Our Leos playing in the Grey Cup game this season? Don't discount the possibility.
The most recent additions of Demier Posey and Anthony Parker will give our B.C. Lions an improved receiving corps as this season winds down in our hunt for a playoff spot this season. Parker is a big play receiver and Posey, the 2017 Grey Cup MVP has a history of coming big in big games. He also is an excellent YAC receiver.
In the off-season Ed Hervey brought in the most free agent talent in memory and since just before training camp, either by signing or by trade, Ed Hervey he has also added Jovan Olifioye, Davon Coleman, Shawn Lemon, Michael Awe, Anthony Parker and Devier Posey to the roster. Incredible! How he is under the SMS is magical. Makes me wonder if Buono was under the cap in previous seasons and siphoning off money to Braley for his 'job for life'.
In his first season as GM, Ed Hervey has done an admirable and incredible job. Just look down the roster and the players Ed Hervey has brought to our Leos team this season. Compare that with Buono’s signings and trade last season of DeQuinn Evans, Matt Bucknor, Chris Williams, Tony Burnett, Mitchell Gale, Swayzy Waters, Buddy Jackson, David Foucault, Courtney Brown, and mid-season signing of Ricky Foley. “Wow”. Fond Memories!
Just imagine Buono back this season as GM this season, instead of Hervey. We might have been worse the Als. Buono should give thanks before going to bed each evening for Ed Hervey. Imagine Alex Bazzie and Craig Roh playing defensive end rather than Odell Willis, (now second in quarterback sacks in the CFL, only behind Charleston Hughes) and Shawn Lemon (tied for 3rd in the CFL in quarterback sacks with Willie Jefferson and Micah Johnson.
Odell Willis has more sacks than Alex Bazzie and Craig Roh combined this season and Lemon has the same number of sacks as both of them. Hervey knew what he was doing in the off-season by brining in Willis and his trade for Lemon is also proving to be more than astute.
And also imagine, instead of Joel Figuroa and Jovan Olifioye at offensive tackle, instead think Kevin Palmer, Antonio Johnson, or Keavon Milton. Now that would be a scary thought for Travis Lulay.
While the talent that Hervey has brought in has not been translated to our won-less record, even with the ‘legendary’ Wally Buono patrolling the sidelines there are very positive signs for this second half of the season.
Demier Posey said he signed with our Leos because he ‘saw nothing but opportunity and potential, both in himself and product the Lions already have on their roster. He also said it was a difficult decision because Argo coach Mark Trestman had been such a force in changing his play for the better.
With the talent on our roster, with Posey and Parker getting ready to add their contributions, with our defense playing very well recently, our Leos control their own destiny for a playoff spot while the Bombers decline only provides additional motivation.
I believe our Lions will make the playoffs, likely as the cross-over team and be playing in this year’s Grey Cup game (with one proviso).
But first, we need to beat the Als for our second victory in a row and get this thing really rolling. Here is a look at our next contest, with the overall themes of ‘the UnBuono Defense”, the Really Programmed Offence (RPO), “The Rain Man Returns” and “Don’t Screw It Wally”.
The 'UNBUONO DEFENSE'
Wally Buono has been stuck in a defensive scheme mindset that reflected his playing days as a linebacker. In those days, defenses were very vanilla. Rush four, drop three linebackers into underneath zone coverage, play passive zone defense, and line your safety up deep. It was a philosophy of conservatism, bend but don’t break, and wait for the offence to screw up a play or two. Buono conceded the nickel back for one of the linebacker positions but basically he has been stuck in the 60’s for decades in terms of defensive philosophy.
There were exceptions. Dave Ritchie came in and drove Buono crazy for three seasons but his defensive scheme was so good that Barrin Miles told Buono to stop meddling with it, especially when Ritchie had called a blitz play and Buono was yelling from the sidelines to ‘Get Back’. Rich Stubler came in as defensive coordinator for two seasons and gave us one of our two best defenses ever in Leo history in 2012, but Buono soon had him long gone for a coordinator who would coach defense ‘the Buono Way’.
We managed to win a Grey Cup in 2011 but only after Benevedes finally won his appeal to Buono during the bye week, when we were 1-6. That defensive rotation of Aaron Hunt, Khalif Mitchell, Khreem Smith, Eric Taylor, and Keron Williams played havoc. A young quick, inexperienced linebacker Sol E. patrolled the middle. Defensive backs Korey Banks, Dante Marsh, Jerome Dennis, and Ryan Phillips played aggressive football from their zone positions, due to that pass rush.
Most Leo fans mostly remember our offence that season with Simon and Bruce in the slots, a young Lulay at quarterback, and the insertion of Andrew Harris as the keys to that season. But the main reason we last won the Grey Cup in 2011, just as we did in 2006, was due to our defense.
