Re: Bombers-Lions postgame comments
Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2016 10:46 pm
by Blitz
Two BC turnovers in the final three minutes, combined with two timely Winnipeg scores gave the Blue Bombers a 35-32 win over the Lions Friday night at BC Place.
Cromartie called it garbage and it was. Its a treat to watch the talents of some of our players but this game made our Leos look like bush league rather than a well-coached, disciplined football team.
Leone's 30 yard missed field goal came back to haunt us. Our high risk, high reward passing attack turned out to be high risk.
It didn't take a brain surgeon to know the Bombers were going to take away Burnham or Arseneaux deep, and we had to take what the Bombers defence would give us and avoid turnovers. We didn't. So, we lived by the sword and we died by the sword.
We needed more of a possession style passing offence for this game and to look for the long one only if we had single coverage and the receiver was open.
Jennings completed 75.0% of his passes for 327 yds. That would be good night as a quarterback. But Jennings threw three interceptions and his last one, late in the game, with the ability to run out the clock. But this is not all on Lulay, although he has to assume is share of the responsibility but not all.
Jones also knew that the Bombes will blitz the linebacker
We have a $200,00 back up quarterback in Travis Lulay, who gets all kind of credit for 'mentoring' Jennings and yet where is the advice. We have an offensive coordinator who played the quarterback position in the CFL. Where is the guidance? We have a receivers coach in Marcel, who has been an offensive coordinator numerous times as well as a HC - where is his input to the offensive coordinator. And finally we have The Legend, who has seen it all in the CFL, so many times. Where is his leadership in the last minutes of the game. Didn't exist!!
But I'm going to give Khari Jones or Dorazio or both credit for using five different running plays in this game, including the fly sweep to Sinkfield. We also sent Sinkfield, from his outside slot position on a fly pattern for a huge gain early in the game. We also ran a screen pass and used more formations. Those were improvements. But Johnson only averaged 3.9 yds. per carry - it was an improvement but there is still work to do.
On defence, we knew or should have known from our last game with the Bombers that we needed to focus on Andrew Harris by stopping the run and taking him away in the flats. So what did we do to start the game. We gave up the flats to Harris. We dropped off instead. Harris would end up with over 150 combined yards and Nichols would complete his 1st 11 passes until Washington adjusted. Where was his game plan? Did he not watch video all week?
The Bombers used their possession passing game against us successfully, although we played well for most of the second half on defence. But too man missed tackles, lack of defensive preparation by our coaches and perhaps its more than time to put Lane in Fenners halfback spot. There are only two games to go but it might be a good idea.
Bryant Turner Jr. took a bad penalty but he got penetration at times and certainly played better in the tackle spot than Brooks has recently.
Then, with our defence playing well, what does Washington do in the 4th quarter? He goes back to Cover 2, with Bighill dropping off to the safety position. Didn't work, like it didn't last game and didn't for the first 2/3 of the season last year.
A bad interception, an unfortunate fumble by Rainey, who had the football knocked out by his own teammate Rolly Lumbala, when it looked like he had a good chance to take it to pay dirt, were daggers. We folded on both sides when it counted.
We got some breaks in this game too...a long 70 yard touchdown by Harris called back and a very close quarterback fumble by Jennings reversed.
Looks like we'll probably be playing in the cold prairie in Winnipeg. We deserve it.
Re: Bombers-Lions postgame comments
Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2016 7:29 am
by Blitz
Sometimes, with our Leos team mostly winning this season, until recently, with that winning coinciding with the return of Wally Buono on the sidelines, with a young exciting quarterback throwing footballs deep downfield with amazing accuracy, with our receivers making spectacular plays, with special teams player Chris Rainey burning by would be tackles, without the advantage of blocks, and with Team 100 making tackle after tackle, it hasn't felt comfortable at times for be to be a critic.
For those of us who were posting on Lionbackers in 2005, you may remember the over- the - top passionate arguments that took place on this website. Those arguments weren't only about Dickenson and Printers, which split this website in two (no difference than the locker room that season). Those heated discussions were also about whether some posters (including me) were being too negative, with our Leos having won 11 games in a row that season.
