Eskimos 39 - Lions 23 -- Post-Game Comments

[DanoT]

A quick follow-up note re Branden Dozier; he played safety, and as an Eastern conference all-star snagged 5 interceptions in 2018. Seems promising so far as personnel goes. Plus he was a regular on special teams.

Why would the Als release a Eastern all-star who was unlikely to be on a very expensive contract? There must be something else going on here with Dozier.

[B.C.FAN]

Dozier started at nickelback for the first four games last year, then backed up veteran Chip Cox at the position for four games before starting one game at halfback and the final nine games at safety. He's a bit undersized for nickelback at 5-11 and 201 lbs., so safety is probably his best position.

[TheLionKing]

Has the airlift started ?

[CardiacKid]

Rickey Lloyd has been released as per Farhan...


Also Mike Reilly has shaved off his beard. Time to get serious.

[WestCoastJoe]

Rickey Lloyd has been released as per Farhan...


Also Mike Reilly has shaved off his beard. Time to get serious.

Has the airlift started ?

Seems like it.

We are searching hard for the right backup QB. Apodaca gone. Sears gone. Lloyd gone. Kraemer still here. O' Brien brought in on the Eskimo-Lion pipeline. I expect we bring in another QB soon.

INT receiver corps is in need of upgrade behind Burnham and Carter. We will see if Carter keeps his cool and is productive all year.

Boesen at DE has yet to shine. Some patience is merited, but we need sacks from that position.

Running back? I find it hard to believe that we stay with White and Rutley as the combo all year.

LB. Harris and Edwards need to be productive.

Is Thompson the guy at Safety? Corner back where Termansen has played? Where will Dozier play?

This fan wonders if the coaching staff stays intact all year. It has been that kind of start. Not just the two losses, but how poorly the team has played. Disorganized pass protection, for a variety of reasons. No run game. No pass rush. Run stopping vulnerable.

Musical chairs at backup QB. Roster changes ongoing. Curious selections for starting jobs.

Any more guys we can scoop or poach from Edmonton? Ha ha.

We will see. But I think there are causes for concern.

[CardiacKid]

Rickey Lloyd has been released as per Farhan...


Also Mike Reilly has shaved off his beard. Time to get serious.

Has the airlift started ?

Seems like it.

We are searching hard for the right backup QB. Apodaca gone. Sears gone. Lloyd gone. Kraemer still here. O' Brien brought in on the Eskimo-Lion pipeline. I expect we bring in another QB soon.

INT receiver corps is in need of upgrade behind Burnham and Carter. We will see if Carter keeps his cool and is productive all year.

Boesen at DE has yet to shine. Some patience is merited, but we need sacks from that position.

Running back? I find it hard to believe that we stay with White and Rutley as the combo all year.

LB. Harris and Edwards need to be productive.

Is Thompson the guy at Safety? Corner back where Termansen has played? Where will Dozier play?

This fan wonders if the coaching staff stays intact all year. It has been that kind of start. Not just the two losses, but how poorly the team has played. Disorganized pass protection, for a variety of reasons. No run game. No pass rush. Run stopping vulnerable.

Musical chairs at backup QB. Roster changes ongoing. Curious selections for starting jobs.

Any more guys we can scoop or poach from Edmonton? Ha ha.

We will see. But I think there are causes for concern.

There certainly seems to be a degree of urgency behind some of these moves. If so, I appreciate it as we have been sold a bill of goods for this team. Now it is pretty much the same bill as years past; aggressive defence and innovative offence. But with the new regime, I think a lot of us were expecting that as opposed to the usual skepticism.

I just hope the more experienced members of the coaching staff start making the necessary alterations to the playbook. I am still feeling the last game’s results start and end with the coaches.

[Sir Purrcival]

As disheartening as a start has been this year, I wasn't ever sure that we were going to see much different. It took a whole pile of years for the Lions to descend to the level that they were at last year under the old regime. No matter how much you do, you don't unwrite all of that history overnight. I am distressed that some issues appear to have been so poorly addressed to this point. You always need a good pass rush and you always need a good Oline. Our running game has taken a huge step backwards it would seem and our new receiving corp has looked pretty average at times. Fortunately, running backs are not hard to find. Whether any RB can overcome the OLine issues is another story.