This Leos defense has that same potential. And finally, we have a scheme change, pushed by the players to play this different style of more aggressive defense. Now we are not seeing Anthony Thompson deep on every play, standing on an island by himself. Last game he had an interception and could have had two more, playing in a more aggressive style. Our defensive backs are playing more aggressive man to man defense.
Its almost shocking to see them playing bump and run or tight coverage on the corners. We see T.J. Lee up at the line, blitzing and making plays. Otha Foster is starting to thrive in our new concept. Lokombo’ athleticism is being allowed to shine. Herdman’s run stopping abilities are being taken advantage of on the outside too.
With the second and third best pass rushers in the CFL in Willis and Lemon getting edge pressure and sacks, with the transition to huge defensive tackles in Coleman and Louis, who can get penetration, and with McLellan adding a speed dimension, we are getting a pass rush, aided by blitzes at times. Lining up 7 and 8 defensive players close to the line of scrimmage is not only more aggressive but not giving opposition offences are usual vanilla look.
Last game we didn’t even go into the usual Buono ‘Prevent’ defense, with the lead, towards the end of the game. If we continue to play this new style and scheme, this defense can be an awesome one. We’ve basically wasted four and a half seasons with a bad defensive scheme.
The ‘UnBuono Defense is a much better scheme that fits our defensive talents. We need to keep playing it and improving.
Last game, we got 17 points on turnovers from our defense – 3 sacks from Willis, 6 sacks in total, 3 interceptions that could easily have been 6 interceptions – that’s good defense coming from an “UnBuono’ scheme. Our defense was not bad to start this season as much as our scheme was terrible. When things go bad, too often its viewed by fans as more of a personnel problem rather than a scheme problem.
Montreal likes to use Read Option with Pipkin either handing the football off or keeping it and running outside. Its now their bread and butter play and needs to be stopped.
The RPO (REALLY PROGRAMMED OFFENCE)
There was a time in pro football when quarterbacks called their own plays. There was a time in pro football when players substituted in, brining in plays from the sideline. There was a time when coaches signaled in plays. There was a time when quarterbacks called their own audibles. Now, almost everything is coach driven from the sidelines for offence.
Overall, those changes improved the quality of offence. Quarterbacks didn’t need to worry about what play to call next and could focus on execution. Offensive coordinators could call plays from the spotters booth to the quarterback, while being able to analyze the opposition defense from high above or could have info relayed to them on the sidelines by their spotter.
Head Coaches (at least almost all Head Coaches) also had head sets on and were therefore able provide additional leadership, experience, and guidance by being a step detached from regularly calling plays themselves.
For most of football history, coaches, while favoring an offensive scheme, adapted their scheme to their players. Often, an offensive scheme was born from the need to develop a scheme that suited their players.
But over time, the plug and play offensive scheme became a part of the game of football for two many college programs and professional teams. One plug and play scheme became popular and too many coaches followed suit. Copycat schemes proliferated.
When the West Coast offence became successful under Bill Walsh, most teams used it. When the Spread Offence came into vogue, tight ends and fullbacks often disappeared for a long time in the NFL and tight ends remain disappeared in the CFL whereas fullbacks have a very limited role now.
The Read Option evolved as part of the Spread Offence and for a while, numerous teams had their quarterbacks faking a handoff and taking off outside. Now the RPO aspect of the Spread Offence is gaining popularity with some coaches (and especially with our Lions this season.
But not all coaches are copy cats. The best ones are innovators or who, at the very least, adapt a scheme to fit their offensive talent. For recent examples, Bill Bellichick never had Tom Brady running the Read Option nor will he ever use him for RPO. Billichick brought the tight end back into the game and in innovative ways because he had talent at that position.
Mark Trestmann enjoyed much CFL success because he introduced West Coast concepts into the CFL favored Spread Offence and John Hufnagel, the person who introduced the Spread offence to the CFL in the early 90’s came back to the CFL reintroducing a varied running attack.
Do you remember who was our Leos offensive coordinator for our ’64 Grey Cup champs? Bet you don’t. Who was our offensive coordinator for our ’85 Leos Don Matthews led Grey Cup Champs? Who was our offensive coordinator for our 1994 Dave Ritchie led Grey Cup champs or our 2000 Steve Burratto Grey Cup team? Offensive coordinators were mainly obscure. Offence was mostly designed around the talent of the players and the offensive scheme had no name.
But plug and play offences have a scheme name. The scheme name is associated with the offensive coordinator or Head Coach or both. And the scheme takes precedent over the talent. But even worse, as time goes on, the scheme has become more and more programmed to take away hardly any thinking from the quarterback or offensive line.