But the 'issues' with Wally's and his coaching staff's decision making (such as waiting until two hours before a game started to announce his starting quarterback (which threw gas on the quarterback controversy) and the restrictive scheme that season came back to haunt us. We lost a lot of games at the end of that season and then allowed the third place Eskimos to beat us in the WDF. Schemes, game planning, and coaching strategy has hurt our Leos over many seasons.
I wrote many games ago, that this season was reminding me of that 2005 season and many others subsequently - early success, restrictive and predictable schemes, and some player personnel deficiencies would come back to haunt us. Right now they have. But we can still get this thing turned around. We've lost three very close football games that were very winnable against the Bombers and Eskimos.
So, here are a few thoughts lingering in my mind, as I had a difficult time sleeping after this loss.
WHY CAN'T OUR COACHES 'SEE'
It's always easy to be a critic in hindsight. But what drives me insane, is when our coaches know the obvious and do nothing about it. These are professional coaches. They get to watch a lot of game tape during the week. Us Lionbackers only get to watch a game, once, in the stands or on television, and yet there are many Lionbackers who can see things ahead of time, that can easily be done, and yet, our coaches can't. It defies logic. Its baffling.
For example, for most of this season, there has been a lot of discussion on Lionbackers about our Leos lack of play diversity for our run game, a concern about our Leos play calling in the red zone, the risk of going to the well too often against double coverage, in high risk situations, and our lack of having one or two of our receivers or our tailback on each play being given a possession type route to give Jennings underneath options. On defence there has been concerns about our defense not getting an interior pass rush and a defensive scheme that gives up the flat and does not make adjustments from week to week, in terms of who we are playing.
I really don't think our Leos coaching staff is blind. But they have blinders on, in certain areas, and can't seem to remove them. But first, I have to give Khari Jones credit for doing some things in this game,on that he has not done all season before. He used 5 different running plays, after only using one running play for almost all of this season. He used more formations. He used more motion. He moved receivers around, which he does not do normally.
He moved the pocket for Jennings on a couple of plays. He changed some of Sinkfied's slot back routes and it paid off with Sinkfield making a 62 yard catch to open the game. He introduced the jet sweep for one play for Sinkfield and it worked successfully. Jones called a screen pass, which he very rarely does. Khari Jones did a number of things, scheme wise, that he has not done all season. He didn't get the reward he deserved for those changes, but we did put up 103 yds. rushing, 327 yds. passing (430 yds. of offence) and 32 points. From an offensive scheme perspective, this was Khari Jones best game this season.
However, one can still see his limitations as play caller. They were more than obvious in the game we played in Winnipeg last week, in the red zone. One example was when he dialed up the misdirection red zone play to Arseneauz that we had introduced the week before and everyone, including my grandmother, could see the play being tipped off before we ran it. Once again, in this game, we were on the Winnipeg 5 yard line and called the inside zone read run on second and two. Last week, Allen got a yard on the play. This time, Jones made the same play call and Jeremiah Johnson was stopped for no gain. We kicked a field goal instead and yet all week our coaches said they were going to focus on our red zone offence. The Bombers knew we would run the inside zone read, Their defensive line and linebackers were more than prepared for it. Stupid is doing the same thing over again, when it should be obvious that something else would be better.
Another good example was the Jeremiah Johnson fake sweep and throw play. We rarely run so called 'trick' plays, which really should be called 'surprise' plays. It can be a very good football play. But we did a number of things wrong. First of all, we ran the play too early in the game, with the Bombers focused on stopping our deep passes. Secondly, we didn't set the play up first. We should have run a sweep or two first, especially since we never run the sweep play.
The play was badly designed, with Johnson running backwards, which tips the play off. Using this type of 'surprise' play against the Bombers, in this second game, was the worst team to use it against at the wrong time of the game. Sinkfield fell on the play but it wouldn't have worked anyway. There were three or four Bombers defenders playing deep. You run that type of play against man defence or zone Cover 1 and not against a defence that is paranoid and using a lot of defenders playing Cover 3 deep zone.
