The Ricky Ray Game, June 30, 2012

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DanoT
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I'm not sure which CFL team has the best receiving corps, but it is evident that Argos have the worst set of receivers in the CFL. Best, fastest way for Argos to improve the passing game is with an accurate passing QB a la Ricky Ray.

IMO Esks motivation for the trade was salary cap issues and perhaps the notion that RR is no longer a half million dollar QB. We shall soon see!
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sj-roc
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DanoT wrote:
sj-roc wrote:
Campbell: Life after Ray, who takes over? Posted: May 22, 2012 11:00 AM

Dave Campbell

For the past decade, there was no such thing as a heated discussion about who would start at quarterback for the Edmonton Eskimos.

Simply put, it was either Ricky Ray or Jason Maas. But mostly Ray.

However, as we all know, Ray is currently over 3,000 kilometers East in Toronto, preparing to star for the Argonauts.

So, for the first time in a long time, fans of the Green and Gold will welcome in a new CFL season with a new starting quarterback.
The opening of this article made me think of the last two times we went into training camp without a bonafide consensus starting QB: 1996 and 2011, with each of those teams having a decidedly different fate from the other (naturally the leadership from above, or lack thereof, factored into that). Will be interesting to see where on the continuum the Eskimos end up.
Lions ended 2010 with Lulay at QB and he was the consensus starter in 2011. Last time Jarious Jackson was the starting QB was I think 2007. Of course it depends on your definition of consensus (guess we will never get a consensus on that one :dizzy: ). Or maybe in 2011 there were a lot more J. Jackson fans than I thought.
You seem to have missed the other word I used: bona fide. No question he had an outstanding 2011 and things are much different this year, but how many CFL starts did Lulay have under his belt this time last year? It's not as if he had already proven himself a full year ago to the point that he could have supplanted the incumbent on practically any given team.
Sports can be a peculiar thing. When partaking in fiction, like a book or movie, we adopt a "Willing Suspension of Disbelief" for enjoyment's sake. There's a similar force at work in sports: "Willing Suspension of Rationality". If you doubt this, listen to any conversation between rival team fans. You even see it among fans of the same team. Fans argue over who's the better QB or goalie, and selectively cite stats that support their views while ignoring those that don't.
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Hambone
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DanoT wrote:I'm not sure which CFL team has the best receiving corps, but it is evident that Argos have the worst set of receivers in the CFL. Best, fastest way for Argos to improve the passing game is with an accurate passing QB a la Ricky Ray.

IMO Esks motivation for the trade was salary cap issues and perhaps the notion that RR is no longer a half million dollar QB. We shall soon see!
The Argo receiving corps for this season appears to be upgraded with a couple of familiar faces for Ray. They picked up Maurice Mann late last season and added Jason Barnes in the offseason. The also added NFL vet Samie Parker (47 GP and 110 receptions over 4 years) . Along with having some good emerging NI talent in Watt and Bradwell they could have a solid group. No doubt having Cleo Lemon at the helm most of last year didn't help the Argo receivers stats either.
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WestCoastJoe
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http://www.cfl.ca/article/ray-pleased-w ... amp-begins
Ray pleased with new offence as Rookie Camp begins Posted: May 31, 2012 08:30 AM

“There is not a lot [in the system] where it is put on the quarterback to make extraordinary plays”, Ray said of Milanovich’s offence. “He is not asking you to drop back and avoid some of the rush guys to get outside the pocket. He expects the system to be run where you are making your reads and getting the ball out of your hand.”

For Ray, the last thing he would want to do is change the way he plays at this stage of his career. There is no debating that the 10-year CFLer has made his living as a precision passer rather than one that beats teams with his legs. Boasting a career completion percentage of just under 69, Ray is more than comfortable with how this offence suits his style of play.
69% completion percentage for his career. Amazing. Nothing wrong with his scrambling, and yet why risk it for a guy like him?
“For my game, that is what I am – I am a pocket-passer and a guy that likes to go through my reads, make good decisions and beat a team that way rather than scrambling out and trying to make play.”

As much as the demands from Ray are similar to some of his previous offences, the formations and way the Argos plan to attack opposing defences is going to be drastically different.

“This offence is totally different than any that I have played in my career”, he explained. “I have played in that old school CFL offence where you spread the field with splits and make a defence cover the whole field. Here, we move guys around and bring splits in to condense the field a bit and actually give more space for guys to work.”
This is interesting. Going the opposite of spreading the field. Mix it up. Keep them off balance. It works both ways.
Altering the offence was one of Milanovich’s primary objectives heading into training camp but there is another new wrinkle that many will see at Argos camp this year and this is the speed in which they practice.

