Stampeders 27 - Lions 13, Post-Stats and Comments

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B.C.FAN
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It's fair to criticize Wally for not being an innovator or a hands-on coach (except with special teams :bang: ) but I agree with him that execution is the difference between winning and losing. Most CFL offensive schemes are similar. Experienced coaches and defensive players have seen it all before.

The B.C. offence is a purrfect example of the importance of execution, especially at the all-important quarterback position. B.C. ranks fourth in the league in net offence at 377 yards per game, right behind Calgary in third at 385 yards. But the key to the offence is quarterbacking.

In games where Travis Lulay played the majority of snaps , the Lions averaged 447 yards of offence, well above Edmonton's league-leading average of 398 yards.

In games where Jonathon Jennings has played the majority of snaps, the Lions averaged 328 yards of offence, which ranks ahead of only Montreal (325 yards) and Hamilton (290 yards).

It's the same coaching staff, same scheme, same play-caller, mostly the same players. Quarterbacking makes all the difference and makes coaches look good or bad.
maxlion
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It wasn't just good fortune that Wally had an innovative coach like Hufnagel as his OC in Calgary. Wally hired Hufnagel for the role.

Likewise, it wasn't just good fortune that he had great qbs like Flutie, Garcia, and Dickerson. These are all guys that he recruited or signed.

Coaches and GMs might get lucky to be surrounded by great talent for a season or two, but sustained success needs more than standing around in the sidelines chewing your lip.

Time passes everyone by eventually. Good on Wally for knowing when it is time to go.
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maxlion wrote:
Thu Sep 21, 2017 12:38 pm
It wasn't just good fortune that Wally had an innovative coach like Hufnagel as his OC in Calgary. Wally hired Hufnagel for the role.

Likewise, it wasn't just good fortune that he had great qbs like Flutie, Garcia, and Dickerson. These are all guys that he recruited or signed.

Coaches and GMs might get lucky to be surrounded by great talent for a season or two, but sustained success needs more than standing around in the sidelines chewing your lip.

Time passes everyone by eventually. Good on Wally for knowing when it is time to go.
Good points, maxlion. I agree that Wally's sustained success is noteworthy and that player execution is indeed a relevant factor. The team's recent performance certainly isn't all on Wally. He seems to be blamed for just about everything that has gone wrong with the Lions this season (as in the past). Blaming him for Long outkicking the coverage is just one example--and a case in which several others, like special teams coach Marcello Simmons, are in fact much more directly responsible. I guess the saying "the buck stops at the top" can be applied, but I think it excuses a lot of deficiencies elsewhere on the team. If player X plays poorly, it seems it's not that player's responsibility, but, instead, Wally's for selecting him for the team.... :sigh:
Blitz
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B.C.FAN wrote:
Thu Sep 21, 2017 10:08 am
It's fair to criticize Wally for not being an innovator or a hands-on coach (except with special teams :bang: ) but I agree with him that execution is the difference between winning and losing. Most CFL offensive schemes are similar. Experienced coaches and defensive players have seen it all before.
There was a time when almost every team in the CFL used a copy cat of the spread offence. But not anymore.

While a lot of teams still use 5 receiver sets, there has been a changing of offensive style for many CFL teams, which are using more of a West Coast flavor introduced by Marc Trestmann, when he was the HC of Montreal.

Here is an excerpt from a recent Edmonto Sun article, in which Edmonton offensive coordinator Carson Walch discusses these changes.
Marc Trestmann's Finger Prints All Over Edmonton Offence

Marc Trestman gave me my first shot in the CFL. He made a dream come true for me, allowed me to work in the NFL with him, I owe virtually almost everything in this business to Marc Trestman.

“He's taught me everything from how you treat people, how you put a game plan together, technique, how to run a practice, he's done everything and beyond for me. He's a mentor to me.”

And now, it's time to use Trestman's blueprints against him, though Walch would hardly be the first to do so.

“In my opinion, Marc Trestman has revolutionized the CFL: Toronto's offence when Milanovich went there; Jaime Elizondo was part of Toronto, he went to Ottawa; Jason Maas was obviously part of Toronto, he went to Ottawa then he came to Edmonton.

