Post Game Thoughts

[David]

Some positives?

* How about the play of Glatt, Hunt, Banks, Phillips on D. Anton McKenzie was quite good considering it was his first game with B.C. It's easy to criticize Darren Toney because of his shaky punt returns, but that's not what I care about as he's not our first string punt return man. His coverage was excellent tonight and he had 7 tackles.

* The debuts of Arceneaux and Mallet on offense (to be fair, I thought our run blocking was very strong tonight). I hope the former's injury is not serious.

* Jason Arakgi's block. He's a very valuable special teamer - it should have been the game changer.

DH

[B.C.FAN]

Some positives?

* How about the play of Glatt, Hunt, Banks, Phillips on D. Anton McKenzie was quite good considering it was his first game with B.C. It's easy to criticize Darren Toney because of his shaky punt returns, but that's not what I care about as he's not our first string punt return man. His coverage was excellent tonight.

* The debuts of Arceneaux and Mallet on offense (to be fair, I thought our run blocking was very strong tonight). I hope the former's injury is not serious.

* Jason Arakgi's block. He's a very valuable special teamer - it should have been the game changer.


DH

Agreed. Defence and special teams made big plays, the linebackers were impressive, Toney covered well, Ryan Philips made some big plays and Mallett showed good abilities as a running back.

[Rammer]

Some positives?

* How about the play of Glatt, Hunt, Banks, Phillips on D. Anton McKenzie was quite good considering it was his first game with B.C. It's easy to criticize Darren Toney because of his shaky punt returns, but that's not what I care about as he's not our first string punt return man. His coverage was excellent tonight.

* The debuts of Arceneaux and Mallet on offense (to be fair, I thought our run blocking was very strong tonight). I hope the former's injury is not serious.

* Jason Arakgi's block. He's a very valuable special teamer - it should have been the game changer.


DH

Well Glatt was great in the second half, but I was cursing him in the first half as IR.

Mallet certainly established himself as our RB, and if Smart returns quickly, he should remain on ST play, spotting at the TB position.

Arceneaux, Smart, both look to be concerns for a few games minimum, that is unfortunate. The game was loaded with turnovers, and injuries to both sides, not what you want from the coaches perspective.

I had to add that negative stuff, you said all the positive stuff.

[Tighthead]

Glatt was a disaster in the first quarter. Teams are likely to realise that there is a reasonable chance that he will independently be out of position on any given play.

The o-line likely needs time to gel. I'm not happy, but they work as a unit.

When D lines are doing funky stunts and overloading, the best way to slow them down is to run at them. I couldn't see the game enough tonight, but I believe Chaps just doesn't embrace the run effectively. There is nothing more beautifula, and more demoralizing, in football than a team that runs the ball at will.

Interesting to see some criticism of Buck during the game. I ahve always found this board to be soft on Buck and hard on JJ.

Holy Cripes we will miss Wake.

I'm half cut and posting on a mobile. No radio so its me and Robert Earl Keen drinking the place dry.

[SammyGreene]

Credit Benevides and Roach. The defence was able to make adjustments to what the Riders were doing. One example was where Suitor pointed out McKenzie spying Durant to take away the QB draw. That didn't happen in the first half.

Given it was their first Wake-less game, the front 7 got good push in the 2nd half.

Too bad the adjustments weren't made on the offensive ball in the 2nd half, especially up front.

Mallett looks like a younger version of Joe Smith. He hit the whole hard and broke tackles on several runs. Hetherington made a couple of nice grabs and looked good. The kid has come a long ways in the past 12 months.

The hot rumour was O'Neil Wilson was our other starting WR tonight. Didn't see a ball thrown his way.

[David]

Well Glatt was great in the second half, but I was cursing him in the first half as IR.

Okay, I'll give you that one. I recall a couple of missed tackles in the first half that had me shaking my head. But that 2nd half was possibly his finest in a Lions uniform....and he's played some great games. Just unloaded on Charles. Great anticipation.

Mallet certainly established himself as our RB, and if Smart returns quickly, he should remain on ST play, spotting at the TB position.

Yup, 16 carries for 63 yards. I had a good feeling about this guy. Quick feet. Also, made a couple of nice blocks, but missed some too.

Arceneaux, Smart, both look to be concerns for a few games minimum, that is unfortunate.

With any luck, Arceneaux's is just a bruise. Smart's looked the worse injury of the two. He looked in extreme pain.

As a sidenote, Jason Clermont. 1 catch for 9 yards? Wow.

DH

[Area51]

Disagree on the statement that ST was a positive tonight. Granted, no big returns allowed but also no big runbacks for BC either. The first blocked punt was more than negated by Green's stupid play - - not only did they give posession right back to SK, they missed a huge chance at a momentum swing going into the half.

Also McCallum's kicking was terible. Gift wrapped a TD with his muffed punt, missed a FG and continued to land his kickoffs at about the 15 to 20 yd line. Not to mention his line drive punts with the hang time of 1.5 seconds. To me it's a no brainer that Whyte needs to be dressed if for nothing more than kick off duty. Giving up 10 to 15 yds before the return even happens because of a weak legged kicker is unacceptable.

Run defence was fairly stout, something I was concerned about with Banks being moved to LB. Then again it might have been a different story had Cates played.