With less than 3 minutes left in the game, with the football on our own 35 yard line, with the lead, on 1st down, we called a pass play and the football was intercepted by Fogg. Logic is you want to run the football and take time off the clock. But should you decide to go against tendency, you run a high percentage pass play. You run a swing pass or a quick option hook pattern to an inside slotback or a quick, short out pattern to the boundary receiever, or a quick hitch to the short side. You tell your quarterback on the sidelines before he goes out there, to throw the football away or eat it, if he sees something he doesn't like. You don't have any receiver running deep, unless being used as a decoy or to clear out and you tell your quarterback not to throw to him, no matter what.
Play calling is an art and Jones doesn't have it yet as an art or a science. Basically he just uses an ad hoc or a laizze-faire approach.
A good thing we did in this game, was that we inserted Sinkfield for Shaq Murray Lawrence on the kick return team, a move that we should have made at least two games ago. Sinkfield did not have any returns but it should pay off in the future.
But defensively, we struggled at times and were not prepared properly.
Here are some thoughts, with only a few hours sleep.
WHY CAN'T OUR COACHES 'SEE'
From a scheme perspective, why can't our coaches 'see'? For example, I wrote before we even played the Bombers in Winnipeg, that the Bombers are a possession style passing team that uses a lot of misdirection play action and throws a lot to Andrew Harris. They also like to run screen plays. Other Lionbackers did too. It's not rocket science. The stats were there. Game tapes of the Bombers offence was there. Yet Mark Washington did nothing to take away what the Bombers like to do, fro the opening whistle in two games in a row.
Andrew Harris was the Bombers leading receiver in the game. He was their second leading receiver last game. We could have targeted either Bighill or Eliminian on him. But did we do that? Nope. We had our linebackers dropping off into their usual zone areas. That allowed the Bombers to hit Harris in the flats again all game and allowed the screen pass to Harris to be set up nicely.
The Bombers offence came out on fire in the game in Winnipeg and were up 24-3 in short order, as Washington, for some reason that defies logic, decided to game plan a lot of Cover 2 and Cover 3 to take away the Bombers non-existent deep passing game and give up the underneath stuff.
Now, with another week to prepare, what does Washington do? He still does nothing different to game plan against the Bombers offence. On the second play of the game, Nichols hit Harris for a 72 yard pass completin and a touchdown that we were fortunate to have called back due to a Bombers offside penalty. Nichols completed his first 11 passes In the game and would go on to throw 8 times to Harris for 80 yards in the game, a 10 yard average per pass play. Many of those plays hurt us. We just had no game plan for Harris, when it should have been more than obvious that the Bombers would target him often.
On offence, if I can see the Bombers like to blitz one of their linebackers prior to both games, and delay blitz a second linebacker, if the back stays in to block. It's very simple as to how to exploit it. The back appears to block for the pass. The second linebacker sees that and delay blitzes. All we need to do is to appear to keep Johnson or Rainey in to block and then use a delay swing pass or screen pass to the boundary side of the field. But do we do that. No!! We throw the quick swing pass and we run the screen pass (which was a shock) to the wide side of the field. To make matters even worse, Husband holds on a screen play, which is about as dum as you can get.
WHY DO OUR COACHES NOT SEE OBVIOUS PERSONELL CHANGES NEEDED (OR NOT NEEDED)
It was more than obvious, during mid-season, that inserting O'Neil for Steward at left guard was not helping our offence. Even more obvious, was that Levy Adcock was way too slow as a right tackle. But we kept starting them for games when obvious change was needed. You don't fix a mistake by keeping on repeating that mistake. We've also pined a very tall, big target in Adekolu for way too long, when he could be inserted as a rotational receiver to provide a possession target with great hands for certain situations. But then again, we pined Paris Jackson the same way in the past for Iannuzzi.
On defence, from the start of this season, concern was expressed on Lionbackers about our lack of an inside pass rush. Its also very obbious that whenever David Menard comes into a game at defensive end, good things happen. Yet we played Darius Allen game after game, with no results while keeping Menard mostly on the bench. We didn't bring in an International defensive end, when it was obvious that we did't have the talent on the roster for that position.
We've had an opportunity to use Uko at any point this season and haven't or we've had the opportunity to use Bryant Turner Jr. as a rotational defensive tackle. Brooks was also struggling and playing either Uko or Bryant Turner Jr. would have helped. Turner only played in this game because Brooks was hurt. If not, we would have started Darius Allen again and pined Menard. It was Menard who created the sack for Roh and it was Bryant Turner Jr. who helped create the sack for Westerman, who has 6 sacks on the season, while Brooks has 0.
