Paul McCallum to sign with Lions

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KnowItAll
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Hambone wrote:
DanoT wrote:The CFL use to have a marketing slogan, "Our Balls are Bigger" but nowadays the CFL and NFL footballs are roughly the same size, aren't they? So, air pressure and Tom Brady notwithstanding, is it easier to kick a FG with a smaller slimmer football and thus partly contributing to today's greater FG kicker accuracy?
If what's going on in the NFL this season is indication then no.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/31/sport/nfl ... index.html

Anecdotally as a kid back in school in a north island logging camp we used to play a game called "Yards". It involved two teams punting a ball back and forth with the object being to kick the ball into the other team's endzone without it being caught in the air. Catching the ball on the fly earned 3 yards which you could use or accumulate. At some point you'd march off the earned yards from where you fielded the ball to get closer to the opponent's endzone to hopefully score. One thing I distinctly remember is loving it when we were using a rugby ball instead of a football because it seemed easier to kick and always carried farther.
I must say, in all humility, I rocked at that game. :) Good way to learn kicking on the fly and directional kicking.

never used a rugby ball, but well filled footballs were always better.
Last edited by KnowItAll on Tue Nov 01, 2016 7:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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JohnHenry wrote: WHYTE, S EDM 93.5%
HAJRULLAHU, L TOR 87.8%
MEDLOCK, J WPG 87.5%
PAREDES, R CGY 87.5%
CRAPIGNA, T SSK 87.5%
MILO, C OTT 81.0%
MAHER, B HAM 80.9%
FERA, A MTL 80.0%
LEONE, R. B.C. 68.5%

Not sure why the Lions weren't interested in Sean Whyte who was working for a cable company in White Rock when the Esks signed him last year?
Me neither John Henry!
Where Wally really dropped the ball was this past off-season where 2 elite kicker/punters were available, one Canadian who would have been available at a discount rate. Alternatively, we could potentially have gotten Fera or another more reliable kicker before the trade deadline, or we could bring in Johnny Mark or another free agent as a desperate measure now.

We knew coming into the season that Leone was terrible. If I recall, he was dropped from the roster in the Lions final game of last season as well. But I don't have much confidence in McCallum being able to hit from beyond 30 with consistency at this stage, which is no better than what Leone brings. Hope I'm wrong. It's a tough situation to be in at this stage of the season, though very easily predicted going back to last year.
When Wally gets something in his head, he has to get hit on the head to change. When gunpowder was invented, Wally would have insisted that his troops forget the 'foolishness' of using guns and just make sure their swords were sharpened (and the would have been very sharpened) :wink:

We've seen this script almost exactly from Wally before. We signed O'Mahony for the 2004 season and he wasn't very good at all but Wally stuck with him right through 2005 until near the end of that season. Wally lured Mark McLoughlin out of retirement to relieve O'Mahoney of his placekicking duties at the end of the year and the playoffs.

I'm sure there were lots of fans saying "great idea" about Wally at that time too, forgetting that Wally created the headache in the first place, by being stubborn about O'Mahoney becoming a good field goal kicker.

For a coach of his experience and record I have no idea where some of Wally's ideas come from. Last year, it was Wally deciding that Roh should play tackle and Westerman should play defensive end.

One thing for sure, was that McCallum used to work out hard. Didn't look like it but he did. Not sure if he would have been still hitting the gym as a realtor but hopefully he has.

This McCallum signing reminds me of a real laugh I had in the 2011 season. It looked like our winning streak was going to be over. Down by one point, Lulay hit Arland Bruce with a 17 yard pass to put the football on the Calgary 46 yard line. Wally "When in Doubt Punt" sent out McCallum to punt the football for a single to attempt to tie the game.

McCallum just said "Nope, I got this", yelled for Jarious Jackson to join him, and then ran out onto the field, ignoring Buono, and went out to attempt a field goal. Wally was yelling on the sidelines to punt it, McCallum continued to ignore him, and then put a 53 yarder through the posts to win the game and put our Leos into first place at that time of the season. McCallum fell on the ground and was mobbed by his teammates after the winning kick. We never looked back and went on to win the Grey Cup.

