Our Leos, who finished 4th in the West secured the cross-over playoff berth to play the East 2nd place Tiger Cats by having a better regular season record than the Montreal Alouttes, who finished 3rd in the East.
It’s Going to Be a Cat Fight - A Look at the Matchup
Both teams split the season series. Neither team enters this game with momentum."If you want it you're gonna bleed but it's the price to pay"
Guns and Roses
Our Leos lost decisively to both the Saskatchewan RoughRiders and the Calgary Stampeders. Neither a shot at a second-place finish in the West nor Wally Buono night could get our Leos playing their best football in those two contests.
Our running game, which was so important to our offensive success in our wins over Ottawa, Calgary, and Edmonton, barely produced 100 combined yards in our two recent losses to Saskatchewan and Calgary, as Sutton was held down in both contests.In our last two games, we’ve been outscored 51-25 and the opposition’s defense has scored as many touchdowns (two) as our Lions’ offence over that span.
Our Leos were only 2-7 on the road this season and will need to play much better away from home if they are going to win this contest.Our Lions’ defense, which is our strength has surrendered 344 rushing yards in those two recent losses.
The Hamilton Tiger Cats have also struggled recently, losing their last 3 games, including a pivotal game against Ottawa, which would have given them a shot at 1st place in the East.
But they also lost Jalen Saunders, who was having an outstanding season, as well as Chris Williams, who came to Hamilton in the trade.The Tiger Cats offence has been decimated with injuries this season and especially to their receiving corps. They haven’t looked like the same offence since their leading receiver Brandon Banks was lost for the season.
Our Leos are favored to win this game.
LULAY WILL START AT QUARTERBACK
Travis Lulay will start at quarterback for our Leos. It will be Lulay’s first start in a playoff game since 2013. Our Leos lost that game to the Riders.
Last season Buono’s Leos didn’t make the playoffs for the first time in over two decades. This season, the same fate looked likely and it took a second half turnaround, an Edmonton collapse in the second half of this season, and huge come from behind victories, led by both Jennings and Lulay, against Hamilton at home and Edmonton at home to secure the playoff berth.Since 2011, we are 1-5 in the playoffs. Our only playoff victory since that season was when Jennings led us to a late fourth quarter victory over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 2016, after Mark Washington’s defense gave up 25 first half points to the Bombers.
Buono named Lulay as our starter for the East Semi-Final, as expected. The decision is the most sensible, as Lulay has been our starter now for our last four games. It was also expected.It also required a tremendous defensive game against Calgary, to secure a cross-over playoff spot. With the talent on this Leos team, a playoff berth should have been secure for 2018.
If Buono was willing to sit MOP Casey Printers in 2004 to play a rusty Dickenson in the Grey Cup game and if he was willing to pull Jarious Jackson (who had quarterbacked us to 9 wins in our last 11 games) in the 2nd quarter of the 2007 West Final, to insert a rusty Dickenson once again, one had to know he would go with his veteran quarterback.
Hopefully, that question will not need to be asked for this playoff game, Lulay will go all the way at quarterback, and our Leos offence will play well.The bigger question will be, should our offence struggle, is whether he will insert Jonathan Jennings or not. Buono pulled Dickenson and inserted Casey Printers into the West Final playoff game, late in the 4th quarter in 2005 but usually he has gone all the way with his starter since 2007.
A positive is that Jonathan Jennings has had playing time in our last two contests, so he is not rusty, should he be needed to play.
.Jonathan Jennings finished the 2018 season with a higher quarterback passing percentage (85.6) than Travis Lulay (84.8). Jonathan Jennings also finished the 2018 season with a higher quarterback efficiency (60.3) to Travis Lulay’s quarterback efficiency of 57.3
We also had a winning record when Jennings was our quarterback whereas we lost more games than we won with Lulay at the controls. Jennings also had a lower interception rate (2.9) to Lulay (3.5) but both quarterbacks threw more interceptions than touchdown passes.
Jennings also had a higher passing percentage, completing 67.4% of his passes compared to Lulay’s pass percentage of 60.1%. Lulay had a better yds. per pass completion average (8.0) to Jennings 6.8 yd. average per completion.
Lulay went vertical for long pass completions more often this season while the former gunslinger Jonathan Jennings became more of a possession type passer.
Jennings was much more of a running threat this season than Travis Lulay. Jennings ran for 226 yds while seeing less action than Lulay, who only ran for 72 yds in 2018.
What does this all mean?
Well, firstly, for the Jarious Jackson’s and the Ed Willes who were enthusiastic about throwing Jonathan Jennings under a bus this season, with public comments as Jennings was not smart enough to quarterback a CFL pro offence or was not a competent CFL quarterback, their comments were unfair, demeaning, and wrong.
