The Football Gods, while having unique abilities to change the outcome of a football game by conferring a weird bounce of the football or whipping up a sudden breeze just as a kicker attempts a crucial field goal, are restricted by the laws of nature. The evolutionary process rewards intelligence more than any other factor. Adapt or die. Change or lose. Eat or get eaten.
Before sharing my analysis of this game, on this great website, with so many incredibly knowledgeable Leos supporters, I just want to say that even yesterdays brutal loss can't take away the joy of a special season. The regular season of this 2016 campaign is my favorite Leo season of all time.In Calgary our Leos team got eaten. They symbolically died on that football field for one key playoff game. We didn't change and therefore we lost. Even the inspiration of a Manny Arseneaux, who defied great odds, to came back to play in this game, was not enough.
That this special season ended the way that it did in Calgary was more than disappointing. My disappointment was not selfish. I've seen Leo Grey Cup victories. I just wanted us to win it all because those players mentioned above played their hearts out for us. They gave this season their souls. They gave it everything they had and more. But it was not to be.Why? Because I believe we saw more great plays from some very special players than we have in any regular season before. Jonathan Jennings, Manny Arseneaux, Bryan Burnham, Jeremiah Johnson, Chris Rainey, and Sol E. gave us 'the incredible', the 'magical', and the 'awe inspiring' on many, many occasions. They were the main storyline of this season. They were its theme. Without them, this season might have been very ordinary, in terms of success and in terms of football enjoyment.
Quite often, I write 'the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly after a game. But so little good happened on Sunday in Calgary, instead I'm going to go back to the insightful quotes of Forrest Gump that I used this past week, as our Leos 'prepared' for the Stamps, to hopefully provide some post-game analysis, in terms of what went so wrong against the Stamps.
But before I do, I'm not going to spend a lot of time analyzing player changes for next season. Obviously some personnel changes are needed. Those changes were often discussed much earlier this season and we did nothing about them, when we had the opportunity to.
For example, you can go back to before mid-season and read on Lionbackers that Brandon Stewart was not the answer at field corner and we should start Parker. You can go to pre-season and read numerous posts that we badly needed a rush end to compliment Bazzie. Did we do anything about it? No we didn't.
Corderro Law had two sacks for Calgary yesterday as a late NFL cut. Calgary brought him in and played him. We did NOTHING to address our weakness at field corner or rush end. In fact, it took us most of the season for our Leos brain trust to bench the mediocre Darius Allen and instead start Bryant Turner Jr. - a player that numerous Lionbackers pleaded to be in our starting lineup much sooner. WCJ and many others, in fact, discussed the need for an International nose tackle type to compliment Brooks and have a good inside tackle rotation, before our 2016 training camp.
There are many serious questions to be asked of Buono and Company. For example, Marco Iannuzzi had 5 receptions all of last season. Stephen Adekolu never saw the field on offence, nor did he all this season until Gore got hurt. With only 2 pass receptions in his career, Adekolu started at wide receiver for our Leos in the Semi-Final against Winnipeg. He led the way, with 5 receptions in that game, including one on our key final drive. Yesterday he never saw the field yesterday.When Lionbackers is often repeatedly ahead of our coaching staff, in numerous areas, it begs some serious questions.
Hunter Steward and Antonio Johnson were pined for a number of games, as our 'brain trust' decided to go with McNeil and Adcock. You'd almost have to be brain dead to not see how much they struggled. And yet we kept on playing them until a kindergarden kid would have been able to see how misguided the decision was.
Prior to yesterday's WDF, I noted that, after putting up 37 points against Calgary in our second game against them, that we did not score a touchdown against Calgary in our third game and we were completely shut out in the second half of that game. We did not score a point against Calgary in the first half of the WDF.
That was four consecutive quarters in a row that Calgary held down our explosive offence to NOTHING. That is not just an execution problem.
