Leos/Calgary Post Game Thoughts

[Blitz]

Stamps beat our Leos 37-9 in the battle for 1st place in the West.

[swervynmerv]

To quote Boris Karloff in the Grinch that Stole Christmas: "stink, stank, stunk"!!

That's about sums up all three phases of the Lions game tonight!

[Alputt]

Bummed. Disappointed. Came hyped up, Calgary scored on the 1st possession then dominated. That was supposed to be our game plan...

There were a few good plays, deep bombs to Burnham and such. But mostly looked like Calgary had our routes and playbook down pat. Wally must be pissed with all the flags.

Calgary is still the class of the league (shudder) I hope we can redeem ourselves in a playoff situation.

[Alputt]

Missed field goals, missed tackles, missed passes, missed opportunity.

I would have to watch highlights or see some stats to get specific but was a far cry from the Leo's of late I came to see.

Calgary is a good team but it just didn't seem like we came with the intensity and game plan to overcome an "elite" that had our best players numbers all night.

Sigh.

[B.C.FAN]

The Lions were outcoached and outplayed on offence and defence. The Lion came out playing mostly zone defence and easily allowed Bo Levi Mitchell to find the open man as Calgary scored on the opening drive to take an 8-0 lead. The Lions just made it too easy for Mitchell, who either threw to Marquay McDaniel between the B.C. linebackers or to whoever was open on the back side of the zone. When the Lions played man defence, Calgary targeted Harrison or Cote in the flats, forcing Elimimian and Bighill to pursue to the sidelines. McDaniel had four catches in tje first half, and Harrison and Cote combined for four catches and a TD. Elimimian made 9 tackles in the first half, almost all of them after Calgary pass completions.

Two promising B.C. drives in the first half ended when Burnham and Arceneaux dropped catchable balls. The Lions didn't really do anything on offence afterwards and Calgary seemed to know the B.C. playbook inside out, playing tight man coverage and jumping routes.

When Chris Rainey fumbled the opening kickoff of the second half and Calgary scored another easy TD, it was all but over. More later.

[Alputt]

I believe late 3rd or early 4th, crowd started calling for Lulay. He came out and threw it away under intense pressure. Thats when I KNEW.

[South Pender]

I wonder how important stadium attendance is these days with the big TV contract. Do bums in seats really matter that much any more? On a terrific night for football against a good team, with the promise of an exciting game, merely 21,341 attend. Three weeks from tonight, when the Als come to town, how many will bother to show up at BC Place? Tonight's stinker sure won't help.

[Alputt]

Not that it really matters but I feel attendance was up slightly over last week, maybe we hit 23,000? Wife still said looked pretty empty compared to Caps. Those that came for a first game (like a family from Maple Ridge beside us) weren't treated to much of one.

[Alputt]

I wonder how important stadium attendance is these days with the big TV contract. Do bums in seats really matter that much any more? On a terrific night for football against a good team, with the promise of an exciting game, merely 21,341 attend. Three weeks from tonight, when the Als come to town, how many will bother to show up at BC Place? Tonight's stinker sure won't help.

Well that answers the question I was typing out at the same time you were posting. Meh.

I love the team and the league I try not to get too hung up on attendance, but I am recently bummed it is always so low. We go to have a beer at Terry Fox and I think "Wow, this game must be close to a sell out" then we go down to our seats and see the big holes.

Team is doing (up to tonight) well and promotion seems better, I scratch my head. I blame pricing, but then why are the dirt cheap end zones not more in demand?

We all know the demographics of Vancouver are changing... but damn.

[SammyGreene]

Dominated all over the place tonight.
Offence has yet to play a complete game at BC Place which is a growing concern. Did nothing the entire 2nd half against Ti-Cats until final drive last week. Poor in 2nd half versus Argos and for all 4 quarters tonight.

We play soft zone all night verses Stamps and they play straight up man to man. Which team has more confidence in its personnel? Brooks shows he is far and away Lions best d-lineman by not even playing.

How does Vallancourt lose his job to an injury anyways? Steward also replaced by an aging veteran who came here to play centre. Both need to be back in the starting line-up and continuing their progress with big upside. Not on the sidelines.

[B.C.FAN]

How does Vallancourt lose his job to an injury anyways? Steward also replaced by an aging veteran who came here to play centre. Both need to be back in the starting line-up and continuing their progress with big upside. Not on the sidelines.

