Lionbackers.com

dupsdell1 wrote:Again this disgusting , our owner needs to sell this team , clean house and start all over buy that time the lions will probably fold or move to a different city .

why do you care? you have already jumped ship. now you can go hang out with the rest of the rats at those other teams games that you mentioned.

People have said things in more detail and more eloquently but I will simply say this team isn't very good in any facet of the game right now except perhaps in the kicking department and this is because of a great performance by a rookie kicker. I don't have very high expectations for the rest of the season.

Perhaps it all comes down to Scouting.

After stellar Scouting in O'Billovich, Shivers et al, its a definite drop from lofty to average talent.

I think Wally's time has also come and gone. The game has passed him by.

Re Travis Lulay ...

As noted in detail by MLF, Lulay has major physical limitations to deal with. Pain. Function. Doubts about the results of a throw.

That is one set of problems.

This fan suspects something less visible. Something to do with the contract. Renegotiated. Downward. More performance based. More games started based. More based on availability due to health. More based on whatever ... statistics, wins/losses, whatever. Who knows how much pressure to perform that brings? That can be just nasty. If that is what is bothering him, making him press, some of that is on Wally. His contract was renegotiated, was it not?

How else to explain the wooden, uptight performances of at least the last two games? Even the Riders game where he ran for 105 yards. His passing performance was not outstanding, I seem to recall.

The first Rider game was amazing. Lulay circa 2011. But he obviously did not feel he could maintain that level. The expectations were just too high. He is pressing. He is trying too hard. At this time, it is just a bit too much.
................

In any case, our defence is Problem #1, IMO.

How to fix that? It seems to me that radical surgery is out of the question. Can't change horses in midstream. Can a horse change colors? If it is young, it can. Older? Not so much.

More and more, it looks to this fan like Wally sold Tedford a bill of goods with Mark W. Done with all good intentions. But it looks like a bad move. How much evidence is needed? Wally's preferred defence went out years ago. At least 10 years ago. And he did not seem to like the defence of Dave Ritchie, nor of Rich Stubler. He wanted the defence provided by two disciples, Mike Benevides and Mark Washington. Defence that reflected his own values. Play it safe. Play soft zone. It does not work anymore.

Mark W has tried to fancy up his defence. Some different looks. But, at base, it is still soft zone, no matter the look. Huge, gaping holes in the zone. Easily exploited. Guys in space, like Chris R, nowhere near the play. Desperation creeping in. Disbelief growing. Dysfunction growing.

Soft against the pass? Yes. Vulnerable to the run? Yes. Vulnerable to an immobile QB on one leg running? Yes.
..........

Our O has some good stuff. O Line. Run blocking. Pass blocking. Andrew Harris. Lulay at the start before he starts to press. Or until his arm gives out?

Receivers? Almost completely lacking leadership, it seems. Manny was nowhere last night. Nowhere. I jokingly said if he was kept out of the game early by the Bombers he would lose interest. Seemed to happen.
..........

There is some decay in the organization. Tedford inherited it. Can he fix it? I expect he can. If he is allowed to put his stamp on all aspects of the organization related the players. O and D. Drafting. Recruiting. Systems. Philosophy. Et cetera. He might need to clean house a bit more also. Bring in his own people for all coaching spots.

But this year just might be very, very tough.

Just IMO ...

What!?! Had to PVR the game just saw the outcome... After watching that first quarter I though we were a well oiled machine? What happened? Crap PI call on I believe Cord Parks amongst others threw momentum. Conditions a factor? Dark cloud over the Lions in second half...

Still believe in this team if they can play like in the 1st, but only wins against SASK? Hopefully not a troubling trend.

See you Thursday for Edmonton. Gulp!

-Alex

The Lions continue to take too many penalties, Lulay continues to have problems throwing the ball accurately, the D continues to be a sieve, receivers continue to struggle to get open. While you can't expect to throw a switch and the problems get corrected from one game to the next, I would like to see some incremental improvement...it didn't happen and in fact the Lions regressed imo.

The D did get a few sacks and did some blitzing but seemed to get burned on the blitz giving up a big play just about every time. Poorly disguised blitz?