Here are some WDF post game thoughts, themed thought the eyes of Forrest.Calgary scored 32 points first half points against our defence yesterday. Some might say that Calgary's offence is that good. Well, the Bombers non-explosive offence put up 25 first half points against our defence in the Semi-Final. Why the success? The answers will not be found in personnel changes. Yesterday we could have put a much superior team on the playing field, in terms of talent, and we would have lost. We only came back to beat Winnipeg, because our gifted players overcame what ails us.
LIFE IS LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES. YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO GET
Prior to our Leos/Stamps WDF I used two theme lines for this game. The first was Forrest Gump's quote "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get'. The second line was "Life is like a Box of Italian Biscotti, you know what you are going to get, so you gotta eat 'em right".
This was going to be a game of two coaching different philosophies.
We knew Calgary would scout and self-scout, looking for our Leos weaknesses and tendencies, examine their own tendencies and develop a game plan that would include adaptions specifically designed against our offence. Their offensive philosophy would be ' You never know what you at going to get". We couldn't anticipate what Calgary's offence would throw at us. We were down 32 points before we even got a little closer to figuring out Calgary's offence.
Before this game, I wrote this is a game in which "Our coaching staff has to make plays".
In other words, it was not just up to the players to win this game. We needed our coaching staff to step up to the plate.
Calgary's talent was as good as ours and even a little better. We had the better play makers, Calgary had a bit more strength throughout their lineup. Not much separated these two teams statistically throughout the regular season. We didn't have to outcoach Calgary to have a chance to win but we could not be badly out coached. We were!
There are two basic philosophies to leadership. They are "The One Best Way' and "Contingency Leadership". The first philosophy basically is one of superiority. It basically says "I know best. You just have to execute my 'superior thinking'. The second philosophy says "I am humble. I know I need to constantly adapt to stay on top. I can't just ask my players to execute. It won't be enough.
Before this game, Calary's Junior Turner said our Lions would "want to control the line of scrimmage, run inside, and throw to Manny deep". Calgary had adapted by the time they played us in the third game of this season. Calgary was used to playing a lot of defense a lot of zone defense but Calgary changed and they were the first defense to play us using a heavy Man/Cover 2. They did again yesterday but they adapted again, taking way our inside run even better and shutting down our key receivers with even tighter two deep coverage.
Khari Jones made some adaptions to our offence late in the season but they were not enough, even though he had mostly seen Man/Cover 2 for the second half of the season. I had hope in Khari for a few games but he reverted back to "One Best Way". This philosophy is blinding. Here are some examples.
He went back to a single running play. He went to the inside zone play and our tailback got stopped, as has happened so often in the second half of the season. He used the telegraphed swing pass to Rainey. He shut down a number of crossing patterns. He didn't use the bunch formation, an excellent formation against man. He cut down on the motion he had begun to introduce.
Washington did the same. He had begun to play more aggressive in the last couple of regular season games. But he reverted back as well.
Calgary exploited every opening and seam in our zone defence. We had Sol E. covering McDaniel by himself 20 yard downfield by himself, with out safeties playing too deep. We had Daniels beating Stewart on a double move he often gets sucked in on. We had Mike Edem beaten by the same 'fake dig-up move that Winnipeg beat Phillips with last game. Calgary marched at will for a 103 yard drive for their second touchdown of the game. Calgary's coaches and players, played with our heads and we had no answers on defence.
Bo Levi Mitchell comes out and fires an 18-yard dart to Bakari Grant on his first pass attempt and the Calgary Stampeders go 57 yards in four plays, complete a two-point convert and go up 8-nothing before the game is two and a half minutes old.
The Stampeders installed some new and surprising plays and formations during their time off and those formations and plays had our Leos defense completely off- balance.
Most Leo supporters have been brainwashed by Wally and Company Calgary for so long, its become a religion here to believe that its all up to the players executing Wally's 'One Best Way". This is what Wally said pregame. Its the kind of mantra that's been said repeatedly over the years by Buono, its become etched in too many brains:
The players have been brainwashed by the "We Just Gotta Execute" mantra and so have the press and media. Its good that the players buy into it or at least spout it. They have to "believe' in their coaches or they wouldn't play hard.Buono said “ We can only give the game plan and make minor adjustments. But we can’t do the rest for them. Now it’s on them". That superior thinking got us beat badly yesterday by the Stamps.