I agree. It was nice to see Steward and Vaillancourt playing in the fourth quarter. The Lions' O-line in garbage time was the one they wanted to have at the start of the season. You can't draw conclusions based on their play tonight but I'd prefer to start Steward ad Vaillancourt at guards. The Lions would have a much better chance of running the ball and controlling the clock than they have had with O'Neill and Fabien at the guards.

McDaniel finished with 10 catches for the Stamps. In each of the two previous games against the Lions he had two catches. It was easy to see what the Stamps were doing on every play but the Lions had no answer for it and made no adjustments. On one 2-point convert, the Lions lined Phillips on McDaniel in man coverage and Mitchell had to throw the ball away. The rest of the night he just found holes in the B.C zone and Mitchell found him.

Dave Dickenson noted on the postgame show on TSN 1040 that this was the fourth meeting of the year between these teams. There are no surprises. Both teams know what each other is going to do, and they just have to execute. I think he's selling himself short. Yes, the Stamps made plays on offence, defence and special teams and the Lions failed to make plays for the most part, but the Stamps came in with a better game plan and they wore down B.C.'s defence by controlling the ball through the first half and attacking the Lions' soft zone defence. The Lions were down 24-9 before the B.C. offence took the field in the second half. By that time, Calgary's defence was pumped up and B.C.'s defence was worn down. Game over.

[Blitz]

Missed field goals, missed tackles, missed passes, missed opportunity.

I would have to watch highlights or see some stats to get specific but was a far cry from the Leo's of late I came to see.

It was billed as the battle between the best two teams in the CFL, with first place in the West on the line. It was expected to be a close, exciting game. Our Leos actually went into this game with most analysts believing that B.C. would win the close contest, playing at home and with revenge on their mind after the overtime loss our Leos suffered in our last game in Calgary.

Instead the Stamps handed us a good old fashioned and embarrassing butt kicking in all three phases of the contest. We were badly outcoached and badly outplayed. When the final whistle thankfully blew, there was no question as to who was the superior team at this point of the season. We had been dominated and demoralized by a Calgary team that was well prepared for or strengths and our weaknesses. Calgary had superior strategy and play calling on both sides of the football.

We didn't lose this game due to a lack of execution, although there was a bad turnover, penalties, missed tackles, and missed blocks. We badly lost a chess match. Calgary was so much better prepared and we never adjusted, on defense or on offence.

A few post game thoughts:

OFFENCE

Jonathan Jennings came into this game as the hottest quarterback in the CFL, leading a scorching Lions attack that had produced at least 38 points in our last four games while Jennings had thrown for over 300 yards plus in his last four games to tie a Leos quarterback record.

Calgary defensive coordinator DeVone Claybrooks threw buckets of ice water on our hot offence and turned our previous offensive sizzle into a cold, wimpy noodle.

Calgary held our offence to three first half field goals and shut our offence down completely in the second half of the game. You could tell from the opening few drives that our offence was off. Both Burnham and Arsenault missed catchable footballs.

But give credit to Calgary's defensive coaches for playing a strategy that took our offence out of the game. Calgary was determined not to allow us to rush the football on first down or throw the football downfield deep or hit the intermediate routes easily. Calgary played a lot of man defense with zone over the top on first down. They used a lot of 3 man rush on second down and mixed in some blitzes. They got way too much pressure with their three man rush.

Calgary seemed to know what we were attempting to do before we did it. They forced us into a lot of second and longs. They jumped a lot of routes. They exposed the weakness of our offence, in that we don't utilize a lot of high percentage, underneath pass plays on first down or have check down routes.

When we put Rainey into the game, either as a receiver or back, they knew immediately that we would go to him. We might as well advertise it before hand.

We don't bubble screen, hitch screen, screen, or hit our back out of the backfield. Basically, we expect Jennings to make incredible throws and our receivers to make incredible catches. With the pressure Jennings was under and the blanket coverage they had on our receivers that was very difficult to do against the Calgary defense tonite.

Our offensive line was awful. I was excited to see Levy Adcock play his first game as a Leo and he was brutal. His pass blocking was terrible. McNeil had a mediocre game. Jeremiah Johnson really had no holes to run to but he was dancing laterally too often again.

Jennings was 10/22 for 153 yards before he was pulled.

For anyone who thought it was Jennings fault, all they had to do was watch Lulay play. Lulay either held the football too long or when he felt pressure he did his usual scramble to his right and his throw out of bounds.

But quite frankly, we were badly outcoached. We never adjusted offensively and Claybrooks defensive strategy worked like he drew it up. Contain Jennings, take away his big plays, and frustrate us. Khari Jones had no answers. Calgary knew what they had to do to blanket a hot offence. We're too predictable on offence and tonight that cost us.