[TheLionKing]

As Rammer has already pointed Glatt was awful in the first half but got stronger as the game progressed. Positives:

- Buck Pierce's arm strength appeared much stronger than last year. His passes are much crispier. He's also learned the slide.

- Mallett made several strong runs.

- Ryan Phillips seem to make amends for last year's performance. Last season he had trouble catching a beach ball. He's got 2 interceptions this year already.

[lion rampant]

As a positive the O-line made my 15 year old underwear look good because now I found something that has more holes in it!

[WestCoastJoe]

I could only check the score and glance at the TV for a few seconds at a time. Was at a charity game of poker as a health fundraiser. All the funds to the charity.

But it seems to me we played the way we looked at Training Camp and in the exhibition games. A young team. A team with question marks.

What happened to the potential the coaches saw in Dean Valli? A very high draft pick with years of experience as a backup. He seems worse than a raw rookie. A mistake trading Kelly Bates? Possibly. It might have been too much to also give up Bates if we were not going to re-sign Murphy. Is Dean Valli suffering from over-coaching? Has it robbed him of any confidence?

Was it a good football decision to jettison Joe Smith? Or was it something unrelated to football? Our running backs did not lose us this game, but it raises the question of the soundness of some "football" decisions. Is Rolly Lumbala ever going to be a CFL calibre power running back?

Are the Lions' offensive schemes ahead of the curve for the CFL? Hmmmm Check that. Are the offensive schemes up to par with the rest of the CFL?

Has there been too much in-breeding in the choice of coaches? Have we been too comfortable with known and familiar coaches? Can we still see what it takes to win? Or do we mostly see things that have worked for us, while the league has adapted and changed?

Do we have the lines of communication and duties sorted out for our OC, play caller and spotter (including the one with ultimate over-rule authority)?

Has the "best before" date come and gone with our coaching philosophy? Has the league caught up with systems that used to let Wally's teams dominate the league? Is it possible for other teams to now out-prepare us for games because our systems are predictable?

Has Wally's loyalty to some players caused him to favour some, some who are not capable of doing what is needed from them?

All the misfirings in the game are not the fault of the quarterback. But, is Buck going to be able to reach the level of the top QBs in the league? IMO he is not there yet. Did playing in Dave Dickenson's slipstream make Buck look more promising than the reality (especially when that role model is no longer with the team)?

To repeat, IMO we did not look good in the exhibition games. At some point, it might be the case that this is just not going to be an outstanding team this year.

Don't we need a backup import left tackle?

Why do we seem to be scrambling for an import linebacker who will be used primarily on STs?

I don't think anyone has ever said coaching a football team to great heights of efficiency is an easy thing to do. Our players and coaches are trying hard. The season is young. Our young players will improve. But it seems the Lions are no longer the team to beat in the CFL. We are probably running with the pack.

[mrs.joesports]

The O-line was riddled with holes. That big blind-side hit on Buck was eerily like one on DD a few years back. Scarily similar. There's no way Buck should be getting hit that often. O-line needs to gel ASAP, and Buck needs to get out of the pocket or make quicker reads. You can't tell from just watching on TV if there were receivers open downfield or not....is nobody able to get open, or is Buck hesitant to throw? Frustrating.

McCallum must be suffering some sort of problem...either physical or his psyche. Hopefully we can find a way to have Whyte dressed, at least until P-Mac sorts out his issue.

Glatt had a good second half, but the first half was pretty spotty.

It's amazing that in a game with that many turnovers (15-16?), and playing as poorly as they did, they only lost by 4 and had a shot to win right until the end. (RGM needs to catch those!). Geroy tweeted after the game that he's never been involved in a game as bad as that, and that his knee is fine -- only his ego was bruised.

Though Rider fans may be planning their GC parade already, the Riders sure didn't look that great either. Can't tell them that, though.

[nelson95]

the entire league except the als look like shiite right now

[Ballistic Bob]

Why did we go for a two point convert with only minutes gone in the 3rd quarter and the score 20/ 25
Why didnt Paul try a field goal from the 35 in the 4th quarter
Why didnt Wally go for it with two minutes left and instead took the field goal
And the Hail Mary with 14 tics left. BB

[SammyGreene]

The O-line was riddled with holes. That big blind-side hit on Buck was eerily like one on DD a few years back. Scarily similar. There's no way Buck should be getting hit that often. O-line needs to gel ASAP, and Buck needs to get out of the pocket or make quicker reads. You can't tell from just watching on TV if there were receivers open downfield or not....is nobody able to get open, or is Buck hesitant to throw? Frustrating.

At one point during the broadcast when the Lions finally started to move the ball in the 2nd quarter, Suitor mentioned the receivers had made adjustments and were running shorter routes.
Obviously very difficult to watch a game on the tube and see what patterns the receivers are running.
I was frustrated as anyone at Buck not taking more shots down field but clearly the lack of protection disrupted everything. They better make some adjustments to their playbook (like roll outs and 3 step drops) if every throw beyond 10 yards is going to require 5 or 6 seconds in the pocket.
Interesting when the Riders only rushed 3 in the late going (and our 5-man o-line could actually handle it) that he hit Jackson for a long gain on 3rd down and Grice-Mullen was well behind coverage on a basic fly route when he dropped it.