But smart Lionbackers, who are 'students of the game" are not. I'll leave it to my fellow Lionbacker colleagues, as well as Jonathan Jennings and Bo Levi Mitchell to wrap up this 'life is a box of chocolates/biscotti section up with their quotes.
They had a good game plan,'' -- Jonathon Jennings. "Hats off to Dave for the game plan today." -- Bo Levi Mitchell.
Space Age vs Old School. Dynamic philosophy vs conservative philosophy. Play to win vs play to not lose. Sophisticated, detailed game planning vs bread and butter, base level, generic for any opponent, game planning. Seemed like professional vs amateur. WCJ
Some people make things happen.Some people watch what happens.Some people wonder what happened.
Wally has earned lots of loyalty and Teflon. Plus we had a good regular season. But we were outcoached for this game, by a first year Head Coach. Well OK, most CFL observers might credit Dave Dickenson with being an Xs and Os expert. And it seems to me that we were outcoached versus the Bombers. Jennings got us through that one
Were we outcoached? This fan thinks so. What if the players just showed up and played sandlot ball (or grass field, fully equipped) the way a lot of us did in our youth? I think our talent would do very well. The difference then, in a game like this? Coaching. Planning. Leading. Attitude. Details. Tendencies. Vulnerabilities. WCJ
The game has passed by the "Being the best at what we do - aka - Execute the game plan" philosophy. Each week, the game plan must be different based on what is expected from opposing lineup and even within a game, the drives must adapt to conditions on the field. Today, we looked surprised and reactive on defence and even more importantly, we did not create uncertainty by our offensive play-calling. Will we learn?? I dunno. Dusty
The long layoff really gave Dickenson, who is the best X and O guy in the CFL, the time to really detail their game plan. Dano T.
They confused us on D, we couldn't get out of our own way with penalties and dumb mistakes, and failed to convert our 2nd and short opportunities. Game. Set. Match. 3rd year in a row our season ends in a pasting. This one stings more as more was expected from this team. We knew who we were last year in Calgary - and the year before in Montreal. David
Not much more needs to be said. If you are going to call yourself "a Legend" you need to come up with better game plans that this. What should have been a very close contest between the two best teams in the CFL turned into a wipeout for the Stamps.After watching Matt Nichols carve up the Lions for nearly 400 yards last week, I figured our defence was in a heap of trouble. How many guys have looked ordinary or downright awful in Mark Washington's system over the last half of the season? Sammy Greene
STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES
In the pre-game thread I wrote "When Forest Gump said "Stupid is as stupid does' he was saying that its our actions, not our words that count and that our previous actions tell us everything. You either repeat the past or you learn from it".
For this section the pre-game keys were to 1) mentally prepare our players for the start of the game to come out 'ready' 2) Buono to present himself as confident and poised and not nervous and uptight because too many of his playoff teams have come out nervous, uptight, flat, and mistake prone too often 3) to not be predicable with plays such as the quick swing pass to Rainey but instead to delay Rainey out of the backfield 3) to not be "Manny-cetric to begin the game and 4) to use the inside read option on second and short, to avoid defenses crshing down on our inside zone run play to Jeremiah Johnson on shorter yardage plays.
So what happened? We came out nervous, uptight, and flat. We were mistake prone due to it. Wally was uptight, nervous and detached. He had reverted back to his 'old self' rather than his 'new self' in some of our most recent games regular season games and the playoffs. Yesterday, he yelled at players coming off the field and he yelled at coaches and players on the sidelines. He was detached and never offered coaching advice. Players avoided him coming off the playing field. They stayed away from him on the sidelines too.
Of course we ran the same quick swing pass to Rainey for low yardage, as Calgary's press man coverage meant that their defenders, covering our receivers close to the line of scrimmage, would be able to react quickly. You almost have to be brain dead to not see that the play has not worked for a number of games. All we had to do, was let our receivers clear out the area, while delaying the swing pass, giving Rainey tons of space to work with - with only the middle linebacker to beat in the flat (if the ML could even get there in time.