[Coast Mountain Lion]

Rickey Lloyd has been released as per Farhan...


Also Mike Reilly has shaved off his beard. Time to get serious.

Does that mean they have to redo the images for the "Nothing Rhymes with Orange" ads?

[WestCoastJoe]

Bringing this post over to this thread. Too many sacks will no doubt be an issue that occurs again this year.

This is one of the biggest frustrations for Lions fans. Other teams' QBs get sacked, sure. But our QBs seem to routinely become human pinatas in big games, getting swarmed from a relentless pass rush that our scheme and Oline seem unable to do anything about. Season after season. It's really quite remarkable.

If I was to write a book about our beleaguered teams through the years, it would be "Death, Taxes, and Multiple Sacks."


DH

My view on this, looking from the present into the past ...

Reilly only wants to throw. With option plays, he will throw. The D acts with this in mind. They cook up stunts, overloads and movement, making it more challenging for the OL to adjust. Our offence does not adjust, so that oftentimes there are more guys rushing the passer than there are blockers. It seems to me that Jarious' offensive scheme either does not know how to deal with it, or that it is so complicated that the OL has not figured it out. Yes, I am putting it on Jarious, not on the O Line. This fan also puts a lot of the responsibility on Reilly. He is the QB with a large amount of personal authority. He wants to pass. He does not seem to mind if he gets pounded all game long. The remedies are there: run the ball, shorter routes, quick release, disguise in the offence, etc.

Vs the Eskimos. 27 passes by Reilly. 8 runs by White, 1 by Rutley. Gable ran 23 times for the Schmos.

Vs the Bombers. 39 passes by Reilly. 4 runs by White. For the Bombers 16 runs by Harris with 1 by Demski and 1 by Whitehead.

With Dan Dorazio, in years past, we had too many sacks with various OCs. There was a philosophical tendency by the staff to not adjust, in game, or even in practice. Just roll out the same scheme, game after game, year after year. Plus Dan's focus on minute details of technique tended to make his guys preoccupied. They did not play instinctively. They did not focus on their strength and athleticism. IMO.

In 2011, Andrew Harris was pretty much unstoppable. Releasing from the backfield for short passes, with Lulay keying on him, our offence had tremendous balance. Runs. Passes. OL highly motivated.

The years with Joe Smith were different. The team, the staff, decided to focus on a bruising run game. Voila. We wore defences down. The OL got huge satisfaction from pounding DLs, putting them on the ground. This is to the credit also of Stef Kruck and Dan Dorazio at the time, co-OCs. IMO.

So the issues I see at present relate to:

1 The offensive scheme Jarious runs (I have to say that Jarious seems to be in over his head as an OC.)

2 Reilly's overarching tendency to go with the pass.

I see no reason to doubt the ability of Bryan Chiu to coach the O Line. And I see no reason to doubt the individual abilities of our O Linemen to pass block. One O Lineman cannot block 2 men when there is an overload with blitzers.

We have seen this tendency for too many sacks for years. And the consequences have also been injuries to QBs.

As a team, do we even know how to keep the sacks down? It does not look like it at this time. Have we forgotten the importance of the run game? Do we know how to adjust when teams blitz? Do we know how to deal with a rush/blitz happy defence? A large part of the answer is in using the run game. It makes the heart too heavy to even consider looking at the film and posting break down pictures at this time.

Just imo. Others will see it differently and some might even defend the status quo. This fan cannot defend the status quo. We are 0 and 2, in games we played poorly. Can it be fixed? Yes. Hopefully. We will see.

Game 3 coming up. Each game is a test. We see the results on the field.