There was a time when playing quarterback and offensive line and quarterback were the two most intellectually challenging position to play. Both required the player to read the defense. The offensive center made offensive line calls. The quarterback audibled and went through progression reads post-snap.
There was diversity in zrunning plays (inside trap, off-tackle kickout, power sweeps, reverses, often utilizing fakes with two running backs and there was diversity in pass plays (quick ‘pop’ plays, pocket pass plays, sprint outs, semi-rollouts, bootlegs, etc) and there was diversity in formations, with off-balanced lines, etc.
But the Spread killed that. The quarterback threw almost exclusively from the pocket. Almost all runs were inside runs. Zone blocking for the run meant the offensive line didn’t need to read defenses but all took a horizontal step like a chorus line right or left and blocked the defender closest to them to that side.
No need to learn how to pull or trap block or seal block. Our B.C. Lions reduced our running game to one play – the inside zone run with zone blocking. We didn’t even use the second option of the play – the quarterback run. Opposing defenses, using huge defensive tackles and defenses ends who crashed down, often shut the play down into a line of scrimmage ‘stuffer’.
Even worse, the Spread passing game was reduced to pocket passing, often taking away the natural abilities of a Casey Printers, Buck Pierce, a Jonathan Jennings, or a Travis Lulay, all who were at their best when they could get outside the pass rush and become a duel threat. But at least in the Spread offence, without RPO, we had a Geroy Simon or a Manny Arseneaux in the go to receiver position, being able to utilize their pass receiving talents or a Bryan Burnham being used for the type of routes he does best.
But our RPO version of the Spread offence this season makes things even worse. Why? Well, first of all, it does not take advantage of the experience of a Travis Lulay who can read defenses amongst the best.
So we not only do not use Lulay’s abilities to play quarterback outside the pocket and restrict him, when he throws so well off the bootleg but we also don’t give him the opportunity to read a defense pre-snap or post-snap, other than to make it a run play or a pass play.
When Travis lines up behind center, he doesn’t’ need to read the defense pre-snap because the decision for run or pass is post snap. He only reads one player post snap. If its determined to be a pass play, he has one receiver to throw to – his read receiver. He doesn’t have time to throw the football on most plays to even look at his second read. RPO negates all his best attributes and mainly turns him into a robot.
Its even worse for our offensive line. Last season, our offensive line was horrible and three of our offensive line starters for 2017 are not even playing football. But this season, we had two excellent pass blocking tackles and had two experienced and solid pass blocking Nationals in Steward and Husband. All four are very good run blockers too. But all that experience and talent is being used to just run hit the defender in front of them while hoping to maintain contact long enough that they don’t’ kill Lulay before he throws his quick pass.
In terms of our receivers, with the additions of Posey and Parker, we have incredible speed at receiver. Posey, Parker, Shaq, and Colins are all 4.5 or less 40 yard dash receivers. Burnham is the slowest of all of them and he can also be very dangerous deep. Unfortunately, with the best team speed at the receiver position in years and years, we are mostly in a short passing possession style passing game.
I could understand us going to an RPO offence if we had a rookie quarterback who had played college football in an RPO scheme. But none of our offensive players have played in one, most are vets which make it more difficult to radically change the way they have played the game, nor does it take advantage of our experience or talents.
We’ve turned Burnham into a short possession receiver and Shaq Johnson into a short route runner. Posey is a slasher who can run RPO but most of our receivers are not RPO style receivers.
Worse, even still, is that our best offensive success has come off non-RPO plays. Our best pass blocking has come off non-RPO pass plays, when we actually pass block. Often, on those plays, Travis has had time to throw and give him time to throw, and he can be a defenses worst nightmare. He goes through progressions quickly, spots the open man well, and knows how to distribute.
So, if we want to increase our chances for this season, we need to use less RPO. Our defense has changed its scheme. No reason why our offence cant’ continue to reduce RPO and use more Spread concepts as the second half progresses. Its our best chance for offensive success.
The RAIN MAN RETURNS
Wally benched the Rain Man Chris Rainey for trying to do too much on his own rather than follow where the blocking was supposed to be creating holes. How did following the blocking scheme work out for Trevon Vann and our Leos? Not very well on punt returns last game. Not very well running the football either with an average of 2 ½ yds per carry.
Our Leos staff got a good look at how a different punt returner and rotational tailback would play if he followed the lines on their playbook as they draw it up. Football is a game of strategy and execution but you have to allow talented players like a Chris Rainey or a Travis Lulay some discretion.