Of course Wally managed to spin it for the press
"I was going to ask him to punt,” said Buono. “He said ‘no coach. Let me kick the field goal.’“I have learned over my time you have to trust your players and I trusted Paul to do what he had to do. God bless him.”
Some things never change! :wink:

McCallum, who was not just a field goal kicker but also a punter, in that 2011 season, probably had the greatest season of any kicker in CFL and NFL history. He as the CFL's oldest player back then and he set the CFL's record for field-goal percentage in a single season with a 94.3 per cent mark, hitting an incredible 50 of his 53 attempts, many from long range.

So, if any 46 year old retired field goal kicker could come back, after a season of not kicking, its McCallum.
"When I went to Catholic high school in Philadelphia, we just had one coach for football and basketball. He took all of us who turned out and had us run through a forest. The ones who ran into the trees were on the football team". (George Raveling)
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Best scenario for Leone? touchdowns over fieldgoals
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Rodu wrote:Best scenario for Leone? touchdowns over fieldgoals
I like that solution.
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Buono is sometimes very very stubborn and refuses to change when it is obvious to everyone. Remember Gary Butler ?
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Contracts to Paul for already developing Leone and our snappers by signing with the ball club again.
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Sir Purrcival
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Even if Paul can kick consistently from 40 yards, it will be a step up. We'll see if he can still do it, I'm pretty certain of that if he appears to have any leg at all in practice. The kicking could hardly get worse with PAT's and FG's. Hell, I would have been ok with Bighill giving it a try. The other factor here (I call it the Lui factor) is that McCallum has seen it all. There is nothing new that is going to get thrown at him and he is pretty unflappable. That is a good thing on a team that sometimes gets a little ahead of itself. Does some rash things. Having some confidence in the FG game may allow the O to be a little less headstrong when it gets on the opponent's side of field.
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Nice article but when mentioning Passaglia kicking the winning points in our Grey Cup win over Montreal, is that Passaaglia missed a 47 yd. field goal attempt and a 33 yd. field goal attempt in that game. Passaglia's winning field goal was from 29 yds.

Mike Beamish: McCallum laces up at age 46 to give B.C. Lions another kick at the Cup
Mike Beamish

After he shuffled off into the sunset, wincing a little, bone-weary, Lui Passaglia believed he’d fully emptied the tank.
After putting the cap on an unprecedented 25-year career in the Canadian Football League, the veteran kicker of the B.C. Lions had no more to give. The league’s all-time leading scorer was 46 when he finally entered into retirement.

“I had nothing left,” Passaglia said Tuesday. “I would love to have played until I turned 50. It was still in the blood. After 25 years of kicking a football, I don’t think I could have gone on for another year. The hamstrings, the knee and the groin, I knew I’d overworked them for so long. I was done.”

Passaglia ended his fabled career in 2000, kicking the winning points for the Lions’ fourth Grey Cup title, a 28-26 win against the Montreal Alouettes.

At 46, it’s left to see if Paul McCallum, the CFL’s second all-time leading scorer, and Passaglia’s former understudy, can go out on a similar high note.

To better their prospects of making it to the 104th Grey Cup game in Toronto, the Lions have asked the Maple Ridge realtor to take a pause from hammering lawn signs and try hammering a few field goals as the Lions go forth in quest of their seventh Cup.

With premier punter and second-year kicker Richie Leone struggling ballistically through the uprights — Leone missed a pair of field goal attempts and two converts in last Saturday’s 24-6 win over Saskatchewan — McCallum rejoined the Lions Tuesday on a stopgap basis.

More than a year ago, McCallum was persona non grata after just the first week of training camp, when it became apparent coach Jeff Tedford and GM Wally Buono regarded Leone and his backup, Anthony Fera, as the wave of the future. Indignant, the prideful McCallum packed his bags and drove home.

After being picked up by the Saskatchewan Roughriders on the rebound, McCallum signed a ceremonial one-day contract with the Lions in March of this year, a signal that he had buried the hatchet with his former club. His desire was to retire officially as a Lion, the team with which he spent nine of his 23 seasons.

“I can still kick, but I don’t have the same drive and determination to do it,” McCallum said at the time.

However, when Passaglia, a cancer survivor, and McCallum played golf together at a charity event in Kelowna this summer, Passaglia got the impression then that football wasn’t totally out of his system.

