Our Leos key to this win in Montreal can be read in six letters -Minter.
With Minter inserted at nose tackle for Roh, it forced the Montreal line to double team Minter and allowed Brooks to beat single team blocking. When we had Roh at tackle, Brooks was double teamed and Roh was blown out with single team blocking against the run.
What a difference one personell change made. We only gave up one big run inside. We forced Montreal to run outside. We also got inside penetration from the tackle position. That forced Montreal to make a lot of quick throws. It allowed our defensive backs to play tighter and anticipate. It forced bad throws and we took advantage because we really do have ball hawks in our secondary but they have been forced to play passively due to our inept pass rush in the past this season.
Fraser got a key pick and a touchdown, which was also gratifying. One may ask why it took so long to make obvious changes. Well, if our coaches read Lionbackers and weren't so stubborn they would be smiling more.,.,
Defensive turnovers allowed our offence to put up enough points to win this game. Cortez made some changes, using some motion and fly sweeps and fake fly sweeps and misdirection handoffs to Harris.
We also threw the football quickly with Beck in an quarterback and threw underneath, with a number of combo routes but overall our offence was still not good enough. Beck did a good job overall, considering his past reps but also threw two interceptions he shouldn't have. I still believe Jennings should be developed rather than a 34 year old quarterback.
We also got one big return from our new punt returner and some great punting from Leone but he missed two long field goals and we could have been burned by Logan but fortunately our coverage didn't allow him to do that.
A big win for a team that was floundering. More scheme work needed on offence but at least on defense, we finally figured out that you can't play a rookie undersized defensive end at tackle.
Minter and Brooks - they were the difference makers plus our defensive backs took advantage of pressure and misthrows to create the turnovers that enabled this victory.
Welcome back to the HC job Jim Popp. Hopefully Popp's loss caused Wally to throw any dum ideas of returning to coaching. He would be wise to keep his legacy of a Grey Cup win in 2011 and then walking away from the sidelines ...because Wally's previous three seasons before that Grey Cup victory were not something to celebrate
"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)