In the defensive backfield, Washington has had to deal with injuries to Lee/Clarke at defensive halfback and Yell at boundary corner. Not easy. But Washington has chosen to play two rookies who didn't begin the season as starters at the two toughest defensive secondary positions. Then he's began to use Bighill again to provide additional deep support for them, which doesn't work.
We could have moved either Phillips or Stewart over to the boundary side but no, we have two very experienced defensive halfbacks playing the easier wide side, while expecting a lot out of two rookies on the more challenging boundary side.
It was obvious last game that Chandler Fenner will struggle. We've had Jeremy Harris on the practice roster for a while now. He was an NFL draft choice. He's started in some NFL games. He's big at 6'2" and 195 pounds. He's versatile. We could insert Harris in Fenner's spot or move Gaitor who played well back there and use Harris at corner. But once again, we'll likely do nothing about a problem unless forced to.
Then there is the Richie Leone field goal kicking experiment. After a season and a half, it became very obvious that Leone was too much of a risk as a field goal kicker. Points are very important when your offence has penetrated into the opposition's half of the field. Leon'e missed 30 yard field goal cost us 3 points. We could have at least took the game to overtime, had Leone hit that easy field goal. The Bombers would also have been in a different situation, as would have our offence, late in the game, had Leone made that easy field goal. Last game, Leone missed a 35 yard field goal, in a game that we lost by 2 points.
Leone did hit a long field goal in this game but we have used Leone for long field goals less than any other CFL field goal kicker - a combination of Leone's inconsistency causing worries about missed field goal returns in combination with Wally's general fears and conservative approach.
We should have brought a National field goal kicker in at least half way through this season or cut Leone, who we knew was going to the NFL next season anyway, and signed Fera before Montreal did.
THE DICHOTOMY OF RISK AND CONSERVATISM
We want to live by the sword and die by the sword on offence this season, with an exiting gun slinger in Jennings, who is a phenomenal deep ball passer. He's a gunslinger. He has also been encouraged to play that style by Buono and Khari Jones. But he's also thrown a lot of late in the game interceptions. We lost the Calgary game due to a Jennings interception. In poker, there are times to play aggressively and times not to. It all depends on the cards. In this game, with a 10 point lead, we needed to play our cards smartly. Therefore, we needed to give Jennings some high percentage pass plays and also tell him to play conservatively. Obviously neither happened.
Last game, we took advantage of Bomber rookie safety Taylor Loffler, who we had the opportunity to draft, instead of Anthony Thompson. Last game was the Manny/Bryan Show, with 350 reception yards. Richie Hall is a hell of a lot smarter than Mark Washington. He was going to be determined to game plan to take away the primary strength of our offence, even if our defense was not going to do the same, regarding Andrew Harris. Whereever Burnham or Arseneaux went, that was where Loffler was going to be, along with Fogg and Heath. The Bombes didn't even have Leggett help out and didn't need to.
Burnham had 48 yds on 4 receptions and Arseneaux had 2 catches for 16 yds. The Bombers defensive coach did what he need to do - focus on our main weapons on offence and Washington did not do what he needed to game plan for - take away the Bombers main weapon. Its not all on Jennings or Rainey (it was a freak fumble, with Lumbala's helmet hitting the football out of Rainey's hands. The football was on the Bombers 49 yard line. Our defence could still have stopped the Bombers offence. The Bombers ran Harris 4 times, who peeled off one 11 yard run and Nichols ran once for 13 yds. (Bighill was probably playing deep safety) and Medlock kicked the winning field goal.
Wally's conservative also showed up in this game, when it comes to third down, as it alwys does. Without the use of a head set, he not only leaves challenges to others on his staff but makes third down calls visually and usually very conservatively or baffling, In this game, with our offence on the Bombers 44 yard line, with third and less than one yard to go, Buono punted. It would have been a 50 yard attempt for Leone. Then, later in the game, Buono let Leone kick a 52 yard field goal.
