Six games into the 2012 season, Term 1 Reports

[WestCoastJoe]

So where do we stand?

Not too early to make some assessments, methinks.

Kind of like mid term grades in a 3 term school year. 6 games = 1 term. 3 games = Mid Term.

Off the top of my head, here are some impressions.
.............

Offence

QB: B ... Lulay good, but not great. Passing yardage good. Some missed throws. Not using his legs at some opportune times. Not getting the offence into a rhythm. Calm, cool and professional however. Not far off a 3-0 record.

Receivers: B- ... OK but not great. Geroy ordinary by his standards. Arland OK. Young guys not getting enough passes.

RB: A- ... Harris very good. Needs more touches.

O Line: C+ ... Good but not great. Missing our starting guards being healthy. HamRies not near 100%. Olafioye and Archibald brilliant last year, not so this year.

JChap: B ... Good but not great. It seems the Ds can plan against what we are running.

Not sure, but I suspect this less than championship level offence is more about execution than game planning and play calling.

Teams are geared up to play us. They have a good book on Lulay now. And a good book on Jacques' changes since our run to the Cup last year.
....................

Defence

D Line: B ... Good but not great. Have had good pressure. Teams are taking Khalif out of the game with doubles. Taylor is not taking advantage. Keron has played well it seems to me.

Linebackers: B ... Run stopping has been good. Blitzing not so good. Pass coverage fair.

DBs: C ... Giving up lots of yards, it seems. Coverage seems soft. Tackling not good by some.

Stubler: C+ ... Teams are very used to what he does. They have us well game planned. Our 6 man D Line rotation is not getting us the desired results. I wonder if his D is too passive, too much contain, not enough attack. We miss Elimimian of course.
...............

Special Teams

McCallum: C+ ... Way below his standards. Reacting to the Riders' fans not a sign of good focus.

Snappers/Holders: C+ ... Not fully in synch with McCallum

Brown: B- ... Some good stuff. Some ordinary.

Coverage: D ... Scheme? Intensity? Personnel? Not sure. But it ain't working.
..............

Benevides: B ... Doing what he can, but this team is not championship sharp. Far from it.

And yet we are just a whisker away from a 3 and 0 record. But we are far from hitting on all cylinders. And teams are highly motivated to play us, and very well prepared.

Riders were an excellent reality check. They pass blocked us well. On D they did enough to slow us down. They kicked our butts on STs I would have to say. They looked so ready to return that missed FG. They avoided a run and gun type of game with us, played it tight, and just barely got away with it. This was the right time, and the right team to help us realize we cannot just roll over teams.

[B.C.FAN]

Week 3 isn't over and I don't feel like crunching a lot of numbers when the league will do it for me tomorrow, but the Lions are near the top of the league in scoring and defence (second against the pass, just behind Toronto, for example). The defence is tied for the league lead in sacks. Geroy Simon is on pace after three weeks to equal the 84 receptions he got last year, which would give him another CFL record for most career catches in the last game of the season. Andrew Harris is averaging 8 yards a carry and is on pace to put up over 2,100 yards from scrimmage this season.

The Lions lost three close games at the start of last season and bounced back to win the Grey Cup. This year they're 2-1 after a close loss attributable to special teams mistakes. We expect more, of course, which is good. Project their record for a full season and they're 12-6, which is usually good enough for first place. For a team that may not be playing up to fans' expectations, they're in pretty good shape.

[SammyGreene]

Nice breakdown WC Joe and I agree with a lot of it.

The lack of balls thrown Akeem Foster's way is baffling. His vertical routes were a big part of last year's success until he got hurt late in the season. Today, one catch on the opening drive and that was it.

Little bit of a different scenario with Stubler's return to BC. This time takes over as defensive coordinator with the bar already established very high with excellent personnel for the most part. His schemes have always been effective but I would like to see more man coverage from the secondary and trusting their instincts more by jumping some routes, even if it results in a big play going the other way now and again. The Eskimos defence has not missed a beat without him.

As solid as Bighill has been in the middle, he is replacing the most intimidating MLB in the league in Elimimian and those are huge shoes to fill.

The downfield special teams coverage has been a disaster. A poor game by McCallum's standards but the fact Jackson takes one missed FG to the house and the other to midfield (where the kicker makes the saving tackle) is embarrassing. I agree what LU said on the post-game show in that the unit needs one or two players that are trying to prove they are capable of taking on a bigger role. Instead we have veterans like Larose and Arakgi who have either lost their starting jobs or have been passed over. But it's ultimately McMann's job to make sure this group is fired up every time it steps on the field and clearly it is not happening.