I think the D only forced the Bombers to punt once or twice. A great indicator of how inept they have become.

My expectations for the Lions were low to start the season but they have to be able to compete with some team other than the Riders and in other than the first quarter they didn't compete.

The only bright note: Andrew Harris continues to play great as does the O line for the most part.

From Mike Beamish ...

“He surprised us a little bit,” admitted Lions linebacker Adam Bighill. “We weren’t necessarily looking for him to take off and run. I’d say there were a couple of times he got out there and ran – and we didn’t really have eyes for him.”

Not prepared by the game plan.

LBs deep, 5 yard drop. Then backpedaling. Eyes on the swivel. Four man rush. 5 blockers at least. All of these elements make the QB draw most dangerous. D'oh ... to the game plan.

“The thing is, we hoped we’d see a lot more improvements (in the defence) in four weeks,” admitted Bighill. “We’ve got to evaluate ourselves, every man, every coach. It all comes down to, ‘We’ve gotta be better.’”

“We’ve got to evaluate ourselves, every man, every coach." Bighill takes responsibility. That is not the style of the GM. And, Yes, the coaches need to evaluate themselves, especially Mark W.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Wonk ... z3hS9WZWDN

The areas of this team that were concerns in the offseason remain concerns.

1. Secondary: The DBs are green as FieldTurf, the only member of the secondary with considerable experience is just back from injury and the other players have been shuffled more often than a poker deck. Cord Parks is having a terrible year. Where is the aggressive corner who had 64 tackles as a rookie corner? He's on pace for 43 this year, and seems to be missing many opportunities to prevent big gains. Chris Rwabukamba has been given five games at safety. When he's not being invisible, he looks lost. The Lions have given up more deep passes than any team in the league. It's time for a change. I won't get into scheme, except to say that a secondary that can't cover and can't tackle and needs to be backed up by a stud linebacker is a major problem.

2. Defensive line: When the Lions jettisoned Eric Taylor and Khalif Mitchell in the offseason, I don't think anyone expected Craig Roh to fill the hole in the line. After five games, we know he can't. It's time to try Zach Minter or Jamarkus McFarland.

3. QB and receiver: The receivers lack speed and aren't getting separation. Travis Lulay has a problem putting zip on the ball to make throws into narrow windows or to the wide side of the field, and his deep passes have more chance of being intercepted than caught. MexicoLionFan has documented his problems with mechanics and shoulder strength. He is what he is. I thought I noticed him tiring during games or becoming more erratic. Statistically, his second-half production isn't that different from his first-half productoin. He is a 67% passer for 620 yards in the first half of games and 61% for 585 yards in the second half and in the one overtime game. That's not a significant difference. If the Lions don't get more production in their passing game, though, it may be time to insert Terence Jeffers-Harris or Lavelle Hawkins in the receiving lineup when healthy.

4. Penalties: Undisciplined play was a problem last year. It has remained a problem this year. Despite Jeff Tedford's insistence that he is trying to clean it up, there are no signs of progress. The Lions took 17 penalties for 109 yards tonight. There don't seem to be many repeat offenders but the penalties all add up. Chris Burns on the postgame show on TSN 1040 documented the Lions' poor starting field position. By my calculation, four of 11 drives started inside their own 20 yard line, two of them inside the 10 yard line. No offence can score consistently when they have to drive the length of the field. The Lions did that once tonight on their opening drive. It was the first time this year they've scored a TD on a drive that started inside their own 20. It's too much to expect them to do it more than once. League wide, the success rate on drives that start inside the 20 is 7.8%.

While we focus on the negatives after a loss, there are some positives that deserve recognition. Andrew Harris once again put the team on his back. Of 61 B.C. offensive plays, Harris had 28 touches for 167 yards. He powered for first downs on short yardage plays, broke tackles, made people miss and caught the ball in space. If the Lions had one offensive weapon who was half as productive, they might not be 2-3.

Also, Richie Leone does everything he asked. He is now a purrfect 12 for 12 in field goals this year and widened his league lead in punting by averaging 53 yards tonight.

