because we do the same thing all the time whereas Calgary does a much better job of pre-game analysis and strategizes much better than we do. The major difference between our Leos and Calgary is not talent but coaching,
Last season, we were mostly dominant against Eastern opponents but had our struggles against Western opponents, with a .500 record, which included three wins against Saskatchewan.
While our Leos defense played well overall against Montreal, the reality is that we gave up more passing yards against Montreal than other defenses this season.
I'm still struggling to understand why we moved Purifoy to safety. It doesn't make sense to me. Purifoy is an outstanding nickel back who played that position last season. Purifoy had an interception, a fumble recovery, and four tackles playing that spot in our last exhibition game this season . Last season Purifoy had 43 defensive tackles, 5 quarterback sacks, caused four forced fumbles, and had a fumble recovery that he ran back 47 yards for a defensive touchdown.
Why move him?
The answer was to get Chandler Fenner on the field. Fenner was cut at training camp in 2016. He came back to our Leos part way through the season, after both T. J. Lee and Clarke were injured but was unable to unseat Gaitor, who had now stepped in. Then when Yell got injured, we moved Gaitor to short side corner and Fenner finally got his chance, playing short side defensive halfback.
Fenner was having a good 2017 training camp and Wallt wanted to get Fenner into the lineup. So, at the end of training camp, with no practice time playing safety, he moved Purifoy to safety so that Fenner could play nickel.
In the meantime both Clarke, who beat out Fenner last season and MacDonald both looked good at safety. Why not let Fenner be the dime back? Or why not let Fenner play safety? Or why not let Fenner compete with Lee at defensive halfback.
Making two positional moves, with Fenner playing a new spot from last season and Purifoy also playing a new position, doesn't make a lot of less sense to me. Maybe it will work out as the season progresses and maybe not.
I really like Yell at short side corner and Gaitor at wide side half. I'm pleased that we are playing a National wide-side corner with Thompson beating out Parker and both are good ones. I wish Purifoy was playing nickel and Clarke, Macdonald, or Fenner were at safety. I would be happy to see Fenner at short side halfback as well. He was just as good as Lee at that position last year and Clarke was actually better than Lee at halfback last season before his injury.
While our defensive backfield is better than last season, I still believe a couple of positional changes would make it even better.