Milanovich made it very clear at the team’s off-season Veteran Mini-Camp that rhythm in practice is essential and that philosophy didn’t seem to change on the club’s first day of rookie workouts.

“The thing we focused on today as coaches is that we wanted the tempo to be fast”, said the Argos’ new sideline boss. “We didn’t really care how many mistakes were made out there, we needed the them to understand the tempo with which we practice”.
I agree with this. Practice as you want them to play. The game is fast so practice up tempo.
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WestCoastJoe
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JohnHenry wrote:
WestCoastJoe wrote:http://www.cfl.ca/article/ray-pleased-w ... amp-begins

69% completion percentage for his career. Amazing. Nothing wrong with his scrambling, and yet why risk it for a guy like him?
The article did say Ray was "just under 69%"...but he was also just under 67% (Ray has a 66.8% career passing average.) That's very good, but not as amazing as Dave Dickenson's career ratio of just under 70% (67.5%.) :wink:

Perhaps the Argos will have to try a trick play or two against the Als this year...as Trestman probably knows the Argos "compressed" offence better than Milanovich. :cool:
Oh yeah. Trestman is well established as a top coach. Milanovich is quite umproven. Even in Montreal how much credit goes to Trestman and how much to Milanovich?
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WestCoastJoe
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http://www.edmontonsun.com/2012/06/22/j ... -or-not-qb
Jones: QB or not QB?

By Terry Jones,Edmonton Sun

Eskimos lose 24-16 to Lions
EDMONTON - So it’s about the Edmonton Eskimos’ quarterbacking situation going into the Ricky Ray game …

“To be determined,” said head coach Kavis Reed after Edmonton’s 24-16 loss to the Grey Cup-champion B.C. Lions, in which Edmonton managed one offensive touchdown.

To. Be. Determined.

That’s an awful long way from “He’s ready. Go get ‘em, tiger.”

Unbelievable.
LOL As I am not an Eskimo fan and am no longer an Eric Tillman fan, I find this amusing. I don't think Tillman has had such hostile press ever in his career.
There is a very good chance Steven Jyles didn’t even make it to the first game of the regular season as the starting quarterback of the Eskimos.

If the Ricky Ray trade looked beyond-belief bad before, what does it look like this morning?

The Eskimos are probably going to go with an about-to-turn 39-year-old Kerry Joseph?
Don't bite that bullet just yet, Mr. Jones. Ya never know. But it don't look all that great just now.
Instead of going into the season with a Hall of Fame, Wall of Fame, quarterback who quite likely will end up with stats to match Anthony Calvillo and Damon Allen, they’re going to go with a guy brought out of retirement by GM Eric Tillman?
LOL
Kerry Joseph is going to be the guy to start against Ray in the home opener here next Saturday?

Jyles and Joseph didn’t even play in the first pre-season game in Calgary. And Jyles got a quarter and a series. And Joseph got what was left of the second quarter.

Jyles, the QB obtained in the Ray trade, was declared the No. 1 quarterback going forward at the time of the trade. Or, come to think of it, maybe that was phrased “his job to lose.”

Did he lose it in a quarter of highly inefficient play in his only pre-season appearance?

“Our starting quarterback is to be determined,” said Reed.
"yet to be determined" LOL

What a surprise. Jyles has been underwhelming. But does that not match his performance throughout all the stops he has had with a number of CFL teams?
“We’re not going to make it a long, drawn-out decision. I’m not interested in a quarterback controversy,” he said.

Uh, coach. You’ve had a long drawn-out quarterback controversy for six months, since Tillman traded Ray for Jyles, an untried kicker and a bird in the bush draft pick.
"not going to make it a long, drawn-out controversy" LOL Ummm, well it has been that already for 6 months.
Jyles was sacked on his first play.

He was two-and-out on his first three series with midfield possessions to work with.

He didn’t get his first down until the last play of the first quarter.

And he only managed two before he was out of there a few plays later.

The Eskimos put one point on the board in his time in there. He completed four of seven passes for 53 yards and ran twice for 14.
Whooo Hooooooo
Joseph didn’t even get a full quarter.

He was six for eight for 133 yards and also carried twice for 14 yards. Nothing wrong with that. But he’s still going to be 38 years old when Reed wakes up this morning.
LOL

Terry Jones = Not a Happy Camper
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WestCoastJoe
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http://www.edmontonjournal.com/sports/f ... story.html

Chris O'Leary
Jyles made four-of-seven passes for 53 yards, his best play being a 31-yard connection with receiver Nate Coehoorn (four receptions for 103 yards overall). He rushed for 14 yards on two carries.

