Leos/Red Blacks Keys to the Game
Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2014 7:36 am
Our 7-7 B.C. Lions host the 2-11 Ottawa Red Blacks at B.C. Place tonight.
At the start of the season, this game would have been predicted to be a no-brainer. Our B.C. Lions, predicted to be the best team in the CFL, playing an expansion team in its first season of play, would have been a mismatch. Playing an expansion team in the confines of our 'house' would have created some sympathy for the opposition squad.
Not anymore. We barely beat Ottawa the last time we played them. We had Travis Lulay at quarterback and he had been practicing for weeks, getting first team snaps at practice, and had seen action in our previous two games before his first start. Andrew Harris and Logan were in the backfield. Arsenault and Taylor were our slots. We barely won the game and didn't score an offensive touchdown. We hadn't scored an offensive touchdown the week before.
The excuse machine has been rolled out this week. Our recent string of injuries has created fodder for sports writers, who now seem to have adopted the theme that this has been 'an injury plagued season'. The reality is that it wasn't until recently. The loss of Travis Lulay has also been used as a reason for this season of offensive ineptitude but Kevin Glenn, in Calgary, was able to lead an offence that kicked our ass in the 2012 WDF and lead Calgary last year to a first place finish in the West. Glenn has more passing yards than Edmonton's Mike Reilley. The EXCUSES for our Leos poor offensive play ring hollow.
One of those excuses, prior to the recent spate of injuries is the familiar 'lack of execution. The LionKing hit it on the head when he wrote "Does Calgary draft or sign more intelligent players". The answer is NO. But perhaps they have more football intelligent coaches.
As MLF wrote on another thread
Henry Burris has completed 62.3% of his passes this season for 2998 yards of passing oifence with a less than impressive receiving corps. Kevin Glenn has completed 62.5% of his passes for 3018 yards this season when he has mostly had Arsenault, Taylor, and Harris in the lineup, which makes one think that Ottawa has had a better designed passing attack than us.
A big reason that Ottawa has been able to comparable to our Leos in their passing attack is that the expansion Ottawa offence, with an offensive line of cast-offs has been able to protect Burris better than our Leos. Ottawa has given up 40 sacks this season while we've given up 43. That is an embarrassment.
Our Lions should win this game based upon this simple stat. Our Lions have the best defense in the CFL. Ottawa's defense ranks 7th. However, last time we played them, our offensive mediocrity made it a very close game and one we deserved to lose.
Here are my KEYS TO THE GAME. I look forward to reading yours.
COACHING
After 3 straight losses, once again coaching comes to the forefront. Toppy Van recently wrote a 'top' post that pointed out Angus Reid would not have written his article that emphasized that the key to the remainder of this season was the need for Benevedes to show true leadership rather than slogans and gimmicks.
Leadership arises when a leader can take his team through adversity. We do have some adversity, with some key players our of our offensive lineup but we are also playing an Ottawa team that has faced the adversity of having a lot less talent all season.
We need good offensive game planning, good play calling, and the ability to make adjustments, should they be needed in this game. We have some talented Canadian receivers who have the ability to step up, if they are given the right circumstances to do so. Iannuzzi has been a four year starter. Shawn Gore has been a starter and a very effective receiver in previous seasons. Haidara was considered the best reciever in the draft in his draft year. Poblah has started a number of games this season. Adekolu had a very impessive training camp. Antolin has quickness and talent if we can open a hole for him to run to. Ernest Jackson has shown that he can get deep and he has excellent hands.
We will choose to sit Fabian down again and use two Internationals on the left side of the offensive line.
On defense, the only change to our lineup is to move Lee to short side coner and use Parker on the wideside. Lee has shown he has very good coverage skills and Parker has already seen a lot of action at wide side corner.Torri Williams can also play there when we insert a Canadian defensive lineman into our 6 man rotatation.
This is not the dire situation the sports writers and Leos are making it out to be. This is a much more talented lineup than Ottawa can dream of fielding.
Its up to our coaching staff to exploit all the weaknesses the Ottawa team has, espcially on defence.
SPECIAL TEAMS
One of the dififcult things an expansion franchise deals with is not only dealing with a less than talented starting lineup. But even more challenging is finding depth for special teams play. The advantage for our Lions in this area is significant.
If Chuck (It always looks foggy) McMann can get our return game going against Ottawa it would give us the field position that might help our anemic offence get going.
OFFENSIVE LINE
With 3 Internationals in the lineup of our offensive line, with top draft choice Kirby Fabian in reserve, with 2011 Grey Cup starting guard in the lineup, surely we should be able to open a few holes for Antolin and Brown. We should be able to give Kevin Glenn reasonable time to throw the football.
This is a game in which our offensive line must dominate. The pressure is on Darazio to finally get this offensive line going. Last season at this time we changed our offensive blocking scheme and Chap changed the offence even more, using a ton of motion to get receivers into position to run block to help Dorazio do his job.
Whatever it takes, it needs to get done.
WRAP
An opposition team travelling to B.C. Place to play our Leos was nothing to look forward to for such a long time. Not any more. Ottawa will come here believing they have a good chance to win. Its time we started to play in our 'house' again like it really is our home and needs to be respected. It may be a low place to start, but beating Ottawa tonight would be a beginning again in geting some pride back again, when we play at home, as well as treating ticket paying fans to a victory they deserve to have.
At the start of the season, this game would have been predicted to be a no-brainer. Our B.C. Lions, predicted to be the best team in the CFL, playing an expansion team in its first season of play, would have been a mismatch. Playing an expansion team in the confines of our 'house' would have created some sympathy for the opposition squad.