No rhyme or reason for the different decisions but there usually isn't any logic to them. Buono has historically not gambled on third and one, and also punted when a makeable field goal was there. Then, at other times, historically, he has gambled on third an two, in his own end, with a lead. I think he consults his with his oiuji board on the sidelines. The potential lost points, by not gambling on third and one, in the Bombers end, cost us a potential touchdown or field goal. Games are often won or lost, in part, due to those types of decisions that most other CFL teams don't make.
THE CULT OF WALLY AND THE PATTERN
Wally Buono has been a successful coach overall. He is a manager style of coach and not a tactician. And if he does get involved in the coaching aspect, such as short yardage teams its usually not to our benefit. Therefore, Buono leaves it to his coordinators to run the schemes and do the play calling on both sides of the football. Wally gives direction (spread offence, passive zone defence) and leaves them to it, except for when he gets exited during a game and starts yelling out stuff that often creates confusion.
That is very different than how other CFL teams operate these days. In Calgary, Dickenson leads the offence, as does Maas in Edmonton. Jones coordinates the defence in Riderville, as he did in Edmonton last season while O'Shea coordinates the special teams in Winnipeg. Milanovich and Austin play prominent roles with tactics in Toronto and Hamilton and Chap is calling the offensive plays in Montreal. Whether that is wise or not, these coaches really understand the tactical part of football. They are 'coaches' and not 'managers'. Wally's lack of tactical knowledge, combined with his rigidity, are not assets. What Wally is good at is team discipline, high expectations of players, and getting his players to buy in to his leadership. But he is not able, when his coordinators need mentoring to provide it, while also restricting what they can do.
Buono's teams mostly follow a pattern. They were usually much more successful early in the season, when the schemes on both sides of the football are simpler, as the opposition has not opened up their offensive and defensive play books yet. Wally's teams have usually been talented and hard working. The talent shines more early in the season. However, as opposition coaches open up their play books on offence and defence, and make adjustments, our Buono led teams stay simple on offence and defence and make few adaptions. As most seasons move forward, we become more predictable because we remain rigid while other teams become less predictable and adapt.
Its the reason why Buono led teams have lost so many playoff games, with better talent, that they should have won. Even when we broke the pattern and won in 2006 and 2011, we struggled against a 6th ranked defence against Montreal in the 20C06 Grey Cup and almost allowed a weak Bombers team to come back in that game. Usually in a season, the more times we play a team, the better the opposition plays and the worse we play. The games against Calgary this year follow the same pattern.
We beat Calgary early in the year, when the schemes on both sides of the football were simple, but by the third game, the Stamps dominated us on both sides of the football. We stay simple and don't game plan well or adjust. The opposition's superior coaching comes to the fore. The Bombers outcoached us in both games, even though we had superior talent.
As this season winds down, we've gone from being a team that could beat Calgary and almost upset them at home and should have won to a team that can't beat Calgary, Edmonton, or Winnipeg. They've all gotten better and we've gotten worse. We've now lost 3 of our last 4 games. We've gone from looking like we would be hosting a Semi-Final to potentially being a cross-over team.
These two losses should not be laid on Jennings or Rainey or both. We have a $200,000 dollar mentor for Jennings. We have three offensive coaches on the sidelines in Khari Jones (who played quarterback in the CFL), Dorazio, who has coached forever, and Marcel, who has been an offensive coordinator with 3 CFL teams as well as a HC to call high percentage plays and give Jenninngs guidance and direction late in games.
Without Rainey, we would have lost a number of games we've won this season. He might have scored a touchdown on his return had Lumbala not knocked the football out of his handmis and his final return of the game set us up for a very long field goal attempt. Had Wally not wasted a time out on a challenge in the fourth quarter, we could have called a time out in those late moments of the game, been able to run a couple of plays, and been able to attempt a shorer field goal to tie the game.
The talents of Jennings, Arseneaux, Burnham, Rainey, Bazzie, Eliminian, and Bighill can't overcome what holds us back. Coaching, schemes, play calling, lack of adjustments, predictability, personnel decisions, making good coaching decisions during games eventually cost.
Outcoached ........again and outplayed. Winnipeg adjusted to take away Arceneaux, Burnham and Rainey. With a week's preparation, Lions still can't tackle, can't contain Harris, no pass rush. Their 9 win season is inflated due to their record against Eastern opponents.