Joseph, conversely, played two thirds of the second quarter and made six of eight passes for 133 yards. He rushed for 14 yards on a pair of carries and provided the Eskimos with what turned out to be the offence’s only TD of the pre-season.

“I felt good out there. I was seeing everything good,” said Jyles, who sat out last week’s pre-season tilt against the Stampeders in Calgary.

“It’s just a matter of making certain decisions here and there and building a little bit more of a relationship with the receivers.”
That's the ticket, Mr. Jyles. Don't be too hard on yourself. Leave that to the fans.
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WestCoastJoe
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http://www.edmontonjournal.com/sports/f ... story.html
Pre-season gives fans glimpse of work in progress

Eskimos’ best quarterback on this night was Joseph, their 38-year-old backup

By John MacKinnon, edmontonjournal.com June 21, 2012 11:01 PM

EDMONTON - Ricky Ray won’t be throwing any passes for the Toronto Argonauts in these environs until the CFL opener on June 30, but his legacy haunted Commonwealth Stadium on Thursday night.
Just a little bit, anyway. And on the longest, and perhaps the loveliest, night of the summer, at that. Not that too much stock should be put in how things went, a 24-16 loss to the B.C. Lions.

We are talking about a pre-season game, after all. It’s always a mistake to overweight the significance of such encounters.

Remember that last season, one that began with low expectations, the Edmonton Eskimos lost both pre-season games, reeled off five victories to start the year, finished 11-7, played host to a playoff game for the first time since 2004, and came within one victory of qualifying for the Grey Cup.

It’s called the pre-season for good reason. Got it.
Still, any of those among a respectable crowd of 30,891 who showed up to be reassured that the off-season swap that sent the franchise’s all-time leading passer to Toronto was a defensible move probably weren’t so reassured.
The issue is not going to go away.
Steven Jyles, the quarterback who came back to Edmonton in the deal, completed four of seven passes for 53 yards, his longest a 31-yard dart to Nate Coehoorn. He was sacked after he took his first snap of the season.

The Eskimos went two-and-out on each of his first three series, despite excellent field position for all but one of those possessions.

The 29-year-old Jyles ran well, as you’d expect. He’s a mobile quarterback and he showed it.
Kerry Joseph, the Eskimos’ 38-year-old veteran, relieved Jyles about five minutes into the second quarter and generated more consistent offence, using both his arm and his legs.

Joseph was six-for-eight passing for 133 yards in the first half; or in less than one quarter of the first half, to be precise.

A strike to Coehoorn, the second-year Canadian receiver, accounted for 57 of those yards, and that spectacular play ended in disappointment when Coehoorn fumbled the ball deep in B.C. territory as the first half expired.

So, it was encouraging to see that Joseph, the hero of the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ Grey Cup season in 2007, can still command an offence, move the ball, mix up the play selection.

It might not be so encouraging that the most proficient Eskimos quarterback this pre-season is a man who turns 39 on Oct. 4, though.
Ray, by comparison, is 32, and turns 33 in September. It’s not as if shipping him to Toronto has made the Eskimos younger at quarterback.

Trading Ray removed his estimated $400,000 salary from the mix, giving the Eskimos greater flexibility, without question.

It remains to be seen whether some fans might be inclined to believe in the adage “you get what you pay for,” at least on the basis of one pre-season game.
To be fair, both Jyles and Joseph were seeing their first action of the pre-season. It’s not as if they were auditioning for a job. They were just getting some live action reps in front of the home crowd.

Matt Nichols, tabbed as the Eskimos quarterback of the future, played true to form for a talent who needs more experience, more seasoning, more time to learn.

Nichols completed seven of 14 passes for just 40 yards and absorbed four quarterback sacks from a relentless B.C. defence.
"relentless B.C. defence" Yeah :thup:
To be fair, the Lions are the defending Grey Cup champions and their leader, quarterback Travis Lulay, displayed a reasonable facsimile of mid-season form.