“I asked Paul, in July, if he can still kick, and he told me, ‘Damn straight,’ ” Passaglia said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he could walk right into a game, in a pressure situation, and be as good as he was. Instantaneous. If anybody could do it, it would be Paul. I wish him well.”

“I never called any teams and said, if anybody gets hurt, I’m available,” McCallum said Tuesday. “I wasn’t interested in doing any of that. This is a short stint — four games at the most. If I can help them out, I’m here. I think they’ll take a look at what I’m doing in pre-game (warm-ups) and go from there. If we need a long field goal, they’ll still put him (Leone) in there.”

The idea — and plans can change — is to dress both Leone and McCallum, with the younger man pulling back his duties to concentrate on punting and kickoffs.

McCallum would handle field goals, except for the prayer shot variety. Leone’s career-best is 56 yards. McCallum holds the CFL record for the longest field goal — 62 yards — but that came 15 years ago, when he played for the Roughriders.

“If we need a 60-yard field goal, I’ll be ready,” Leone said. “I was told about this yesterday (Monday). Then, Paul phoned me to talk it over. I think it’s a great deal. The competitor in me always want to be The Guy, but I don’t want to stand in the way of us winning a Grey Cup. We’re very lucky he’s just down the street and available.”

Long snapper Mike Benson and holder Travis Lulay figure the transition should work seamlessly for McCallum. Benson has worked with McCallum before. Lulay was McCallum’s holder in 2009 and 2010.

“It takes 50,000 pairs of eyes off Richie,” Benson said. “He can get his rhythm back with less pressure on his shoulders. I think it’s a great thing. He can focus on what he’s best at.”

“There’s no difference between how Richie and Paul like the tilt of the football,” Lulay said. “Richie’s essentially had three roles — in two of them he’s been very above average. Even with Paul here, Richie still has to embrace the idea of being a kicker. His head needs to be mentally into it. He gives us that long-distance option — and you just don’t know how this whole thing plays out.”

History notes that the last time the Lions had a 46-year-old kicker, it worked out very well indeed.
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Blitz wrote:

“If we need a 60-yard field goal, I’ll be ready,” Leone said.
My favourite line from this article has to be this one. One nice thing about Leone is he never seems to get down on himself. And he's got a great name for a Lion. Hopefully, we won't need him for any 60 yarders though.
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maxlion wrote:
Blitz wrote:

“If we need a 60-yard field goal, I’ll be ready,” Leone said.
My favourite line from this article has to be this one. One nice thing about Leone is he never seems to get down on himself. And he's got a great name for a Lion. Hopefully, we won't need him for any 60 yarders though.
I like his attitude too but then again what choice does he have. Leone has missed 4/5 from outside of 50, so I'm not so confident that he can hit a 60 yarder. His long attempt at the end of the Bombers game was short.

McCallum was a great long field goal kicker and held the record of 62 yds. for a long time. McCallum was giving Leone some tips at his first practice and that might help.

Looking back at 2015, in a Beamish article, Leone got off to a good start before struggling. He cost us a game in Edmonton last season, missing a 15 yard field goal and he never became a consistent field goal kicker for us.
When the B.C. Lions dumped Old Reliable, Paul McCallum, in training camp this year, the ungracious treatment of a fan favourite did not sit well with many in the team’s constituency.Yet, mesmerized by the power and promise of 23-year-old Richie Leone, the Lions deemed McCallum, 45, expendable in a bold and risky decision to add kicking duties to Leone’s certified talent as a punter.