Lionbacker posters can see it but somehow Jones can't. That's what 'one best way' thinking gets you. It blinds you. "Keep on keepin' on" means doing the same thing and getting the same result.
Mark Washington said, after the Bombers game "The reason I don’t have hair is because of the first half. “We changed our scheme a little bit (in the second half). Well, guess what. Washington did the same thing again. He changed his scheme a bit in the second half. But by that time, we were down 32 points and more of his hair was lost. That's because you either learn from the past or repeat the same mistakes.
We all knew, before this game Washington needed to be well prepared, with a great defensive game plan and our defense had to be ready to play from the opening whistle (or Washington would have no hair left at the end of this WDF). In other words we had to play a smart but an aggressive smart game. We didn't. We had Sol E. trying to cover McDaniel by himself 20 yards downfield as Calgary's offence created bad matchups.Obviously Washington didn't learn. LaPolice and Dickenson gave Nichols and Bo Levi the tools to shred our defence. They knew every weakness in his passive zone scheme.
We gave up a 103 yard Calgary second quarter drive that dissected every defensive short coming in our passive zone scheme. Calgary exploited Brandon Stewart on a wheel route because he is 'skilled' at being burned on a double move. We had Edem being burned on the same 'fake dig, up move' that got us burned against the Bombers.
Our defensive players, quite simply, are not that bad, execution wise, to give up those massive number of points in the first half of two games in a row.Washington's defence gave up 57 first half points in our two playoff games. That's not preparation or game planning. That's ineptitude
The past is either your friend or your enemy. It you don't use the past as a magic wand to adapt, the past repeats itself and the pain just keeps on going.
WE WERE LIKE PEAS AND CARROTS
Jennings and Manny were like 'peas and carrots' all regular season. So were Jennings and Burnham. But we went to Manny and Burnham too often, into double coverage, during the regular season. In the Semi-Final, that cost us, as Manny hurt his ankle on the first play of the game, we were intercepted on the second play of the game, as we unwisely used Manny on a comeback route, and in the second half, Manny was knocked out on a deep pass attempt into double coverage, on a route he should never have been given in that game.
In this game, with Manny's ankle obviously not recovered and with an inability to cut, we should have used him more often as a decoy. But instead we threw to him more than any of our other receivers. We targeted Rainey on the quick swing pass too often on obvious plays. He had 3.5 yards per catch on 5 receptions. We came back against Winnipeg with two long winning touchdown drives using Adekolu, Iannuzzi, Sinkfield and Burnham. We didn't even use Semi-Final reception leader Adekolu in this game. We didn't throw to Shawn Gore in the first half.
We need different pass plays to exploit Man/Cover 2 defenses. A vertical passing attack is too restrictive against a Man/Cover 2 type of defense.
The better CFL offensive coordinators are adapting away from the vanilla version of the pocket passing spread offence. Winnipeg uses a lot of misdirection play action rollouts and screen passes. Calgary stretches the field both horizontally and vertically. They rotate in receivers, as part of packages.Sometimes it feels as if our Leos offensive coordinators are trying to drive us Leo fans crazy. From 2005-2010, we got an overdose of crossing patterns in a horizontal passing game offence against zone defense. Got some of our receivers almost killed. We got some variety from 2011-2013. Then, from 2014-2016, we got an overdose of deep vertical patterns against man defences, with zone over the top.
They use their tailback in the passing attack very effectively and not just for swing passes. Messam caught 54 passes this season. They use their fullback as part of their passing scheme and not just as an afterthought, as we do with Lumbala.
Calgary is not just a one play inside zone read team. They run sweeps. They run reverses. Yesterday, Calgary's Lemar Durant scored a touchdown on a reverse.
Next season, we need to have more "we were like peas and carrots' with more of our receivers for a better balanced attack.