[Pistrinus]

Why don’t you put up a film so we can all see if this revisionist history is true , they team didn’t play well , but somebody didn’t play well at all and one person doesn’t play well it can mess up the whole team

[WestCoastJoe]

Why don’t you put up a film so we can all see if this revisionist history is true , they team didn’t play well , but somebody didn’t play well at all and one person doesn’t play well it can mess up the whole team

Revisionist or history? There is a lot of history on this site, game reviews, strategy discussions, play break downs, et cetera. Check it out.

I have posted pictures from time to time, with break downs. As noted above I will not do it at this time, for the Eskimo game. Anybody can do it. Run the film or highlights. Stop the action. Take a screenshot. Break it down. There have been hundreds of examples on this site, going back years. Post your own screenshots. No doubt I will post more in the future.

Go for it. Post your own pix. Break down the plays. Show us a pic, with discussion, of ''they team didn’t play well,'' or ''but somebody didn’t play well at all,'' or ''one person doesn’t play well it can mess up the whole team.'' A lot of stuff happens with individuals, and there are also scheme issues, overloads, confusion in the ranks. There are also pix of successful plays. Our team has had a fair share of success and failure.

[WestCoastJoe]

i am quite impressed with the essays you guys write here. is this a british columbia thing ?

''Essays'' on a football website? Well, it might be a ''thing'' on this site, for some, and is not restricted to B.C. residents. Not your average football website? Perhaps.

[DanoT]

If the Lions don't come up with a balanced attack and do it soon, they may find themselves in the basement at season's end with horrible attendance for the year. In other words, I fear that gutting the team in order to afford to pay Reilly will have turned to failure.

[David]

There's no doubt to me that teams will be gunning for us this year. Reilly is going to wear a bull's eye by being the CFL's highest-paid athlete by quite a bit. I don't know if it's "contact envy" or what, but teams will want to show that they can beat (up?) the marquee player.

In Edmonton, there may have been resentment for him leaving as well, as there is no doubt in my mind that their defence (some anyway) wanted to inflict maximum punishment on Reilly. They would like deny it, or perhaps not be consciously aware, but there were too many "shots" on the quarterback, especially up high, for me to think otherwise. Perhaps it was extra motivation from within or a coach's 'pep' talk, but it seemed to be there.


DH

[B.C.FAN]

Media commentators have focused a lot on the run-pass option this year. Edmonton, Ottawa and Saskatchewan rely a lot on RPO, as do the Lions. So far the other teams have had great success. The Lions haven't. Edmonton's offence is first in the league, averaging over 500 net yards a game. Ottawa and Saskatchewan are ranked third and fourth behind Hamilton, all averaging just over 400 yards a game. The Lions are dead last at 235 yards a game.

Here's a Winnipeg Free Press article on Winnipeg preparing to face Edmonton's RPO offence tonight. Note the comments from Craig Roh about the differences between how Trevor Harris and Mike Reilly run it.

"In terms of how their offence is run, there’s a ton of (run-pass option), there’s a ton of quick release — yeah it does pose a problem," Blue Bombers defensive end Craig Roh said following the club’s closed practice Tuesday morning. "You have certain quarterbacks, like (the B.C. Lions’ Mike) Reilly, who hold onto it for a little bit longer. They let the routes develop a little bit more.

"Ever since (Harris) has been in the league, he’s dinked and dunked it down the field. He’s been really good at that and it definitely poses a challenge for us."

Harris up to his old tricks:
Eskimos quarterback still carving up defences

DeVone Claybrooks cited confusion on the O-line for the Lions' struggles last week. The Eskimos routinely put seven defenders on the line and mixed up their blitzes and the B.C. offence didn't know what blocking calls to make. With Hunter Steward starting the second game of his career at centre, that can happen. This week, according to Farhan Lalji, it appears the Lions are planning to move Steward back to left guard and David Foucault to right tackle and activate centre Andrew Peirson, likely as a backup to Jean-Simon Roy, who would be making the first start of his career.

The first question I asked OL coach Bryan Chiu at the Lions' town hall meeting with Randy Ambrosie on Feb. 27 was who would play centre this season. He said he didn't know and referred me to DeVone Claybrooks. They both laughed and didn't answer. We still don't know the answer. I don't think they're laughing now.