From the start, GM Wally Buono and head coach Jeff Tedford looked like the smartest men in the room. Leone, who had never kicked field goals for a full season, was purrfect through his first five games — converting all 12 attempts
Still, most coaches will take consistency over almost anything else in a kicker. While Leone is a super talent, he is going through the growing pains that have afflicted young kickers through the ages, as if a mandated rite of passage.
After his early season roll, placements have turned into something of an adventure for Leone. In B.C’s previous visit to Edmonton, on Sept. 26, he missed an easy 15-yard field goal attempt and shanked a punt, leading to the Eskimos’ winning touchdown.
Getting Leone 'over the hump' became the mantra for the rest of that season and this season. Sports psychoogists were brought in. But the hump was always there.
“We need to get Richie over the hump. We need to get his confidence back,” Tedford said, following the losss in Edmonton. He just needs to keep working at it.”
I can't compute how important Leone's 3 yard advantage per punt is but last year (and likely this year) most CFL games are close and field goal kicking is often the deciding factor.
No will ever be able to compute just how much a team’s success and momentum is derived from a confident kicker, but there’s no doubt that kickers are difference-makers. Going into Week 17 of the 2015 season, 38 per cent of CFL games had been decided by four points or
A reliable kicker such as Whyte — he has been successful on 90 per cent of his field goals since he joined the Esks on Sept. 4 — has a statistical as well as mystical worth.
Leone has always wanted to be the guy our Leos count on.
“As an athlete, and a competitor, you want the ball,” Leone said. “I want to be the guy they count on. They showed confidence in me by letting Paul go.”
But unfortunately our patience, as well as our confidence in him was not rewarded. Hopefully this will be Wally's last attempt to convert a punter into a field goal kicker and then have to bring a former field goal kicker out of retirement late in the season.

Wally really had to swallow it to bring McCallum back, after wanting to get rid of him. You can also bet McCallum got a pretty sum for potentially being our field goal kicker for 2-4 games, and you can bet it felt like redemption for Paul too.
"When I went to Catholic high school in Philadelphia, we just had one coach for football and basketball. He took all of us who turned out and had us run through a forest. The ones who ran into the trees were on the football team". (George Raveling)
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JohnHenry wrote:WHYTE, S EDM 93.5%
HAJRULLAHU, L TOR 87.8%
MEDLOCK, J WPG 87.5%
PAREDES, R CGY 87.5%
CRAPIGNA, T SSK 87.5%
MILO, C OTT 81.0%
MAHER, B HAM 80.9%
FERA, A MTL 80.0%
LEONE, R. B.C. 68.5%

Not sure why the Lions weren't interested in Sean Whyte who was working for a cable company in White Rock when the Esks signed him last year?
Seems a lot of comments are being made with purrfect 20/20 hindsight. The only thing that surprised me about Whyte being on the market for 4 weeks was that the Riders didn't gobble him up. With McCallum and INT Ray Early using up 2 roster spots to share duties they should've been all over Whyte like SolE on a ball carrier. At the time of Whyte's release by Montreal in early August Leone was good on 92% of his kicks going 13 of 14 on FGs (92.8%) and 10 of 11 on converts (90.9%). He also was the newly minted holder of the record for longest FG in team history with a 56 yarder which also was a game winner. Tack on a punting average in the high 40s and what wasn't there to like about their kicking game at that point? Tedford and Buono had to believe they had something special in the 23 year old while at the same time recognizing that as a young kicker there would still be rough patches along the way. As it turned out he did in the 4 weeks Whyte was available. In that period he'd go 3 of 6 in FGs with 1 miss from 40 and two long range attempts of 49 & 50. He went 5 of 6 on converts. IMO that was nothing to raise alarm bells and send them scurrying to the phone for immediate help. You have to give a kicker a chance to work out of things and airlifting someone else in every time a kicker misses a couple won't help.
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maxlion wrote:
Blitz wrote:

“If we need a 60-yard field goal, I’ll be ready,” Leone said.
My favourite line from this article has to be this one. One nice thing about Leone is he never seems to get down on himself. And he's got a great name for a Lion. Hopefully, we won't need him for any 60 yarders though.
I had the chance to talk to him when he was the Lion rep for the post-game after-party in Jimmy's Pub after the season opener versus Calgary. He is genuinely a heck of a nice guy. Very personable. That was the night he had 1 punt blocked and a couple more partially blocked due to blown assignments. I asked him about that as after the 3rd miscue he gave a WTF type gesture. He took it all in stride and refused to throw anybody under the bus saying they were trying some new things in their blocking schemes and just needed to clean things up. I hope we don't need any kickers for 60 yarders but depending on what they discover in the next couple of days on McCallum's range we may need him if we need anything beyond 47.
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I hope we don't need any kickers for 60 yarders but depending on what they discover in the next couple of days on McCallum's range we may need him if we need anything beyond 47. Hambone
Me too! I still stand by my comments, and other Lionbackers comments, at training camp 2015, when we got rid of McCallum, while deciding to go with Leone to kick field goals, with very little experience. That wasn't hindsight.

