Lionbackers.com

Note: these comments started with 2 or 3 minutes left. When we had a lead. The initial comments reflect better play. By the end it was all heartbreak.
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Much, much better effort and play (until the collapse). OL. White. Pass protection. Durant has been very good. Reilly orchestrated a very effective passing game. He is mentally and physically very, very tough.

Better run / pass balance.

Not much pressure on Bo.

White had a terrific game.

As did Durant.

Burnham is not a run after catch guy, imo. Rarely breaks tackles.

This fan is not crazy about Carter. Not showing much so far. At least he has not acted out.

Dozier has been better than what we had.

Roy has been good. When you don't notice a centre that can be a good sign.

Run game.

Peters good.

Lee good until beaten at the end.

OL good.
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And then the collapse. I will leave the earlier comments as they are.

Burned on onside kick. Totally not ready.

Heartbreak at the end.

We bent and broke.

We had no answer for Arbuckle. We had no special play instead of the sneak. We had no answer for the onside kick.

We might have relaxed when Bo went out.

Fantastic game in a lot of ways, and the B.C. offence answered the critics but the defence couldn’t get a stop in the fourth quarter to close the game. Tough loss but lots of positives for both teams.

Sorry no positives from me when you lose a game that is basically locked up.

The offence did its job by marching down the field and scoring late.

The D and special teams were awful to cost us the game.

We have veteran, all star players on the defence. Willis takes 3 off-sides,Grymes and Lee were lit up in the final minutes.

No pressure, just a 3 man rush. Why? Dropping back in coverage to help our poor secondary?

What was going on with the on side kick? How often does that even work. The Calgary player came in untouched and almost caught the ball to run for a TD.

After Calgary recovers the defence did nothing to hold them to a FG and at least go to OT.

Duron Carter is a waste to me. Cut him and use his money to get some defensive help.

0-3 and games coming up against the Riders. We could be out of a playoff spot by mid Juiy

I admire the attempt to a positive spin on things but at the end of the day, it is another L. And the way it became another L makes it a very bitter pill to swallow. I'm glad that they kept up the illusion that they might win this game as long as they did but I said it a couple of days ago that they were likely going to lose. I said in the game thread that there was another shoe to drop and in the end it turned out exactly that way. Very hard to be a fan of a team that finds such ways to erode your faith. The only confidence that I have in them at the moment is that they will find ways to mess up.

Reilly was 36 of 42 for 354 yards. The Lions had a 16-minute advantage in time of possession. But the failure to score on the final play of the first half was a huge missed opportunity.

We were absolutely, completely unprepared for the onside kick. We had one player run up and stab at the ball. No Burnham near it. No Durant. No Carter. No Cottoy. Calgary almost caught it on the run.

Totally unprepared.

Same with having no special play going for it at the 1.

Prevent defence prevented nothing.

Odell showed his downside, offsides on the final drive. We caved.

If Reilly gets dinged, no Arbuckle type to come in. WTF was wrong with keeping Fajardo?

Ah well. 0 and 3. The wounds will heal. But that was one bad giveaway.

Back later ...

I'm in total shock at the last 3 minutes. No excuse for the total meltdown. Especially ticked off at Odell Willis for being offside 3 times. He's a 10 year vet and not a rookie. To make that kind of mistake is totally inexcusable. Lions dominated the stats but as the saying goes: stats are for losers.

I don't have a good feeling about Claybrooks as head coach. Just not seeing signs that he's head coaching material. Inexcusable that a team would implode like this at the end of the game.

How big was walking away at half-time with nothing? There are NO positives to be had when you come out of it 0-3 with a safe lead in the dying minutes. I don't want to hear that the "effort was better today." BS. You just can't let a team come back to win with loads of injuries, a back-up quarterback heading into a strong wind.


DH

Claybrooks had deer in headlights look at the end of this game and last week where he actually admitted they didnt know what edmonton was doing. He puts to much trust in Stubler whose D's are old school and beatable, Montreal's D was terrible last year and were only good when Thorpe was there. At least they got JJ to open the playbook.... but how long will he allow stuble rto run the D... claybrooks was good in Calgary without him...

My early post-game comments, in a positive vein, will stay. They were entered when we had the lead. We earned them until the final 2 or 3 minutes. Then we collapsed. This fan, after all these years, is not angry. Numbed. Yes.

It was about as bad a way to lose as one could imagine.

Claybrooks' leadership? Not so sure about it. He seems to have delegated it to Reilly. If Reilly gets dinged, can we expect to win any games? How much worse would we be without Reilly? It seems to me DeVone's comments are scattered cliches. If a team represents a Head Coach, scattered might be what we are. Where the hell was this running game in weeks 1 and 2? This is basic strategy. We kept Reilly relatively clean. He passed for excellent yardage. Where the hell was our ST preparation for that onside kick? Some punts seemed too close to being blocked.

The sneak at the 1 might represent what the team is at this point. Pound the ball against 12 men in the tight box? No special play? No spreading the field? Reilly was so wrapped up he could not even extend the ball.