Finally, credit has to be given to Drew Willy for a gutsy performance, throwing for 269 yards and two TDs and running for another 72 yards on what was supposedly a bad knee. Jeff Tedford was outcoached tonight by Mike O'Shea and Travis Lulay was outplayed by a QB with more health issues than him.

We know this is a young Lions team and a new coaching staff and that patience will need to be shown. But after five games, it's time to change what's not working.

Everyone keeps avoiding the issue at hand, none of this is going to get fixed unless you clean house, (im talking wally too.) Every other team in any other league is willing to do this minus us.

Our play calling is the worst, O and D
Too many penalties
we give the ball to the wrong ppl (why the crap is Antolin coming into the 0 and catching a pass ??? )
Tedfords timing to gamble
focus too much on 1 player ( Targeted Courtney Taylor 10 times / only caught 4 and 2 of lulays ints were going to him )

This is never going to get better because the REAL problem isn't being addressed, this is just embarrassing now. It's sad to say this, but the riders are winless and they look to have so much more promise than we do....

FEAR_THE_ROAR wrote:Everyone keeps avoiding the issue at hand, none of this is going to get fixed unless you clean house, (im talking wally too.) Every other team in any other league is willing to do this minus us.

That has been said by some. Wally has a huge legacy in B.C., and in the CFL. People respect what he has brought to the team, to the league, and to the community.

Clean house? Including Wally? Or especially Wally and his long timers? But it is being said. Politely, and quietly, for the most part, it seems to me.

I do not listen to the talk shows. Dunno what they say ... I would not be surprised if they do not say it.

Sir Purrcival wrote:People have said things in more detail and more eloquently but I will simply say this team isn't very good in any facet of the game right now except perhaps in the kicking department and this is because of a great performance by a rookie kicker. I don't have very high expectations for the rest of the season.

Lions could go to the K/P being the MoP of the team once again....ugh.

Honestly my expectations weren't high going into the season, so I can deal with the games that they are losing. However, the penalties to continue drives, the coaching decisions to go for it on third down (although Lulay has to hit that play, but didn't you question the aspect of throwing the ball vs running it?), and why didn't Tedford go for the challenge on the PI on the first pick of the game, he missed one last game against Collie that he should have challenged. Beginning to wonder if he is tuned into this game, but then he challenges the PI in the endzone, yet it is overturned (not sure that I agree with that decision, but it may also make Tedford shy away from making a critical challenge for PI in a future game.

So losing to Winnipeg puts the Lions in a race with the Riders for last, and we are having difficulty winning that by taking our games with Saskatchewan.

So far this season, I have to give our OL over achieving marks, along with Leone. The rest looks like a rerun of last season without the personnel to help.

Frustrating from this fans perspective, but not unexpected.

I had meant to give the O-line kudos for again not allowing a sack and for helping Andrew Harris rush for over 100 yards. The line is giving Lulay lots of time to find receivers. The receivers aren't doing enough to help.

There have been a few good points raised. Didn't see the game yet but from the sounds of it there are some patterns emerging:

1 - Lulays Arm.

After the Sask wins, many pundits both professional and casual, proclaimed "Travis is Back! He can throw!" It was great to see him back in action and win again... buuuut I couldn't help but still know that his arm is - and shall always be - significantly injured and mechanically altered. What was once a strong elastic band with a strong ability to stretch and snap back into place, is now an old brittle one. His shoulder has damage that can't be repaired. Nope. Nada. The rehab he did - and does - is just to maintain ROM, breakup scarring, and strengthen the surrounding muscles to support the joint. He altered the mechanics of his throwing after the age of 30. Think how long it would take for this to be relearned (10,000 hours I believe is the reference where a body movement becomes automatic).

SO now what we are seeing is Travis doing his best to get the ball to the receivers - with a bum shoulder and new throwing mechanics. Yikes. Over throws and misses. And he is one awkward fall away from being sidelined for a looong while again. :\ I really wish him success and hope he defies odds and locks down an accurate throw and doesn't get hit. But he's is a gamble. Big one. And it's not as if he's putting butts in seats. :\

2 - Washington and the "D".