It was foresight by all those who posted at that time, stating it was ill advised.

Leone has the worst CFL average this season, of any CFL kicker outside of 50. He only had that one successful kick you mentioned and has missed every other attempt from outside of 50 this year.

Leone has a strong enough leg. My hope is that McCallum can give him some coaching tips for longer range field goals. Who knows - Leone could end up being a hero with a long field goal in the playoffs.
"When I went to Catholic high school in Philadelphia, we just had one coach for football and basketball. He took all of us who turned out and had us run through a forest. The ones who ran into the trees were on the football team". (George Raveling)
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Blitz wrote:Nice article but when mentioning Passaglia kicking the winning points in our Grey Cup win over Montreal, is that Passaaglia missed a 47 yd. field goal attempt and a 33 yd. field goal attempt in that game. Passaglia's winning field goal was from 29 yds.
It's good that you remember that. Passaglia was only 2 out of 5 in field goals in that important game and fortunately it didn't come back and haunt the Lions. The successful field goals were from 23 and 29 yards. He and the Lions were not so fortunately in the 1988 Grey Cup in which he went 1 out of 3 in field goals and that proved a difference in that one point loss.

And the term winning field goal is a slight misnomer as it implies that the Lions were trailing or at least tied in the game and Lui's FG immediately won the game just like the 1994 Grey Cup. Lui's FG in the late stages of the 2000 Grey Cup simply gave the Lions some more breathing room as it extended the lead form 25-20 to 28-20. After that, the Lions secondary really messed up and allowed the Alouettes to allow a late TD to make it 28-26 but the Lions managed to stop the 2-point conversion attempt and then recovered the onside kick. So the article is more accurate in that they eventually turned out to be the winning points, but the term winning field goal is a misnomer. I'm sure you all agree that Lui's last FG in the 2000 Grey Cup doesn't nearly fall in the same category as Lui's final FG in the 1994 Grey Cup, and for the two championships for that matter.
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Robbie wrote:
Blitz wrote:Nice article but when mentioning Passaglia kicking the winning points in our Grey Cup win over Montreal, is that Passaaglia missed a 47 yd. field goal attempt and a 33 yd. field goal attempt in that game. Passaglia's winning field goal was from 29 yds.
It's good that you remember that. Passaglia was only 2 out of 5 in field goals in that important game and fortunately it didn't come back and haunt the Lions. The successful field goals were from 23 and 29 yards. He and the Lions were not so fortunately in the 1988 Grey Cup in which he went 1 out of 3 in field goals and that proved a difference in that one point loss.

And the term winning field goal is a slight misnomer as it implies that the Lions were trailing or at least tied in the game and Lui's FG immediately won the game just like the 1994 Grey Cup. Lui's FG in the late stages of the 2000 Grey Cup simply gave the Lions some more breathing room as it extended the lead form 25-20 to 28-20. After that, the Lions secondary really messed up and allowed the Alouettes to allow a late TD to make it 28-26 but the Lions managed to stop the 2-point conversion attempt and then recovered the onside kick. So the article is more accurate in that they eventually turned out to be the winning points, but the term winning field goal is a misnomer. I'm sure you all agree that Lui's last FG in the 2000 Grey Cup doesn't nearly fall in the same category as Lui's final FG in the 1994 Grey Cup, and for the two championships for that matter.
Its amazing Robbie, how, with the passage of time, how reporters can distort or rewrite history, often by omission.

Another example is the 1994 Grey Cup. We see or read about Passaglia kicking the game winning field goal, with no time left on the clock to beat Baltimore. But Passaglia had an opportunity to kick a 37-yard field goal with 1:02 left in regulation and missed. We were very lucky that Baltimore went two and out and Passaglia was given another opportunity from 38 yds. and he is named the Most Outstanding Canadian in the game.
"When I went to Catholic high school in Philadelphia, we just had one coach for football and basketball. He took all of us who turned out and had us run through a forest. The ones who ran into the trees were on the football team". (George Raveling)
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