Both quarterbacks had similar overall statistics, with one being a bit better at a certain phase of the game and vice-versa.Jonathan Jennings finished this season as the CFL’s 7th rated quarterback. Travis Lulay finished this season as the CFL’s 9th rated quarterback.
Both quarterbacks have proven in the past that they could get it done and done well. Both quarterbacks, this season, when not stuck in RPO or the short pre-snap passing game, with RPO styled pass patterns, could be explosive.
Jonathan Jennings was spectacular in the second half of our home victory against Hamilton. The contrast between that half and his play in the first half of the Hamilton road game, when we were back in RPO, was more than obvious.Both quarterbacks showed what they could accomplish, when we were playing from behind and forced to open our offence up, using traditional pass blocking and vertical layered pass routes.
Travis Lulay lit up Edmonton in the second half of another key matchup but struggled mightily against the Riders when we went back to RPO again.
Jeremiah Johnson did that against Ottawa and Terrel Sutton did that in his first two starts. But Sutton has only rushed for 50 yds and 15 yds. in our last two games and he has only averaged 3.9 yds. per carry over those two contests.But it has not just been our passing game that has struggled in RPO. We only had 3 games this season when our tailback rushed for over 100 yds.
In Sutton’s first two starts, we used a lot of pre-snap run plays, with our guards and tackles pulling and making kick out blocks. It was very successful. But in our last two contests we’ve mostly used Sutton for RPO styled post-snap run plays and the results have been dismal.
In fact, we are more successful with Jeremiah Johnson at tailback when we use RPO styled run plays.
'NOTHING WRONG WITH OUR SCHEME' SAYS JARIOUS JACKSON
Jarious Jackson is either delusional or in ego denial when he said this week:
Lowell Ullrich, the only sports reporter with the courage to ask questions about our offensive scheme, pointed out this week that our offence needs ‘a wakeup call but there is little to suggest that one is in the offing, based on Jarious Jackson’s comments.“I don’t think there was anything wrong with scheme. I just think it was more the guys (not) being locked in whereas this week if you got to get guys locked in then you got the wrong guys. The last couple of games the guys were content and let the opportunity (to host a home playoff game) slip.”
It’s not just that our offence has only averaged 236 yds. in our last two games or that Bryan Burnham was our only receiver to hit the 1,000 yd. mark or that Lulay and Jennings only have three 300 yd. plus passing games this season or that we only have three games in which our tailback (Johnson, Sutton) have more than a 100 yds. rushing.
This is supposed to be a high percentage passing offence and it’s been anything but that. It’s also supposed to feature successful first down run or pass plays, based on a post-snap read and we’ve been anything but successful.The reality is that Jackson’s offensive scheme, mainly made up of RPO post snap run or pass plays, or possession style pre-snap pass plays sucks.
Wow. Jackson’s offence has not only been mediocre at both the run and the pass.Our Leos offence finished the season ranked 7th in points scored, 7th in passing yards, 8th in rushing, 7th in time of possession, 6th in giving up quarterback sacks, and 8th in turnovers.
We also have given up way too many sacks and turned the football over way too many times for what is supposed to be a possession style offence that takes advantage of post-snap reads to run or pass effectively, gets rid of the football quickly to prevent sacks, has a high percentage pass completion rate, and low turnovers.
How is that working out? It’s NOT. And yet Jackson says he is not changing it.
THE KEYS TO WINNING THIS GAME
There is no question that there are keys to winning this game. They are the following:
1.We Have to Run the Football and We Have to Threaten Deep with the Pass
We all know that we must run the football, but we won’t be able to do that with RPO because Hamilton will put an extra defender in the box on first down to not only stop the run but also to force the RPO post-snap read into a pass play. In other words, their defense will predicate pass on first down.
Therefore, we must do two things.
Firstly, we have to go with pre-snap running designed running plays on first down.
When we decide to pass on first down, we need to go with pre-snap designed pass plays, with traditional type pass blocking and we need to threaten deep.
If we can successfully throw deep, it will force Hamilton to take that extra defender out of the box and therefore create more running game success.Why? Because if we don’t, Hamilton will keep that extra defender in the box on first down and not have to adjust because they will not feel ‘threatened’ by our short passing game. It’s also predictable so they can jump routes when the opportunity arises.
He is also outstanding out of the backfield, with 40 receptions on 42 pass targets and he makes defenders miss. A one-two punch could pay dividends.There is a possibility that we might dress both Sutton and Johnson. Sutton is the best north-south runner in the CFL, but Johnson is one of the CFL's best off-tackle runners.