Kudos to the Riders. Didn't think they would get off to this kind of a start but always have had a ton of respect for Durant and what he has done in the past. QB is such an important position in this league and IMHO he is significantly better than what the Lions other two Western rivals have right now. The stage is set for what should be a great season series against the Riders with three more games to be played.

[Blitz]

I believe the first 3 games of the season have given Leos fans a much needed reality check. A number of comments, going into training camp and coming out of training camp made it seem like this season would almost be a cakewalk due to our talent. However there is not much difference in the talent levels of most CFL teams, a number of teams have improved at key positions, and for most CFL games, the difference between winning and losing comes down to a few key plays.

After 3 games I really like our coaching. Benevedes has taken a team that could have had a Grey Cup hangover or been complacent and created a very good atmosphere. Benevedes needed to focus on the Head Coaching job and getting Stubler was a real catch. I went into this season believing we would really believe we miss Barrin Miles influence and I think we are.

Chapdelaine has continued with his new JaquesBall style offence. It was an offence that was so successful during our winning streak last year, evolved through our winning streask, and it has continued to evolve into this early 2012 season. Instead of the old one running play (the zone read) that we used to use, we continue to run Wildcat, reverses, quick tosses, etc that have given our running attack much more diversity. When Chap, after going 1-6 took the time for self-reflection and evaluation last year and then made changes to our offence, its obvious those changes in philosophy are permanent. Chap has added even more motion and misdirection into the offence this season. I felt Chap did not mix it up as well yesterday against the Riders as he did for the first two games but our offensive scheme and play calling have been very sound.

On defense, Stubler has gone with the 6 man rotation defensive line, that we only used in the playoffs last year, he has added some very good blitz packages, and used Shell as a dime back very effectively. Stubler has also shown the ability to make adjustments during football games. Our defensive scheme and play calling is sound and is multi-deimensional.

I have questioned McMann's coaching leadership on special teams for a few seaons now and still am...but outside of McMann I really don't believe the coaching this season has not been an issue at all and we have come out of the gate much better than last year. It was a tough loss yesterday and perhaps we needed to experience losing again to make the improvements we need to make if we want to be back at the Big Dance this year.

Here are the issues, within the short window of 3 games as I see them.

OFFENCE:

RUBBING GAME

We are struggling to run effectively and consistently inside the offensive tackles. We have a rookie in Norman and a player sitll recovering from injury in Hameister Rees in the guard spots. They have not played as effectively as Valli and Newman did last season. Its easy to forget that Newman was our starting guard during our winning streak. To top it off, Olifoye has not played at the level that he did last season. Angus Reid, who is on the offensive line due to his experience and run blocking calls, is not a powrful run blocker. The Wildcats, reverses, and toss sweeps enable us to run outside but we are not creating holes for Harris and Brown inside. What is really happening is that Chap is scheming our running attack to make up for the inadequacy of our run blocking.

PASSING GAME

Travis Lulay's MOP Award last season hides some deficiencies in his game. Lulay is very professional and a hard woking quarterback with a great attitude, excellent mobility and very deceptive running ability. He is cool and poised. For a lot of last season, when the heat came, he had a tendance to bail wide to his right too often but got that changed around to use seams and also run to his left. He is a dangerous runner with deceptive speed.

However, Lulay does not pass the football accurately on a consistent basis. His passing percentage is an indicator of that but Lulay is not just a guy who dumps the football so that also has to be taken into consideration in his passing percentage stats.

The problem with our passing game so far is that our offensive line has given Lulay less time to throw than last year. Sometimes, last year, he had 4 and 5 seconds to throw the football and there were games he wasn't touched, let alone sacked. This year he has not been given that kind of outatanding protection. Lulay has missed throws, made some bad reads, thrown into tight coverage, been slow on some throws, and has nto looked as sharp as last seaso during the exhibition season and during our first 3 games. His distribution last year was also excellent whereas this year, he has focused in on a few receivers too often.

Perhaps, in the short term, it may also be a good thing for Simon to not be his go to guy. It might force him to look for his other receivers more often. We could be seeing Nick Moore for Johnson and Courtenay Taylor for Simon next game. The good news is that we have very quality receives on the practice roster.

DEFENCE

Opposition offences know how good our defensive line is and how good our blitz packages are. They have been using a quick passing attack to negate our defensive pressure and they are also preparing with a lot of anti-blitz plays to negate our blitz.