The lack of readiness on the onside kick might represent our team right now. It seemed we had no tall receivers anywhere near where the ball came down. That was not a fancy ST play for Calgary. High kick. Receivers run down. They outnumbered us where the ball came down. We did not impede their progress. Taking candy from a baby. Gimme that.

Leadership from Willis and Carter? Nope. Burnham? Not really. Game winning plays when we need them? Nope. Hanging tough when the going gets tough? Nope. We folded up like a carnival tent on the move to the next town.

Scheme issues? We cleaned up the O playbook to an extent. This seemed like Strategy 101 to this fan. Ya gotta have a run game.

Defence? Not good enough.

STs? The abysmal failure on the onside kick.

Personnel? Thor Boesen is not earning his nickname. Expect changes in personnel.

0 and 3? We have earned it.

Ed Hervey? Will he throw somebody under the bus? This is his team now.

I am sure the coaches are shocked. I am sure the players are shocked. They are wondering what the hell happened.

1 Make things happen. 57 minutes worth. Not even. The sneak imo was a disaster. Ill-conceived. Dumb as hell. No prep. On the coaches.

2 Watch things happen. 3 minutes.

3 Wonder what the hell happened. 0-3. An ST screwup for the ages. Can we field against an onside kick? Nope.

It was a heart breaking loss....a real kick in the jewels kind of loss.

On offence we didn't run one RPO play during the first quarter and ran a lot less RPO and instead went with pre-snap play calls a lot in this game. It made a big difference offensively for our offensive line, tailback and quarterback.

We had much more of a balanced attack on offence. We ran the football well and passed the football well. Calgary attempted to jump a number of our short RPO routes but our offensive diversity kept them off balance. W

Our defense also played well for most of the game. We had held Calgary to 22 points with less than 3 minutes remaining.

The Calgary successful on-side kick was the sword that burst our heart. It was well designed and well executed by Calgary. They executed a very high, well placed onside kick and had their two best recievers -- two guys that are tall, long, and athletic.

But all we had to do was block them from getting downfield.

Last season, Arbucke tried out for our Leos at a mini-camp but Wally was not interested....yup that 'ol Wally who knows how to spot talent. It must have been sweet revenge for Arbuckle.

I thought Grymes had his struggles in this game and Lee also bit on a move. However, on all those plays, we did not have safety help, as we used our safety to take away other plays. Nothing wrong with that...its better than playing the safety on an island 25 yards downfield but if we play that style, Lee and Grymes have to be able to cover one on one.

We timed up some good blitzes in this game but our lack of a dominant pass rusher is hurting us and will continue to hurt us until we can get if fixed.

For those who thought all we needed was to sign Mike Reilly, they've had their eyes opened. For some fans, the notion was all we needed was consistent quarterbacking, as if there were no other players out there playing the game.

It takes more than excellent quarterbacking to win, as this game proved.

I was watching both the Gold Cup game and the Lions. Both Canada and Lions were up at the half. Both should have won. Then I watched Canada fall apart and lose 3 to 2 to Haiti and 2 dreadful defensive plays lead to their 2 goals and Canada lost it. I thought for sure the Lions would not blow it too. When Mitchell went out I thought for sure they would win. But I was wrong. The onside kick rarely works but Lions completely were unprepared and not even close to getting it. Their rookie St coach blew it. After that I knew they would lose.

I felt at beginning of the year, Lions would not live to the hype. Claybrooks may have been a great assistant coach but not showing to me he is a good head coach. He is a players coach, but seems to lack leadership. Wally would fine Willis for jumping offside 3 times, but will Claybrooks.

I think Lions going with basically all rookie head coaches was a mistake. This loss could result in 2 things, them learning and winning next game or continuing to lose. I think the latter. I feel Lions will battle Argos and Als for the bottom 3 spots.

The way they lost like Canada was inexcusable.

Also signing Carter was a huge mistake. He has done nothing and looks lazy and not giving it all. Whether he lasts all season is unknown.

Lions will spin this saying they made great improvements over first 2 games, but blowing it the way they did in the last 3 minutes to me wipes away any good they did, for this game will turn away fans. Next game is a must win and I am not convinced they will win. I would bet against them if I was a betting man.

It’s been over an hour since the Lions collapsed and I still feel a lot more confident in this team than I did before the game. The offence and defence made great strides and showed a lot of talent.

The reshuffled offensive line was strong with Jean-Simon Roy getting his first career start at centre. Branden Dozier made plays in his B.C. debut at safety.

Full credit to the Stamps for believing in themselves and engineering a comeback for the ages but the Lions made it too easy to beat Rich Subler’s defence in the fourth quarter by bringing the safety up and leaving the deep middle of the field open.

It was a missed opportunity but it’s a long season. I feel much as I did at this point in 2011. The Lions showed they have the talent to compete for the Grey Cup.

I don't agree. This is not a Grey Cup team. Not in same class as Winnipeg and Hamilton, the 2 front runners early. I just don't think Claybrooks will have a long coaching career as HC. Had the feeling at beginning of year and has not changed. I hope Lions turn it around, but just don't think it will happen. Must win next game in Toronto or else season will be lost, for can't see them turning around if they go 0 and 4.

Claybrooks post game

https://www.bclions.com/2019/06/29/devone/