Lulay completed 15 of 21 pass attempts for 213 yards and touchdown passes to Geroy Simon, Kierri Johnson and Arland Bruce before he took a seat early in the third quarter, his work done for the night, the Lions comfortably ahead 21-9.
Yeah... :thup:
Finally, the flow of the game, certainly the outcome, was about what you’d expect from a defending champ playing a team in the midst of a significant redo.
Tillman doesn't like that word, rebuilding.
You have to believe a sophisticated Eskimos crowd went out to get a load of how things are shaping up. Did they see promise at quarterback; how was the offensive line looking; can the pass rush dent that mammoth B.C. offensive line; do the Eskimos have a running attack.
"can the pass rush dent that mammoth B.C. offensive line" No. LOL
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DanoT
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Esks didn't play Jyles in the first game and only gave him one quarter plus one series in the second pre-season game. I guess the Esks don't know that Jyles is new to the team and might need some playing time to help get comfortable with his new to him receivers and playbook. Of course they traded for him and pencilled him in as the starter presumably not knowing that he is a career backup with limited success on several teams.
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Sir Purrcival
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The approach that the Esks have taken to the preseason regarding QB's has been mysterious at best. Why your top two QB's (at least you should think they are the top two) would get a whole 2 quarters of football between them for preseason is beyond head scratching especially when one is new to the team. They are starting for real next week and both of them have spent roughly 6 - 8 mins in actual game situations this season. How are you going to get rid of off season rust with that amount of playing time? Makes absolutely no sense. What Kavis Reed did last season isn't going to happen again this year. I expect that the Esks and the Riders will probably compete for much of the season to see who is going to be in the cellar. At this point, I can't say who is going to win that battle.
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Rammer
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Sir Purrcival wrote:The approach that the Esks have taken to the preseason regarding QB's has been mysterious at best. Why your top two QB's (at least you should think they are the top two) would get a whole 2 quarters of football between them for preseason is beyond head scratching especially when one is new to the team. They are starting for real next week and both of them have spent roughly 6 - 8 mins in actual game situations this season. How are you going to get rid of off season rust with that amount of playing time? Makes absolutely no sense. What Kavis Reed did last season isn't going to happen again this year. I expect that the Esks and the Riders will probably compete for much of the season to see who is going to be in the cellar. At this point, I can't say who is going to win that battle.
Thinking in that vain, do we really know what we have in the Lions team, given that we haven't played a team that will eventually push them.
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Yeah, you have cap issues here. And team future issues.

I think a lot of it looks bad cuz we don't get to watch and see who these guys are really like we would in hockey and all the coverage it gets.

There's always risk in trading for high end prospects. Tonnes of first round draft picks never workout in any league, or rookie free agents. Sometimes they take a long time to develop too. The Sedins are what pops to mind from hockey.

I think anything that happens in the CFL gets hopped on by NFL fans to further their NFL in Canada/let's ruin a league so we can all cheer for one team like the blue jays in downtown Canada eh? Like seriously these people.need to get their US citizenship already. Seriously has anyone seen a league get hated on so much for doin the same things. Say this is a lopsided trade, happens all the time in sports.
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Sir Purrcival
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Rammer wrote:
Sir Purrcival wrote:The approach that the Esks have taken to the preseason regarding QB's has been mysterious at best. Why your top two QB's (at least you should think they are the top two) would get a whole 2 quarters of football between them for preseason is beyond head scratching especially when one is new to the team. They are starting for real next week and both of them have spent roughly 6 - 8 mins in actual game situations this season. How are you going to get rid of off season rust with that amount of playing time? Makes absolutely no sense. What Kavis Reed did last season isn't going to happen again this year. I expect that the Esks and the Riders will probably compete for much of the season to see who is going to be in the cellar. At this point, I can't say who is going to win that battle.
Thinking in that vain, do we really know what we have in the Lions team, given that we haven't played a team that will eventually push them.
That is true, our season last year started out extremely badly after a good preseason but with the Esks, it takes a slightly different form IMO. They started out of the gate with 5 straight wins and then stumbled their way to 6 more over the rest of last season. They looked anything but solid over the last 2/3rds of last year and this season they don't have a RR as pivot. Of the two experienced QB's they do have, they have played ridiculously few minutes in the preseason which for Jyles especially is a head shaker. After being pencilled in as number 1 when traded for RR, he has played 1 Q. of football and pretty badly at that. If he wasn't a vet, he would likely be classed as training camp fodder and be cut. They dare not do that given what they let go to get him but a QB needs familiarity with his team under play conditions and they just haven't given it to him. If he fails to produce, is it because he lacks the talent or is it because they didn't prepare him properly? By the same token, one has to wonder if this isn't a calculated strategy by the Esks. who for all their fair words now realize that they got far too little for RR and are going to struggle because of it. A built in excuse for the poor performances I think are coming perhaps.
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