Leos/Riders Post-Game Thoughts!!

[WestCoastJoe]

Lions top Riders in a wild one

B.C. 37 Saskatchewan 34

Gordon McIntyre, The Province

Published: Saturday, September 22, 2007

REGINA -- Geroy Simon glided into the end zone from 33 yards out to haul in a Jarious Jackson throw with 34 seconds left in the game to pull out an unlikely 37-34 win for the Lions on Saturday night in front of 28,000 fans at a sold-out Mosiac Stadium.

The win gave the 8-3-1 Lions a three-point cushion atop the West.

The game seemed to have turned on a Jackson keep late in the third quarter on third down when the Riders stuffed the Lions quarterback and took over on the Lions' 15-yard line.

The Riders punched it in four plays later to go up 31-22.

Jackson, suddenly putting the ball on the money, drove the Lions 75 yards over nine plays, hitting Jason Clermont to pull with two points with nine minutes to play before Luca Congi kicking his first field in three games.

But it was an ugly melee in the dying seconds of the first half that had tongues wagging.

Sherko Haji-Masouli rolled Scott Schultz's helmet like it was a bowling ball after he'd uncorked it from the Rider tackle's head. Rob Murphy towered over end John Chick, his left hand on Chick's facemask, his right arm cocked. Korey Banks was kicked out of the game after throwing a punch in the scrum over a Jarious Jackson fumble that started the commotion.

Riders GM Eric Tillman followed Lions president Bobby Ackles into the hall to yell at him: "That's not in the rulebook! That's not in the rulebook!"

Riders colour commentator Carm Carteri was going apoplectic in the broadcast booth, calling the CFL a joke if Murphy's not disciplined.

Oh yeah, it was 24-15 Riders, the Lions still in it despite Jackson's 3-of-14 passing for 28 yards in the half.

Kerry Joseph was 14-of-21 for 229 yards over the same two quarters, but the Lions were still close thanks to special teams (Ian Smart's returns, Barron Miles's 11th career punt block, Paul McCallum's punting), Joe Smith's running, the holes opened by the O-line and sacks by Ricky Foley and Cam Wake.

The Lions offence began clicking in the third quarter.

On the Lions' first possession of the second half, Tyrone Williams, inserted as a tight end, dropped a purrfect loft all alone behind the Riders defence on a second-and-one trick play.

The blown golden opportunity didn't matter, however, after a Geroy Simon reception for 51 yards put the ball on the Riders 14-yard line, where Joe Smith carried it in on the next play to pull the Lions within 24-22.

Things had gone the Riders' way right off the bat. Not much attention is paid to the coin toss at B.C. Place, but it means something at Mosaic Stadium with its stiff gusts.

The Riders won the toss and took the wind, and the Lions decided to give them the ball, too.

Joseph immediately marched the Roughriders 73 yards in eight plays, going 4-of-4, before plunging in from the one-yard line himself to open the scoring at 4:33 of the first quarter.

The Riders, after collecting a safety on the kickoff, went ahead 15-0 when Joseph found Mike Washington behind Mark Washington for a touchdown at 12:02 of the first quarter.

The Lions finally got on the scoreboard following an illegal blocking penalty to Tad Kornegay kept alive a drive that was set up by Smart's 88-yard punt return to the Saskatchewan 21-yard line and Jackson found Rogers just inside the goal line.

But the Riders marched one more time with the wind in their backs, setting up an Andy Fantuz touchdown -- all alone behind Ryan Phillips -- from 29 yards to open the second quarter.

[No Ordinary Joe]

Tonight's game was the turning point in our season. All year we've battled injuries, we've overcome mental lapses, we've had to deal with uncharacteristic underachieving, we've had to handle the pressure of being defending champions with a target on our chest each and every week...for most teams, a collection of circumstances like the ones we've faced would make them fold and crumble under the pressure, but not our BC Lions.

Despite the troubles, we've hung in there and with the exception of a couple of stinker games against Montreal and Saskatchewan, we've been in every game we've played this year. Somehow this team just finds a way to win football games.

