TheLionKing wrote:Round 2 of back to back. Lions lost the opener 37-35 in which the defence was caught napping on 2 Bomber trick plays. They can ill afford to spot the opposition 21 points and play catchup. A must game if the Lions want to finish 2nd and an opportunity to host a home playoff game. Because of last week's 2 point loss, Lions must beat the Bombers by at least 3 points to win the season series. Really looking forward to the rematch.
Hard right now to get a feeling about how well our Leos will play and how well the Bombers will play. When two teams play a rematch game, one week later, coaching and adjustments become much more important. The Bombers will be pumped, with a good shot of a home playoff berth and have less pressure on them than our Leos, who had a much stronger hold on second place for most of this season.
But our Leos should be pumped too, playing at home, wanting revenge after a loss, and the opportunity to securie second place again and the opportunity to play a playoff game at home.
Jennings threw for 422 yards and our offence racked up more than 500 yards of offence and we still lost the game last week. Explosive plays on offence and special teams were the key to our attack last game: Rainey (70 yds.), Adekolu ( 36 yd. interference call), Rainey (56 yds.) Burnham (55 yds), Burnham 23 yds.), Rainey (46 yds) Burnham (33 yds.) Arseneaux (28 yds.), Rainey (44 yds.) Arseneaux (30 yds. pass interference) Arseneaux (35 yds.) Burnham (18 yds.), and on our final offensive drive of the game: Burnham (41 yds.) Iannuzzi (22 yds).
We attacked Winnipeg safety Taylor Loffler last game and will likely do so again, if we can. Having Shawn Gore and Antonio Johnson back in the lineup on offence is a boost but we need better offensive coaching in terms of our run attack, red zone offence, and play calling at critical times.
We certainly need to run the football better this game. The Bombers were well prepared for our inside zone read running play. We had 7 rushes of 3 yds. or less, 3 rushes of two yards or less, and two rushes in which we lost yardage (-1yd, -5 yds) before Allen was stopped on second down and 2, gaining 1 yd. and Rainey was stopped for -1 yard on our final offensive drive. Johnson will start this game but we need to make some adjustment to our blocking scheme to negate the Bombers linebackers against our running game and need some run play diversity.
On defense, we have to focus on the Bombers running game and their play action underneath passing attack. Harris had a 23 yd, run against our defence, as for some bizzare reason Mark Washington had our defence mostly in a Cover 2 and Cover 3 in the first half, worried about the Nichols long passes that didn't exist. He had Bighill running backwards from his linebacking position to cover the deep half or the deep third of the field, where he covered air.
Nichols only threw one pass for over 20 yds. (Dressler) against our Leos last week. Dressler had 65 yds. in receptions and Harris had 50 yds. They are Nichols 'go to' receivers and should be our focus. We need to play more Cover 1 in this game and take away the Bombers short and short intermediate possession passing game. But Torri Gurley will get his first start for the Bombers and he adds a different dimension and will be a factor that we'll have to game plan for.
Mark Washington certainly needs to dial up a much better game plan that the one he drew up in the first half of last weeks game. "Why take away an opposition's strengths when you can over-focus on their weaknesses" was Washington's motto for last weeks game plan. We need a smarter defensive scheme tonight.
Bryant Turner Jr. dresses for this contest, in place of Brooks, who has tweaked his knee. I thought there might be an outside chance we would insertJeremy Harris for this game but he remains on the practice roster.
Go Leos!!
Leone misses goal field