ALWAYS BE ABLE TO LOOK BACK AND SAY I DIDNT' LEAD NO HUMDRUM LIFE
Prior to the WDF, Foresst Gump's inspiration was not to be 'humdrum', in other words our Leos brain trust needed to face facts. You don't beat a team like Calgary playing afraid to lose, or play 'hide under your mother's dress' style of defence, as we were the underdogs. We had to do something different.
But we didn't. We tried to mix up some things and provide different looks. We ran some zone blitzes. But the fact was that we played zone defence almost all game.
It was like putting a pretty dress on a pig. Calgary knew we would play zone and they ran all their patterns into areas that exploited it.
Before this game, Forrest Gump's inspiration also was to change, to be adventurous, to get out of our 'box' way of thinking. Before this game, Lionbackers suggested the following:
Didn't happen. Was not going to happen. No press man coverage at any time. No innovative blitzes. Game over and early."We need to blitz Sol E. and Biggie differently and use Lokombo and Purifoy on some blitzes. We also have to play Calgary's receivers tighter than we usually play most team's receivers. Calgary is too good to just sit back and hope that mistakes will be made on throws or we can just come up and make tackles short of the first down. In other words, we can't just play hum drum defence.We have to be well prepared, with a great defensive game plan and be ready to play from the opening whistle.
MAMA SAYS THEY WERE MAGIC SHOES. THEY COULD TAKE ME ANYWHERE
Jonathan Jennings wore magic shoes many times this season.
Jonathan Jennings accuracy this season was almost unworldly. His deep throws this season were so consistently accurate, it was almost surreal. He could flick his wrist, while off balance, and throw a bullet 30 yards into a tight window. However Jennings and our receivers had to be almost purrfect. Most of the time our receivers were quite well covered.Without Jennings there would not have been a special 2016 regular season and Semi-Final win. Manny wore magic shoes as well this year as did Chris Rainey, Bryan Burnham, Sol E. and Biggie at times too. Paul McCallum put on his magic shoes in his first game back in a Leo uniform and would have been ice cool automatic if we had needed him to be.
It was rare to see a receiver wide open. Jennings either threw a long ball a couple of inches over the defenders fingers into the finger tips of our receiver or the receiver leapt and high pointed the football against double coverage. Jennings, most often had to throw 20-25 yard purrfect strikes into tight windows, while under pressure. That is a high degree of difficulty.
In the WDF, Jennings was slightly off, at times, in the first half of the game. That didn't help because our offensive passing attack has little margin for error.
Travis Lulay came in to start the second half. Lulay hit Sinkfield deep but what made Lulay successful during the third quarter was that he ran and he scrambled to buy time.We passed for 293 yards in the WDF. Jennings completed 71% of his passes but this game, he wasn't able to overcome our restrictive offensive scheme with purrfect passing, like he so often does.
Lulay threw for 86 yards of passing, with 54 yards coming off his deep throw to Sinkfield.That enabled Travis to overcome our restrictive offensive scheme. Travis did what Travis does best.
When Travis threw the interception in the end zone, he threw against the grain. He knows better and as an experienced quarterback and mentor he needed to be smarter.
Lulay was obviously upset with himself and he also looked upset that Wally pulled him. I wanted Lulay to stay in the game. It was over at that point but Lulay had worked hard and his scrambling was a positive at that point. Nothing else was working nor was it going to work. Neither Jennings or Lulay were going to bring us back from the brink and Lulay had been a good soldier and worked hard and positively all season. He was playing well and his scrambling was an asset, as the Stamps defence had us cold.
I just wish we could give our quarterbacks some plays where we could get receivers wide open, as Calgary does. Our offence should not have to rely on Jennings having to be almost purrfect or Lulay having to scramble to get receivers open, because our scheme does not exploit what needs to be exploited.
I DONT' KNOW IF WE HAVE A DESTINY OR IF WE'RE JUST FLOATING AROUND ACCIDENTAL LIKE A BREEZE
Before this game, Forrest Gump's question, when pertaining to our Leos, was "I don't know if this 2016 Leos team has a destiny or if we're just floating around in the breeze". Well, destiny happened. It was not our destiny to win the Grey Cup this season.