Yeah, the zone gets picked apart a bit. Would be nice to see a bit more of an aggressive Man-Man. Zone is the safe play. Prevent and manage. DO I support this? Not really. But Washington seems like a quality person. Character guy. SO does Tedford. The missing element we might forget is that the Management tried to clean out a few personnel problems over the past few years. Locker room chemistry and subordination can be HUGE in terms of success in a large organization. They kept a quality guy in order to establish/keep a specific voice and persona. At least this is a part of it. I'm guessing here. ? Give the D more than a few games to sort it's self. They have some talent.

3 - Tedford's mid field gambles.

I looooove hard nosed, big play, exciting, 'go big or go home' football. But even I was scratching my head at the decisions to go on third down. Whether they made it or not, it was the wrong call. Pin em deep! The calls were wrong because the game wasn't exactly on the line. Annnnnd you didn't need the "momentum"??!?!? All they did was SWING the momentum in the other team's favour. Bizarre :\ And I LOVE trick plays on 3rd. Chris Jones, Milanovich.... or look at how Ottawa has won this year! That is a team playing desperate football and are 'ALL IN', go for broke. When they gamble - whether they convert or not - it's warranted.

It was a horrible loss to the Bombers. The Bombers came into the game with the CFL's worst offence and without their best receiver in Nick Moore. Still, our Lions couldn't defeat the Bombers and played poorly to boot.

Here are some post game thoughts.

OFFENCE

Our offence played poorly once again but that was not the fault of the blocking of our offensive line or Andrew Harris. Our offensive lien opened holes for Harris all game and gave Lulay amble time to throw the football on most plays. Harris was also a threat coming out of the backfield.

But our passing attack sucked and our scheme is terrible.

I began this season excited because I believed Tedford was going to implement an H Back offence. I wasn't excited about Cortez coming to B.C. because he is a spread offence devotee and the spread offence reached its best due date many years ago. However, with Tedford having imput into the offence and working with Cortez before in California, I believed we would have a different offensive scheme. l I was also excited about Malone coming to B.C. and Dorazio leaving as well. Dorazio had always coached our running game (not Chap or Jones who only called the running plays when OC's) and during Dorazio's tenure we had given up the most sacks in the CFL.

Gives me JaquesBall (not ChapBall) any day over this offensive scheme. The running attack is well designed this season. Lots of pulling guards, some misdirection, and its a good blocking scheme. But why are we in a boring spread offence rather than the HBack offence that was promised. What we have is a tight end who plays slotback in a spread offence. We don't use the tight end as an HBack, who can lead block for the run, line up tight, go in motion. Our offence does not use motion, except for the waggle and does not move receivers around to create matchup advantages. The problem is not just Lulay and the recievers. This is a more boring scheme than Chapdelaine ever had, even in his worst days, before he changed his offence in 2011.

As for Travis Lulay, this is not just about his shoulder injury. He has had many struggles with accuracy, even in his best days. When he is on with his mechanics he can be really on but when he is off, he can be really off. Lulay's strength has always been being able to get outside to throw the football or extend passing plays or take off downfield. Lulay's shoulder injury may be adding to his problems regarding accuracy but accuracy problems at times, due to mechanics, including challenges throwing the deep football have always been there. He has always had great chemistry with Harris coming out of the backfield in the passing attack. If you go back to Lulay's MOP season, a lot of his success was due to well designed misdirection/motion plays and sprint out plays, with receivers wide open or hitting Harris out of the backfield. Lulay has never been a great pocket quarterback. Chap moved Lulay around a lot...not enough to please us, but a hell of a lot more than this. Cortez does not design plays for Lulay to do his best things...come off misdirection play action and roll out or throw the sprint out pass. No OC can't do that all the time but you have to mix things up and especially for Lulay, whose mechanics are best when he is moving and therefore throwing off his front foot. Lulay is back to not stepping into throws or throwing off his back foot.

The second problem is that Cortez is trying to implement a vertical passing attack that doesn't have the type of receivers to run it. Cortez tried the same thing in Riderville last season and it was not successful there, with Saskatchewan recievers, and it was the reason they got rid of him plus Cortez was also stuck in the spread and keeping his quarterback stuck in the pocket.