Now that we've had to taste 2nd place for an extended period of time, the team knew what needed to be done to regain that familiar spot on top of the West Division Standings and fought and clawed their way back to take their first lead of the ballgame with less than a minute to go. If that's not good timing I don't know what is. Now we've actually got some breathing room in 1st place. We won the season series against the Riders and are now 3 points up on them.

With our offence seemingly coming together at just the right time, and a lot of our injured players soon to be returning, being in top spot might just be a spot we stay in for the remainder of the year. I truly believe this game tonight just changed our season. Congrats boys!

[WestCoastJoe]

Ugly, yes, but it's a win, baby

Ed Willes

The Province

Saturday, September 22, 2007

REGINA -- Whether it's the Oakland Raiders, the Charlestown Chiefs or Gene Kiniski, there are some teams and some athletes which seem to revel in playing the villain's role; which delight in making themselves the object of scoring and derision; which enjoy wearing the black hat.

In fact, they think they look pretty good in it.

Saturday night, the B.C. Lions looked deader than Alan Thicke's career for most of the first half of their first-place showdown with the Saskatchewan Roughriders and didn't look a whole lot healthier with 34 seconds left in the game.

They'd spotted the home team a 22-7 lead in the second quarter. They looked flat and lifeless. Their quarterback Jarious Jackson had thrown for 28 yards while his counterpart, Kerry Joseph, had thrown for 228 yards.

Add it up and the first-place showdown was a showdown in the way a bug has a showdown with the windshield of a semi-trailer when it counted most.

But it's the damndest thing.

Afterwards, no one was particularly interested in putting the Lions' performance under a microscope. They were, however, interested in discussing a second-quarter melee which was one metal chair and Gene Kiniski short of a battle royal which also sparked one of the more memorable comebacks in recent Lions' memory.

The Leos, as is their wont, found themselves in the middle of a good ol' barroom brawl in the dying moments of the second quarter, a dustup that started when the Roughies' Kitwana Jones planted Jackson like a geranium, which led to Sherko Haji-Rasouli ripping the helmet of Scott Schultz, which led to Schultz taking a swing at Haji-Rajouli which, of course, led to the ejection of the Leos' receiver Corey Rodgers, who might have been the one player on the field who wasn't doing anything that warranted ejection.

Oh yes, somewhere in there Lions tackle Rob Murphy had the Ranger chokehold on Saskatchewan's John Chick.

All this, of course, aroused the ire of the Roughriders' faithful who were howling, along with their tightly wound GM Eric Tillman, for the heads of various Leos and it all made for terrific theatre.

But the hey-rube also served to wake up a Lions' team and, from that point, the defending Grey Cup champs actually looked like the defending Grey Cup champs.

The offence produced two long touchdown drives. The defence made some stops.

Jackson started finding some receivers, including Jason Clermont when it came to Jackson's attention that his all-star slotback had dressed for the game.

It was passionate and it was courageous and it also looked like it was futile, which is maybe the way this one should have turned out. But on their last possession - after they fumbled twice and miraculously recovered the ball on both occasions, after they took their 27th procedure penalty of the game, Jackson lobbed a 33-yard strike to Geroy Simon, et voila, you have your standard, run-of-the-mill 37-34 win.

As mentioned, it could be a larger justice was not served with this win. Based on their preparation and their pitiable first-half effort, the Lions didn't deserve this one. And even in the possession which preceded Simon's heroics, they were still dropping passes and taking penalties.

But this is also a team which thrives on its tough-guy image, which seems to perform at its best when their behaviour is at its worst. Saturday night, they used that to reverse the momentum of a game they had no business winning.

Maybe that's not the most reliable way to win football games.

Then again, it's become abundantly clear the Lions don't care how they win as long as they win.

[Blitz]

John Chick ripped off Murphy's helmet and should have been ejected!! As for Murphy, he didn't choke Chick but just pinned him with his hand and arm on his chest/shoulder area.