Not anymore. We barely beat Ottawa the last time we played them. We had Travis Lulay at quarterback and he had been practicing for weeks, getting first team snaps at practice, and had seen action in our previous two games before his first start. Andrew Harris and Logan were in the backfield. Arsenault and Taylor were our slots. We barely won the game and didn't score an offensive touchdown. We hadn't scored an offensive touchdown the week before.
The excuse machine has been rolled out this week. Our recent string of injuries has created fodder for sports writers, who now seem to have adopted the theme that this has been 'an injury plagued season'. The reality is that it wasn't until recently. The loss of Travis Lulay has also been used as a reason for this season of offensive ineptitude but Kevin Glenn, in Calgary, was able to lead an offence that kicked our ass in the 2012 WDF and lead Calgary last year to a first place finish in the West. Glenn has more passing yards than Edmonton's Mike Reilley. The EXCUSES for our Leos poor offensive play ring hollow.
One of those excuses, prior to the recent spate of injuries is the familiar 'lack of execution. The LionKing hit it on the head when he wrote "Does Calgary draft or sign more intelligent players". The answer is NO. But perhaps they have more football intelligent coaches.
As MLF wrote on another thread
The reality is that our Leos will field a much more talented team tonight than Ottawa, even with our recent string of injuries. The injuries are also mostly on offence and we weren't scoring with our starting lineup in action.Let's see. Harris, Taylor and Logan all were healthy when the Lions were held to 3 2nd half points in their season opening loss to Edmonton or how about the god awful 24-9 loss a week later in Montreal? Don't forget the 23-6 home loss debacle to the Bombers or managing a measly 3 points in the final 40 minutes on "guaranteed" win day against the Riders.
Henry Burris has completed 62.3% of his passes this season for 2998 yards of passing oifence with a less than impressive receiving corps. Kevin Glenn has completed 62.5% of his passes for 3018 yards this season when he has mostly had Arsenault, Taylor, and Harris in the lineup, which makes one think that Ottawa has had a better designed passing attack than us.
A big reason that Ottawa has been able to comparable to our Leos in their passing attack is that the expansion Ottawa offence, with an offensive line of cast-offs has been able to protect Burris better than our Leos. Ottawa has given up 40 sacks this season while we've given up 43. That is an embarrassment.
Our Lions should win this game based upon this simple stat. Our Lions have the best defense in the CFL. Ottawa's defense ranks 7th. However, last time we played them, our offensive mediocrity made it a very close game and one we deserved to lose.
Here are my KEYS TO THE GAME. I look forward to reading yours.
COACHING
After 3 straight losses, once again coaching comes to the forefront. Toppy Van recently wrote a 'top' post that pointed out Angus Reid would not have written his article that emphasized that the key to the remainder of this season was the need for Benevedes to show true leadership rather than slogans and gimmicks.
Leadership arises when a leader can take his team through adversity. We do have some adversity, with some key players our of our offensive lineup but we are also playing an Ottawa team that has faced the adversity of having a lot less talent all season.
We need good offensive game planning, good play calling, and the ability to make adjustments, should they be needed in this game. We have some talented Canadian receivers who have the ability to step up, if they are given the right circumstances to do so. Iannuzzi has been a four year starter. Shawn Gore has been a starter and a very effective receiver in previous seasons. Haidara was considered the best reciever in the draft in his draft year. Poblah has started a number of games this season. Adekolu had a very impessive training camp. Antolin has quickness and talent if we can open a hole for him to run to. Ernest Jackson has shown that he can get deep and he has excellent hands.
We will choose to sit Fabian down again and use two Internationals on the left side of the offensive line.
On defense, the only change to our lineup is to move Lee to short side coner and use Parker on the wideside. Lee has shown he has very good coverage skills and Parker has already seen a lot of action at wide side corner.Torri Williams can also play there when we insert a Canadian defensive lineman into our 6 man rotatation.
This is not the dire situation the sports writers and Leos are making it out to be. This is a much more talented lineup than Ottawa can dream of fielding.
Its up to our coaching staff to exploit all the weaknesses the Ottawa team has, espcially on defence.
SPECIAL TEAMS
One of the dififcult things an expansion franchise deals with is not only dealing with a less than talented starting lineup. But even more challenging is finding depth for special teams play. The advantage for our Lions in this area is significant.
If Chuck (It always looks foggy) McMann can get our return game going against Ottawa it would give us the field position that might help our anemic offence get going.
OFFENSIVE LINE
With 3 Internationals in the lineup of our offensive line, with top draft choice Kirby Fabian in reserve, with 2011 Grey Cup starting guard in the lineup, surely we should be able to open a few holes for Antolin and Brown. We should be able to give Kevin Glenn reasonable time to throw the football.
This is a game in which our offensive line must dominate. The pressure is on Darazio to finally get this offensive line going. Last season at this time we changed our offensive blocking scheme and Chap changed the offence even more, using a ton of motion to get receivers into position to run block to help Dorazio do his job.
Whatever it takes, it needs to get done.
WRAP
An opposition team travelling to B.C. Place to play our Leos was nothing to look forward to for such a long time. Not any more. Ottawa will come here believing they have a good chance to win. Its time we started to play in our 'house' again like it really is our home and needs to be respected. It may be a low place to start, but beating Ottawa tonight would be a beginning again in geting some pride back again, when we play at home, as well as treating ticket paying fans to a victory they deserve to have.