But this is not a team that was floating around accidentally in the breeze either. We led the CFL in rushing. We averaged 401 yards of offence per game. We were third in CFL defense.
In this game we put up 373 yards of offence. But our offensive coordinator didn't prepare a game plan that would exploit Calgary, early and often, as Calgary's offensive coordinator did. Calgary played Man/Cover 2 mostly. It was not a surprise. But we didn't exploit its weaknesses. We got behind so quickly, with our offence unable to sustain drives, while our defense collapsed. We were completely unprepared for Calgary on both sides of the football.
For 2017, personnel wisse, we need to upgrade in some areas, especially the defensive secondary and defensive line.
On offence, we need to adapt our scheme so that we have more running plays to take advantage of defenses, if they are overplaying our inside run. We need to be able to exploit press man coverage with a more horizontal game and keep our vertical attack game at the same time, for when its advantageous to use it. We have to develop an overall offensive scheme that attacks all areas of the field, both vertically and horizontally.But more importantly we really need to re-examine our offensive and defensive schemes.
On defense, we can't just be a passive zone pass defence team. Wally and Washington are using old school defensive philosophy. A lot of CFL offensive coordinators and quarterbacks are too good now to play too much passive zone against. They know how to attack it and quality quarterbacks can throw into those seams with accuracy, most of the time.
Today's receivers understand where the holes are. Dave Dickenson came up with a superb plan that Mitchell turned into a surgical dissection of our defence. Paul LaPolice and Matt Nichols did the same in the first half of the West Semi-Final.
We have to get better at game planning and scheming for big games. You can't give good teams in the playoffs huge half-time leads and expect to won, due to poor game planning and lack of preparation.
Player personnel changes alone won't get this done in the future. We've lost playoff games before with better talent. We can improve our talent level next year and still be outschemed in the playoffs, as we've been outschemed many times before.
Its time to really seriously rethink "One Best Way" and "Execution"
Our Leos players, no matter how good they are next year can 'execute' at a high level, and still not fly in the playoffs. Its time to go back to the drawing board.The Wright Brothers knew how to fly. The problem was their early airplanes were not well designed. They crashed. Once they got the design right, they executed their flying very well.
NEVER LOSE YOUR SENSE OF WONDER
Lionbackers posters knew we were the underdog going into this game and also knew if we did not have a good game plan, we'd get beaten and perhaps badly. That happened. But already, we're looking at next season.
We'll dissect this one and move on. We'll focus on who should stay and who should go. We'll scout out the CFL draft and select which free agents we should sign. Jennings, Manny, Burnham, Sol E. and Bighill will be back. So will many other talented Leos. We have a good base and had a solid regular season and an exciting come back Semi-Final win.I never lose my sense of wonder, even when I know that our schemes are restrictive for our players. Neither do my colleague Lionbackers. Hope is eternal. There is always a next season.
We saw so many game winning drives this season. There are issues, including some serious coaching issues. Wally has 'presence' but he is not an x and o's guy. He likely won't bring in different coordinators. But Wally could and should allow them to look at other team's schemes and playbooks and incorporate some of the best that works elsewhere, like Calgary. If you are not going to be innovative, its the next best step.
I would love our Leos to have more of the above in 2017. Wishful thinking. Yes. Hopeful thinking. Never give up!The Stampeders installed some new and surprising plays and formations during their time off and it helped keep the BC Lions off balance in the Western Final. Landy
Thanks to all fellow Lionbackers for making this the best football website out there. We did a good job. We weren't just arm chair quarterbacks being critical in hindsight. You recognized the 'good' and examined 'the not so good' with thoughtful analysis. You were positively proactive, offering great suggestions before games. There was a lot of insight on Lionbackers that made reading your posts a treat.There is still a lot to look forward toward for 2017. This was a turnaround season. Now we have to build on it and do the things that need to be done to get to the next level.
Have a great off-season!!