If Chris Rainey sees that the hole is plugged, he will use his natural instincts to go elsewhere (or at least used to). If Chris Rainey sees an opening to the outside on a punt return and runs it back for a huge gain, Buono will be happy in the moment but be telling him on the next play to ‘run it up the gut’ again’. Same for an inside zone read play. If Rainey busts it outside, he will be told to run it up the gut in the future, into a wall of blockers.
Same goes for Travis Lulay. If Lulay throws a touchdown pass from the pocket, on a prescribed play, Buono will love him for it. But if he scrambled and threw a deep pass across the grain for a touchdown, Buono will likely be telling him to run the called play next time.
Control freak coaches like everything to be ‘between the lines’ and to ‘execute always between the lines’, as they are drawn up.
Yet most big plays don’t’ come off prescribed designed plays. For example, Jeremiah Johnson’s big 33 yard scamper for our fourth quarter touchdown drive last game came off an inside zone run that he bounced hard to the outside. Chris Rainey’s last punt touchdown only happened because he did not follow his blocking.
Travis Lulay is at his most dangerous, when he takes off up inside, changing the timing of the play, before throwing a pass just before getting to the line of scrimmage.
Happy to see the Rain Man back. He is a real asset to our team.
DON’T SCREW IT UP WALLY!
The key to our Montreal game and the remainder of this season is not for Wally to do anything other than not ‘screw things up’. If he lets Mark Washington run the defense his players want, without interference, we have a great shot at an excellent end to this season.
If Buono would let Jarious have the full reins to the offence, even if Jarious is stuck in RPO we would be better off, because at least Jackson would be using a more diversified mix of RPO, making our offence at least less predictable and more dangerous.
If Buono will just let Rienbold run his special teams the way he wants to and not force Reinbold to have Rainey run up the gut on every return, our special teams can be even better. Reinbold has done an excellent job with the rest of it.
All Buono needs to do is make sure practices run on time, have good team discipline, and high expectations – those are his few strengths and they are good ones. The best thing he can do is stay away from any coaching aspects. If he can just not yell at his players on the sidelines or bench players that don’t need benching, and not blame his players too much publicly, that is all that he needs to do so he doesn't hurt team morale.
His game management will not likely improve much on his own and as bad as it is, its actually better than its been for his entire career. The best thing he could do would be to have a headset to Ed Hervey in a game or at least confer with someone like Reinbold, who has a lot of experience, before making important decisions in a game.
If Buono conferred and said “I’m going to punt, one could day “A field goal would be the better option’ or if Buono said “I’m punting” one of them could say “Its less than third and one Wally, suggest you go for it” or if Buono was going to send in the Jumbo team for a third down quarterback sneak on third and two, they could say “I might suggest the regular offence and a running play to the tailback”.
Or if Lulay is holding his face and screaming in pain after being hit in the pocket, one of them could suggest that he challenge the call. Or perhaps if Reinbold was beside him and given the ok, he could say the time clock is winding down Wally and Travis hasn’t even finished the play call, so call a time out “Now”. Or if Wally, who is a complete rookie to any type of risk and wants to run a risky play, he could say “Perhaps this is not the best time to do it but maybe later in the game”.
But that is too much to hope for. Still, even if Buono continues his usual mediocre at best game management, we can win and keep winning if Buono just doesn’t’ screw up the big things and lets our assistants coach and our players play.
WRAP
Our defense is looking great in our new defensive scheme. If they keep playing the way they are playing and our special teams keep playing the way they are playing, our offence is average enough to win.
Plus with Anthony Parker ready to step in and Posey preparing to add his talents, our offence should be better. With some scheme changes on offence, like on defense, we could really unleash offensively.
When Ed Hervey selected Peter Godber as our first round draft choice this season, I don't think anyone anticipated him becoming our starting center. But with Greaves struggling with his snaps Godber steps in. Husband had been playing with a bad shoulder so if Godber can learn quickly, we may get better offensive line play from the center position than we had in our last three games - not that that was Husband's fault.
Husband will be missed, had he been able to return to health, but Godber has talent and we're lucky to have drafted him and that he is able to step in. Wishing him a good first start in a position he has not played before.
But Ed Hervey continues to give this Leos team hope. The signings of Posey and Parker are huge. Most of the first half of this season looked dismal. But now Leos fans can see the talent on this team and what this team could become.
Its exciting at this juncture to be a Leos fan because there is so much promise with this team. Posey saw that and signed here. Lemon told him about our talent and what we could possibly do in the second half of this season.
First we need to beat Montreal. Stubler, the old fox, will be preparing a good game plan and we need to be prepared for that. He does not have the horses on his defense but he can do a lot with little in a game.
Looking forward to the game against Montreal on Friday night and your thoughts regarding this game.