2.We Have to Stop the Run
Our defense led the CFL in interceptions this season and pass knockdowns and tied for 2nd in CFL sacks.
Sol E. could start in this game.But we were 7th in terms of rushing yards against and 7th in terms of opposition yds. per rush.
I have never been a proponent of playing rusty players in a playoff game. It certainly didn’t work for us in 2004, 2005, and 2007 when Wally chose to go with a rusty Dickenson at quarterback.
But I would rather have us go with Sol E than Michael Awe at middle linebacker. A second option would be to with Herdman at middle linebacker and Lokombo go all the way at outside linebacker. He is too good to just be rotating in. Davis could rotate in.
But Washington is a pass defense first coordinator and we are weak against the run due to formation on first down.The return of Sol E could also be inspirational for our defense. But it’s not just a personnel issue. Washington could also improve our run defense by scheme too.
3. We Have to Stay in Man Defense Most of the Time
Our defense was playing great until we played Hamilton this season. We had switched to man defense and we were playing aggressively and successfully. June Jones decided he didn’t want his offence to be dealing with our man defense.
So, he adjusted his run and shoot offence, going with a lot of quad receiver sets to the wide side and then sending his back out to the short side flat while our linebackers dropped off into underneath zone, due to Masoli running with the football, while our defenders played man.
But we can still play man against June Jones strategy. One of the ways to do that is to take T.J. Lee and have him play man on the short side isolation receiver. At the same time, all we need to do is have Lokombo cover the back out of the backfield in man defense while our middle linebacker is responsible for Masoli running with the football.Mark Washington adjusted by going back to zone. Hamilton’s offence successfully exploited our zone defense in both contests. They took advantage of all the vulnerabilities in Washington’s zone defense approach.
If we ever chose to, when we do switch up and go zone on occasion, we could choose to put Lee on Tasker in man while everyone else plays zone. Chris Jones uses Marshall in this way to take away the opposition’s best receiver.
I have always believed that Korey Banks was the best man cover defender to ever play in the CFL (of course, we mostly stuck him in zone defense). But T.J. Lee may be just as good. He’s an incredible man defense defender and we need to use those talents to their best advantage in this game.
4. We Can’t Be Overly Conservative
We need to do all the ‘old fashioned’ things that never go out of style in a playoff game. We need to run the football successfully, not get into second and long, and when we pass, we have to threaten all areas of the field, vertically and horizontally.
On defense, the same tried and true equation works. Stop the run, put the defense in second and long, and get pressure on the opposing quarterback.
But there is one thing that doesn’t work and that is being too conservative. Wally has always been a fear-based coach that is usually written up as ‘conservative’ or ‘not taking chances’. He tends to even simplify strategy and game planning even more than ever for a playoff game, which can make us overly predictable.
If we have the lead, we can’t just play fear-based defense, dropping everyone off into zone defense, which Wally has still had a penchant to do this season with a lead.But we can’t be too predictable. It hurt us so much in the past by being so. We can’t just always play for field position. When field goals are in Long’s range, we have to attempt them.
Our Leos are the better team going into this contest. Our Leos have the better record, more talent, and more physicality. We are also a more veteran team.Finally, we can’t get ‘stuck’. If something isn’t working, we can’t just do the old Wally thing and keep hitting our head against it. In game adjustments are important and rigidity is a recipe for disaster.
Bryan Burnham said:
The Tiger Cats are also suffering at the receiver position. But they do have three starters returning. include shutdown cornerback Delvin Breaux and starting offensive tackles, Ryker Mathews and Kelvin Palmer (Palmer was awful for us last season)“Man, we’re in a good spot. We’re not worried. There’s no worries. I think we’re in a very good place, mentally. I’m excited. We’re all excited.”
Hamilton’s safety Mike Davis said this week, after practice:
But June Jones will likely prepare differently for Lulay, worrying less about him running and focusing more on Travis throwing quickly off his first read.“With Lulay there, he’s going to be going through the same reads (as Jennings),” “He’s a little quicker to pull the trigger but Jonathon added that running aspect so it’s like you give, take. What’s better than the other? I’m not too sure.”
What I see Lulay being able to do against Hamilton is to hurt them deep and we have the weapons to do so. Lulay was very good at the deep ball this season.
WRAP
So, we’ll know on Sunday, whether our Leos will be playing in the East Final with a shot at a Grey Cup berth after Sunday’s game or whether it all ends in Hamilton.
With only one playoff win since 2011, so it would be a treat to see a victory. Lulay's last playoff victory was in 2011. Be nice to see the vet win this game.It’s going to feel exciting. It feels like a long time since we played in a playoff game.
Go Leos.