DEFENSE

A lot of good things have been said about our defense this season. We've were so much better on defense for the first number of games of the season. We got pressure on quarterbacks with the excellent play of Alex Bazzie, timely blitzes, and very good individual play.

But we love to play a lot of cloud coverage zone. Our corners drop off and our halfbacks tend to play deep. We leave the flat open and then try to come up and make plays. Calgary, time and time again, in fact all game, threw to the flat area. They used their receivers and their backs for high percentage passes to the flat area. They ran Bighill and Eliminian from sideline to sideline.

Calgary had our zone defense well scouted and had a great game plan. Bo Levi looked deep quickly and then dropped it into the flat or threw the wide hitch, Washington never adjusted. What we needed to do was either a) play our corner up tight in the flat or 2) invert the zone and play our halfback tight to the flat or c) bring in an extra defensive back. We kept playing that soft zone and when went we went man Calgary often threw to their back in the flat.

It was embarrassing to see the lack of adjustment to a very simple game plan by Calgary that they just kept going to and why not, if we just kept letting them and it was successful. Bo Levi Mitchell had an easy game to play. He threw quickly for high percentage first down plays. He tired our defense out with long drives. A couple of first half penalties by our defense allowed a couple of long drives to continue when we had Calgary two and out.

Bo Levi was 28/38 for 340 yards. He threw two touchdown passes to Grant and a wide open Cote. Messsam and Buckley also added majors for Calgary. Dickenson had the game plan that exploited our defensive weakness, strategy wise and Washington had no answers or adjustments.

SPECIAL TEAMS

On a night where Jason Aragki set a new CFL record for special team tackles there was a little else to celebrate. Rainey was handcuffed, we took too many special team penalties, Leone missed a field goal, Rainey fumbled the second half kickoff, and Roy Finch ran some big gains back against sloppy special teams play. When we shut down a suprirse third down fake punt by Calgary we were hit with a very borderline roughing the punter penalty.

WRAP

With all the excitement and build up for this marque matchup, the game was a huge disappointment in almost every aspect. In trying to build the fan base, this kind of performance was the last thing we needed.

On offence, Khari Jones can't always count on a hot quarterback and great receiver plays. Our running game has been going downhill after a very good start. Our passing attack needs to have some higher percentage plays as part of its scheme. In certain games, against certain defenses, we have to have the ability to have pass plays that give our quarterback quick underneath options.

We also need to get back to aggressive offensive line play. Getting Steward and Vaillencourt back into the starting lineup would be a plus.

Defensively, this game exposed our zone pass defense weakness. Its an area that needs to get fixed because other teams will be looking at the game tape.

Our Leos have gotten off to a good start this season but teams are catching on to what we do. If we want to win in the future, we need to make some strategy changes.

[David]

Do bums in seats really matter that much any more? On a terrific night for football against a good team, with the promise of an exciting game, merely 21,341 attend.

I honestly believe players take their cue from the surroundings (butts in the seats) and the energy in the building (noise level) - small and low - at least to start the game. Sure, they are professionals and should be suitably focused and self-motivated. But they're also human, and you can't tell me that athletes don't feed off the home crowd - good or bad. While it filled up toward the end of the first quarter, BC Place was embarrassingly sparse in certain sections with first place on the line (patrons sitting in Section 217 on the Stamps' side, 20-yard line could actually be counted during a TV timeout. That tells me that pricing is seriously out of whack).

The organization needs to figure things out. Quickly. Dennis Skulsky has often said "the best Marketing is winning." Evidently not. While TV numbers may be good, obviously not enough people (at least in the summer) deem the live experience of a Lions game to be the best value for their time and money. As a result, BC Place is no longer the intimidating place it once was, the on-field product suffers (not all, but for many home games), and the cycle continues.


DH

[TheLionKing]

Buono sums up quite nicely in the post game when he said the Lions were owned in all three facets of the game, offensive and defensive coordinators not a preparing a good game plan, himself for not getting the players ready to play.

Frustrating to see the Stampeders attacking the flats all night and no adjustment by Mark Washington.

[footballtom]

I wonder how important stadium attendance is these days with the big TV contract. Do bums in seats really matter that much any more? On a terrific night for football against a good team, with the promise of an exciting game, merely 21,341 attend. Three weeks from tonight, when the Als come to town, how many will bother to show up at BC Place? Tonight's stinker sure won't help.

18,000