The weakness in oru defense so far is that we have not been playing defensive coverage at times that adjusts to that short, quick passing attack. However, our defense has kept us in games when our offence has stuggled and overall, our defense has mostly played well. Bighill is not small at 230 pounds..he's just a little shorter than most at 5'10" but he has great leaping ability. He is not the devastaing hitter that Eliminian was but Bighill is a faster closer. He also does not have Eliminain's experience yet but I don't believe his play has hurt us and wev'e done a much better job against the run than I thought we would (and there are some really dangerous backs playing this season)

SPECIAL TEAMS

This is a weakness of our team. Downfield coveage has been a problem for too many seasons under McMann. We need personell changes and we need strategy changes.

In tems of our return game, Brown was not a dangerous returner for most of last season and outside of his one big game last week, does not appear to have the dangerous speed or cutback moves that make him an elite return man. Our blocking on our return game is also not up to par.

The strength of our special teams has been our field goal unit and against the Riders that even went out the window, hopefully only temporary,

RANKING SO FAR

OFFENCE

COACHING B+
RUN BLOCKING C
PASS BLOCKING C+
QUARTERBACKING C+
RECEIVING C+

DEFENCE

COACHING B
DEFENSIVE LINE B+
LINEBACKING B
DEFENSIVE BACKFIELD C+

SPECIAL TEAMS

COACHING C
COVERAGE TEAMS C-
KICKING GAME C
RETURN GAME B/C+

[prj]

Good analysis in the posts above. My observation involves motivation/heart. I'm not sure that is a critical issue just 3 weeks into a long season. I expect that to change in the coming weeks. I mean, if one FG was 3 feet to the side, or if one clip had been called, it might have been a very different day, and we might be discussing a 3-0 team, rather than what might have been done differently.

This is a good football team! Coming out of camp, I had fears that they might resemble a Vic Rapp team: too tight too soon and all spent by October. Yesterday they lost to another good team, one highly motivated by the hype about the Lions and the events of the day. It's a long season.

[TheLionKing]

Lions are 2-1 as opposed to 0-3 at this junction last year. That says it all

[Blitz]

From reading the above excellent analyses, many of the deficiencies in the Lions offence seem to point to the OL. Travis hurrying his throws, not finding his secondary receivers like Foster, no inside running game, ect. Losing Valli and Newman has understandably taken a toll on the OL efficiency...and like Wally has said, you win the game on the line of scrimmage.

My observation of Travis is his throwing mechanics seem a little off. Like early last year, on some passes he's aiming the ball on a line rather than putting some air under it. This could boil down to a lack of confidence in his pass protection, hurrying his decision-making and throws. Foster seems to be dogging it a bit and lacking intensity. It's probably hard for a receiver to keep his focus on every play knowing he is mainly a decoy and will rarely see the ball. This is one fault of Chapdelaine's offence over the years...not including or completely ignoring some younger players in the offence (as Jamall Lee could attest to.) Spread the ball around and it keeps everyone's head in the game.

The kick coverage problems boils down to desire and hustle...a player's willingness to abandon caution and get to the returner no matter what...like Arakgi did 2 or 3 years ago and Bighill last year. Not sure a new ST coach could motivate them any better (although the Lions should consider that), they just need to find a new kamikaze-style LB who will bust his butt getting downfield and make the tackle.

Lions are 2-1 as opposed to 0-3 at this junction last year. That says it all...TheLionKing

I certainly agree with you that Lulay's mechanics are slightly off at times. Sometimes that seems to have been caused by 'aiming' the football rather than throwing it and at other times because he's been pressured. Lulay did not play well when throwing under pressure at the beginning of last season and he has not thrown welll at times this season as well when pressured. He really played well last season when our line gave him oodles ot time most games. Sometimes that split second of extra time can make a huge difference but Lulay, who we have to remember does not have a ton of experience yet, will need to get better at throwing the football when feeling hurried.

Perhaps, because the way the season began, with Geroy going for the record, Lulay began the season looking for Geroy a lot and since then he's thrown too often when Simon has been in tight coverage. I was pleased yesterday that Lulay hit Paris Jackson and Iannuzzi for a number of passes.

When a defense is playing zone, they often leave the wide recciver to the long side of the field (often Foster) wide open in the flats and its a throw we need to make more often. With Gore back in the lineup again we should be better. Lulay also only tended to look for Johnson deep and if Moore comes into the lineup he is a bigger target and Lulay may look more to that position for more underneath throws.