So it has definitely spread throughout the league,” Walch said. “I think if you talk to defensive coaches, they'll tell you they see so many similarities in this league from what coach Trestman, Scott Milanovich, Marcus Brady, Jason Maas, Jaime Elizondo, all those guys have come from that system.

“When it comes to CFL offence, he's a genius in my opinion.”
I do think we've seen some change away from the prototype spread offence in recent years. Its interesting that the two teams playing on Friday night are the two most prototype spread offensive teams in the CFL or at least were when Kent Austin was coaching this season.

I don't believe quarterbacking has been the key issue with our Leos. I really believe the difference between last year and this year has been the play of our offensive and defensive lines. Yes, Lulay did play a great stretch of four games but even his play, the best of his career, was not enough to beat Edmonton. Our three victories, with Lulay at the controls, were against the Riders and two Eastern teams, if memory serves me right.

Jonathan Jennings passed for over 5, 226 yds. last season, the third most in Leos history in a single season. He threw 27 touchdown passes and had a 102.2 quarterback efficiency average. He didn't just throw long passes to achieve that kind of success.

This season Jennings has completed 63% of his passes and has thrown 12 interceptions and only 6 touchdown passes and he has a 74.3 quarterback efficiency average.

Travis Lulay, this season completed 73.3% of his passes and had a 108.8 quarterback efficiency average. That was an anomaly for Lulay and likely unsustainable. His career average passing percentage is 63.3% and his average quarterback efficiency average is 93.3. Lulay completed 62.8% of his passes in his last season as a starter in 2015, threw 12 touchdown passes with 10 interceptions and had an 84.4 quarterback average.

Certainly, Lulay was playing much better than Jennings but both threw too many interceptions this season. I believe our biggest problem this season, offensively, is the play of our offensive line. Yes our scheme is prohibitive against good teams like Calgary but overall, our offensive line play has deteriorated from last season.

There are reasons why we thrown the most interceptions. There is a reason why we're only 6th in CFL scoring. There are reasons why Jennings is not playing as well this season as last season. Last game Jennings was sacked four times in the first half, hit 17 times during the game, and we had 22 rushed plays.

Bo Levi Mitchell only completed 51.6% of his passes and he had a hell of a lot more time to throw the football than Jennings, who completed 51.7% of his passes.

Lulay's fine play over 4 starts obscures the issue and the problem is now being blamed on Jennings.

The reality is that its difficult to win when you lead the league in giving up quarterback sacks and throwing interceptions and Jennings and Lulay have thrown 19 of them so far this season. Its also difficult to play high quality defense when you are 8th in quarterback sacks this season and last year we tied for best in the CFL with Calgary for the most quarterback sacks.

However, if you can't protect the quarterback well enough, you have to try some different things and that is not just throwing quick passes off the first read. We tried that against Calgary and they jumped the route for an interception on the first throw of the game. More runs, more diversified runs, more screens, more slants, quick crosses, etc. would help a lot.

On defense, if you are not getting enough pressure, you can blitz an extra defender selectively. Last season we got a lot of our sacks from linebackers and defensive backs. Sol E. had 7 sacks last season, Bighill and Purifoy had 5 sacks each, which adds up to 17 sacks in 2016 from our linebacking crew.

This season so far, we have 2 sacks from our linebacking crew with Sol E. and Fenner with one sack each. That projects to 3 linebacker sacks this season compared to 17 linebacker sacks in 2016.

I don't believe we would have beaten Calgary with Lulay starting, even though he was playing better than Jennings obviously. There is a hell of a lot more to why our Leos may not make the playoffs other than quarterbacking.

I look at so many areas in which we have slid and not just offensive and defensive line play. We also led the CFL in punt returns last year and Rainey made some outstanding run backs on punts that were game changing. Not this season. We are worst in the CFL in punt returns and that can't be blamed on quarterbacking.

As for blaming Buono he set the bar high himself. He was the one who said it was difficult to replace a legend. When you self-refer in that way, expectations are high. He is the HC and the GM. He fired or pushed out his two previous Head Coaches. He believed he could do better. Therefore, its time that he did for 2017.
"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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