Against the Bombers we had numerous opportunities, with Harris running the football so well, to go with misdirection play action on first down and semi-boot Lulay, buying more time for receivers to get open and for Lulay to have a pass/run double threat option and didn't do it.

The problems on offence are scheme, predictability, lack of motion, Lulay's lack of accuracy, lack of speed in our receiving core, a vertical passing attack that doesn't suit them or Lulay. This offence does not look any different, except for a big tight end lining up as a wide slotback, than Khari Jones offence from last year. Its the old spread offence and its boring, boring, boring.

DEFENCE

It didn't matter what we did on defence....we looked awful doing it. Washington tried to mix it up more to no avail. He rushed 4, he rushed 3, and he blitzed more than usual. Of course the blitzes were mostly poorly designed and executed and came at the very worst times. Willy saw the blitzes coming like looking at a Greyhound bus driving down the road and most often burned the blitz when we attempted it.

The Bomber offence, the worst offence in the CFL, without Nick Moore and a nicked Drew Wilie burned us with big plays time and again and the Bomber's offensive scheme was more innovative and better designed than our offence.

The fact is that our defense has lost its aggressiveness and its confidence more and more under Mark Washington. It fell apart at the end of last season and it has not recovered. For example, Cord Parks, who was a dynamite corner under Stubler looks like a different player in the same spot under Washington. Personnel is being used poorly, from using Roh as a defensive tackle, Westerman as a defensive end, and only having one of our two best pass rushers (Bazzie, Smith) on the field at the same time to using Bighill as a deep defender. When we blitzed Bighill last night it led to a sack. Bazzie got a sack off a three man rush. Brooks made some big plays but he doesn't have a tackle beside him to compliment his play.

This is not just about having a new short side defensive halfback in Lee. Phillips and Parks are out of sorts. Yell, in his first 3 games this season has not been the corner who played so aggressively and so well when he was first inserted into the lineup last year. This defense is taking all the spirit out of the players.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Leone kicked the hell out of the football. But inserting Antolin made no difference to our punt return game. The fact is that McMann is still coaching our return teams is a testament to our Leos not making the kind of changes we needed to make in our coaching staff this season that were needed.

WRAP

Tedford had a big job in front of him. We knew that. But at least we expected more innovative offence. A boring spread offensive passing attack, a passive defense that is now a bend, break, and bend over defence, some weaknesses in personell and poor use of personnel, and poor return team play are all factors in our Leos team playing poor football at this time.

DanoT wrote:The Lions continue to take too many penalties, Lulay continues to have problems throwing the ball accurately, the D continues to be a sieve, receivers continue to struggle to get open. While you can't expect to throw a switch and the problems get corrected from one game to the next, I would like to see some incremental improvement...it didn't happen and in fact the Lions regressed imo.

The D did get a few sacks and did some blitzing but seemed to get burned on the blitz giving up a big play just about every time. Poorly disguised blitz?

I think the D only forced the Bombers to punt once or twice. A great indicator of how inept they have become.

My expectations for the Lions were low to start the season but they have to be able to compete with some team other than the Riders and in other than the first quarter they didn't compete.

The only bright note: Andrew Harris continues to play great as does the O line for the most part.

While I agree there were plenty of defensive deficiencies on display and not that I'm cutting them any slack over the difference, but that's overstating the case a bit. Lirim H punted on three of their four first half series and had five punts altogether. It could have been six as they were in punt formation another time and faked it with a Lirim H pass that only went 6yds when they needed 21. This was the series immediately before we turned it back over to them on downs with our failed 3rd & 2 offensive gamble on the final play of Q3.

Having said that Wpg had seven series in the second half and we only got the stop three times (2 punts and a TOD), against 3 FGs and the TD to open the half, while our own offence sputtered over the same 30min stretch with 3 turnovers (2 INT, 1 TOD) and 2 punts against a mere 3pts from a Leone FG. In fact we scored only 6pts in the final 51 minutes — even worse than last week and our 6pts in the final 44mins against Tor.