Chap's offence does not dictate to which receivers the football will go to on most plays. The quarterback takes both a pre-snap read of the defense and then throws to the receiver based upon his read of the defense in the pocket. While Chaps running game in the past was too simplistic his passing attack has always been complex, outside of the fact that he did not move the quarterback around enough. Chap has a ton of motion and lots of misdirection in his offence now. I really think the problem has been the run and pass blocking not being as good as last year so far...as you note John Henry...and Lulay not executing well at times due to that split second less of time to throw the football.

[cromartie]

I'm hesitant to make too many judgment calls on the offense until the offensive line gets healthy. A significant part of the game planning of the first two games involved rolling Lulay out and making him choose a receiver over only half the field, because the condition of the players on our offensive line dictated it. On the plus side, having an offensive line at 2/3rds strength also means you run the ball more and I'm pleased overall with the number of touches the running backs are getting out of the backfield.

I wait to pass any sort of judgments until game six. But my primary observations is that this team's weaknesses/deficiencies are between the ears. There's no lack of talent, the game planning and in game adjustments aren't bad at all. But mental mistakes, some untimely injuries and some questionable individual decision making/discipline breakdowns are the majority of the problem and, on the plus side, with a veteran team these things are correctable. So I feel pretty good at this point, all things considered.

[B.C.FAN]

Three games into the season is a bit early to identify trends but since we've been giving our impressions, we might as well use the Week 3 league stats for a bit of a reality check. The general picture seems to be that the passing game is down a bit but the overall offence is up because the running game leads the league, and the defence leads the league in several key categories.

OVERALL:
W-L record: 2-1 (T-2nd)
Fewest penalties: 27 (T-2nd)
Fewest yards penalized: 237 (4th)


OFFENCE:
Points scored/game 30.7 (2nd)
Touchdowns: 8 (T-3rd)
Passing TDs: 5 (3rd)
Rushing TDs: 3 (2nd)
Offensive plays: 242 (2nd)
Time of possession/game: 32:46 (1st)
First downs: 63 (3rd)
First downs rushing: 24 (1st)
First downs passing: 36 (5th)
Offence per game: 390.7 yards (2nd)
Rushing yards/game: 149.3 (1st)
Times rushed: 63 (3rd)
Avg. gain per rush: 7.1 (1st)
Avg. gain per pass: 7.9 (5th)
Passing yards/game: 252 (7th)
Passes attempted: 96 (T-6th)
Pass completion pct: 59.4 (6th)
Passes intercepted: 3 (3rd)
Fewest fumbles: 1 (2nd)
Fewest fumbles lost: 0 (T-1st)
Fewest QB sacks: 3 (1st)


DEFENCE:
Fewest 1st downs: 50 (2nd)
Fewest 1st downs rushing: 15 (4th)
Fewest 1st downs passing: 32 (3rd)
Fewest yards allowed/game: 280.3 (T-1st)
Rushing yards allowed/game: 77.3 (2nd)
Fewest times rushed: 46 (2nd)
Avg. gain per rush: 5.0 (5th)
Avg. gain per pass: 6.4 (1st)
Avg. yards passing/game: 221 (2nd)
Fewest passes attempted: 103 (3rd)
Fewest passes completed: 61 (2nd)
Lowest completion pct. 59.2 (1st)
Most interceptions: 2 (7th)
Fewest plays from scrimmage: 225 (3rd)
Avg. ppoints allowed/game: 25 (3rd)
Most QB sacks: 9 (T-2nd)
Fewest TDs passing: 6 (T-4th)
Fewest TDs rushing: 1 (T-1st)
Fewest TDs: 7 (T-3rd)


SPECIAL TEAMS:
Field goals: 9 (2nd)
KO return yards: 294 (5th)
Punting avg. yards: 41.3 (8th)
Punt return yards: 251 (2nd)
Fewest field goals allowed: 4 (T-1st)

[MikeAK]

I think we are doing fine. Sure there are areas that need to be improved but it's still early and this is to be expected. I think we beat our selves in Sask and very well could be 3-0. I really like our team this year.

[TheLionKing]

I think we are doing fine. Sure there are areas that need to be improved but it's still early and this is to be expected. I think we beat our selves in Sask and very well could be 3-0. I really like our team this year.

I concur. No need to panic........yet.

[Toppy Vann]

It would have been nice not to lose to a western team and not the Riders as it gave them 3 and 0 but I agree with others. This is a good team. You want them to be peaking at playoffs not ready for their first loss of the season.

ST are a concern but this year there are some very dynamic returners and burners on kick return teams. When this becomes a trend they'll defend with faster guys at the risk of blocked kicks beginning to get up there.

If you win a GC few but the posters on forums like this remember the ugly wins.