cromartie wrote: ↑Mon Oct 23, 2017 10:07 am
This team needs an enema.
In all seriousness, most of the preseason talk was about how good the Lions were at the skill positions, and in the secondary. And I think that can be true.
But if you aren't good in the trenches, you aren't going to win, and there's no more stark illustration to this than when you put on tape of the Eskimos, a team with significant enough talent on both lines to thrive despite a plethora of injuries, and the Lions, who couldn't buy a pass rush all year long, along with an offensive line coach who should have stayed retired.
And this is before we get to a coaching staff that does the talent no favors, and hasn't, all season, from a pedestrian offensive gameplan to a persistently soft defensive scheme.
Blow this staff up and start over again. It's time.
Always interesting to read what you have to write cromartie.
Totally agree with what you have written. Buono, with all of his years of coaching should know that, along with the quarterback position, the key units of any football team are the offensive and defensive line and neither were priority over the skill positions before this season.
Given that was the situation as the season progressed, we also did not adapt our schemes, game planning, and play calling to take into account our weaknesses in the trenches.
Your comment to blow this staff up and start again hits the nail on the head.
I am not ready to give up on Jennings. With better coaching the O line and better play calling, better play design we will see a better Jennings. I am convinced that none of this will happen without a HC and assistant coaches change for next year. Dano T.
I am not ready to give up on Jennings either Dano T. Jennings has shown, when he gets anything resembling reasonable protection this season that he can make all the throws.
I'm not ready to give up on a lot of Leo players who have not have a stellar season. Jennings is not the only Leo who has not had a banner season. Many players on both sides of the football have not shone as they should have this season. When you have so many players struggling to 'execute' and who have shown they have had that ability in the past (and age is not a factor), the root of the problem is not execution or lack thereof.
I'm not read to give up on Chris Rainey or Anthony Thompson or Cody Husband or Kirby Fabian, or Louchez Purifoy or numerous others whose play has not shone as was anticipated prior to this season.
Anthony Thompson is an example of a long lineup of National safeties who have struggled. We haven't had a National safety that has played well since we began playing a National there after Barrin Miles retired. A part of the reason why Miles had 10 interceptions in 2006 was that Dave Ritchie allowed Miles to play safety the way the position should be played. Miles also had great anticipation skills.
Now we have our safety playing so far back, he is almost useless. Last season Jennings and Lulay worked with our safety after practice to improve his angles and it helped. Why we had to have our two quarterbacks coaching up our free safety after practice begs a different question. This is the job of the defensive coordinator and defensive backfield coach, who on our Leos team is the same coach.
Dan Dorazio has our offensive line giving up the most sacks in the league. Its a state of affairs we have been far to familiar with too often with Dorazio as our offensive line coach.
Still, its possible to win with a bad offensive line, with Dorazio leading the to offensive line to mediocrity. We won the West Division in 2005, giving up the most sacks in the CFL (65 of them) and our Leos also gave up the most sacks in the CFL in 2006 and we still won the Grey Cup.
Why our offensive line gave up so many sacks, say for example, in 2006 is confounding, when you look at the talent Dorazio had that 2006 season. Our offensive line was comprised of Rob Murphy, Jason JIiminez, Angus Reid, Shirko Rasouli, Kelly Bates, and Bobby Singh. But we had a hell of a defense and an outstanding defensive line in 2006, as we did in 2011.
You can't win with weak line play on both sides of the football, combined with deficient schemes and play calling, as Cromartie says in his post.
Looking forward to watching Maddy get a chance to play against the Bombers. We definitely need more push and penetration from the interior of our defensive line.
However, we can focus on personnel forever and improving it and it won't solve the elephant in the room. Our coaching is not up to par.