Chick didn't look like he wanted to challenge Murphy either!!

[Blitz]

The final point I'd like to make is concerning the proceedure calls against BC due to the fan noise, yes they were disruptive, but they did not completely shut down drives

Those penalties put us in a hole..... but unlike a prairie gopher....we didn't duck our heads but crawled out of it...... and found a way to keep the ball moving...... until a great pass from Jarious (third and 10) and a great route from Geroy..and great protection from our offensive line.....took us to the PROMISED LAND!!

[Canuck_4_Life]

Can you blame him for Chick-ening out of a fight with Murphy. Ask Rahim Abdullah about that, if you can find him.

I don't care if I was John Chick's size or not, I wouldn't want to pick a fight with either Murphy or Jimenez.

[cromartie]

Can you blame him for Chick-ening out of a fight with Murphy. Ask Rahim Abdullah about that, if you can find him.

Or Joe Montford. Off somewhere in retirementville.

[Blitz]

Can you blame him for Chick-ening out of a fight with Murphy. Ask Rahim Abdullah about that, if you can find him.

Chick was smart to stay on the ground and not move until reinforcements came....he obviously wasn't smart to rip off Murphy's helmet!!!

A rookie receiver like Rodgers, who has not gotten into stuff on the field, just doesn't run into a pile and start throwing punches unless something was seriously happening to Jarious on the ground. Sherko just doesn't fly in there... and do what he did.. unless he was really seeing some dirty stuff happening by the Riders to Jarious.

It's easy to look to see the reaction from our players but the league also has to look closely at what caused that reaction!!

[LFITQ]

It's easy to look to see the reaction from our players but the league also has to look closely at what caused that reaction!!

Pipe dream. C'mon Blitz do you seriously believe the way the League has called things against the Lions so far this year, that this is going to happen? I'm fully expecting the League to throw the book at the Lions and state the Riders were poor little Ms. innocents. It would be par for the course.

[Blitz]

Pipe dream. C'mon Blitz do you seriously believe the way the League has called things against the Lions so far this year, that this is going to happen? I'm fully expecting the League to throw the book at the Lions and state the Riders were poor little Ms. innocents. It would be par for the course.
_________________

No, I don't believe the league will do that LFITQ.... but my comment was that the league should!! It's more than plainly obvious that the reaction was caused by something very dirty!!

However, there are other ways of getting to Shultz and the advantage in the future is always with our offensive line. They can double team high and low, crack back, blind side hit, roll over Shultz's legs and a whole bunch of not so pretty tactics. I'm not recommending that... but Shutlz needs to give the head that sits on that fat sassy body of his a shake...because if he wants to keep playing that way we have some players that can take care of business themselves if the league won't stop it!!

[120dB]

why was the pic of Geroy catching the pass deleted? Please put it back up. It was the post just before mine, now it's gone...

[AC/DC Rocks]

Wow! Unbelievable game.
I was at a company golf tournament so had to miss the game live but I taped it and watched it late last night.
So many ups and downs but we pulled it out and Geroy is back!
Geroy looks like the Geroy of old.
Felt really bad for Tyrone when he dropped that ball, would have been fun to see if he could have rumbled into the end zone.
Slow start but we never gave up, great job guys, well played by everyone, I love our team chemistry and comradery. This group is as tight as last years, an excellent sign!

[Blitz]

Felt really bad for Tyrone when he dropped that ball, would have been fun to see if he could have rumbled into the end zone.

Me too....and it was such a great call by Kruck and Jarious executed it perfectly!!

[AC/DC Rocks]

Yep, great call, purrfect execution, Tyrone probably wanted to puke. :lol:
Hopefully he'll get another shot at that play later.

[David]

If someone brought this up before, apologies. I don't think anyone did so here goes: kudos to Paul McCallum for a phenomenal job punting the ball yesterday. He really got us out of a couple of jams. If I'm not mistaken, he nailed two 80 yarders!

DH 8)