Riders 41 - Lions 8, Post-Game Stats and Comments

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WestCoastJoe
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We were unprepared. Others will not want to hear it, but IMO that is on the coaches. It was like the players had tuned them out.
John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.
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WestCoastJoe
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It was not just JJ10. It was a total team brain fart.

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John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.
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WestCoastJoe
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Way, way too much pressure on Jennings. He should sue for non-support.

4 sacks. 5 Interceptions. Over a dozen hurries and hits. :dizzy:

JJ10 was not ready at the start of the game. Did we have a good game plan for him? Not in my opinion. We were not ready for the zone with 3 man rush. Did we have quick, short routes ready? It did not look like it. Did we find holes in the zone? It did not look like it. It looked like our receivers did not know where to go. Were we ready for pass protection against a 3 man rush? It did not look like it. Burnham was not there to steal the ball on long passes, but we went there anyway. Blame Jennings? Sure. But the coaches are more than complicit. The players follow the game planning and play calling.

Our O Line allowed constant pressure, even when it was just 3 coming.

We did not tackle well. We did not get good pressure on Glenn. We did not cover well.

Systems. Game planning. Not good. But more importantly, our heads were not in the game. Had we given up on catching Edmonton and Calgary? We went through the motions tonight.

Strange that Wally felt he could not talk to the team pre-game, as they were not listening. He called on Rolly to talk to them. A head shaker. There are times to rip a team. And this was one. Rip them even before the game if you feel their heads are not into it. What the heck can Rolly say to the team? Some times a team might need a reminder that, yes, there is practice next week, and you will pay, if you do not show up at game time. Some players will pay with loss of game time or position. You had better commit to playing.

Just IMO ...
John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.
TheLionKing
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A waste of 3 hours that I will never get back. Let the post mortem begin
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WestCoastJoe
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We did not try to establish the run, essential in keeping the crowd out of it, in assisting a QB coming back from injury.

First series we go long pass, knock down.

Second play, sack. And it was downhill from there.

Sask gets a FG.

Second series for us, we do run it on first down. Yee haw. But the pickoff on second down started the rout.

This sequence of plays probably did not matter, when one considers how flat we were. The shellacking was no doubt about to happen anyway.

There are systems.

There is game planning.

And there are play calls.

All essential. But utterly useless if the guys are not ready to play. One could say, it is the players' fault. Not in my opinion. Overall team morale and motivation is, IMO, Job 1 for the staff.

We were flat as pancakes. About how one might expect the dead duck TiCats to play. Not the B.C. Lions, with all our talent, and high expectations.
............

Signing off for a while. I know fans are hurting. So are the players. So are the coaches.

The comments might be relatively few in number while people deal with the shock and pain.

This fan looks forward to the comments of Blitz. I am sure he will let it rip, as he should, and as is appropriate. Looking deep, looking at what ails is not easy, but IMO it is necessary to do so.

Just IMO ...
John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.
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BC 1988
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I don't think JJ10 was fully recovered from his shoulder injury--that wasn't entirely confusion that caused the mess tonight.

TL was not kept in there to start the 3rd qtr (wisely, IMO) because his rib injury was restricting his effectiveness. With the relentless pass rush there was a good chance of getting hurt a lot more.

It's interesting how Wally seemed to expect this going in (much the same as he did in the WF last season). If he has this premonition, how come he's seemingly powerless to do anything to reduce the magnitude of the loss? If you took away all those turnovers, it would have been a lot closer. SSK were not world-beaters on offense.
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CardiacKid
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Sad.
JaboVancouver
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I think we can all agree that was awful on all fronts. Just try to learn from it and use this game as motivation in the future, as to not get so embarrassed again. A reminder to always respect your opponent.
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CardiacKid
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JaboVancouver wrote:
Sun Aug 13, 2017 8:42 pm
I think we can all agree that was awful on all fronts. Just try to learn from it and use this game as motivation in the future, as to not get so embarrassed again. A reminder to always respect your opponent.
I don't think this team respects itself.
maxlion
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It's not fair to put all of the blame on one player, but when the qb plays as poorly as Jennings did in the first half, it is pretty demoralizing for the whole team. That said, there were signs that the team was not in the right mindset from the pregame, and it seems Khari could have come up with a better game plan to give Jennings a better chance to succeed.

I thought the oline was alright. Jennings had time to throw for the most part. He just hesitated too much or no one was open.

Special teams is a disappointment again. What will it take to break Rainey loose?
Arseneaux has become a secondary player.
JJ24 needed to be in the game more. Instead of throwing the ball deep straight to Rider defenders, Jennings should have looked to Johnson in short routes more. Bad decision making or bad play calling? I don't know.
Brookes seems to get injured every game. Not sure that Luke is an adequate replacement.
Defense played like they do most games. Made some plays. Gave up a lot.

Long, disappointing game. Oh well, should have some motivation for next week hopefully.
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KnightofCydonia
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Tough game to watch... we didn't go in with the right mentality at all, for starters. Seemed like they were way too cocky and expecting Saskatchewan to gift the game to us on a silver platter.

The game was definitely not just on Jennings, it was on all fronts, and key injuries certainly didn't help... the receivers looked totally different without Burnham and the O-line really missed Foucault.

Hopefully this will be a wake-up call. I know they're better than this!
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B.C.FAN
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The lack of intensity is on the players. It happens regularly when the winnning team in the first game of a back-to-back series gets it lunch handed to it in the rematch, and players are always surprised. Coaches can try to prepare them but it's up to the players to play hard. As Solomon Elimimian said afterwards, if the Lions play with the lack of effort they showed tonight they'll lose 100% of the time.

The lack of game preparation is on the coaches and players. The Riders knew what the Lions were going to run before the snap of the ball and they confused Jennings too easily. Did he really not see Gainey sitting over top in a zone waiting to intercept any deep balls thrown his way, when receivers didn't even know the ball was coming to them? Did Jennings' reads tell him it was man coverage when it was zone, or man with zone over top? That's on him to make better decisions. Lulay made better decisions when he was in the game but he wasn't going to win this one.

I'm glad Jennings was put back in for the second half to try to work through his issues. His arm strength and his decision-making were poor. As Farhan noted on the post-game show on TSN 1040, Jennings has a great record of bouncing back after a loss. This one is in the books. The Lions can make up for it with a better effort against the Stamps. Mentally, he should be sharper. I hope he isn't hampered with a bad shoulder the way Lulay was for several years. We'll know soon enough.
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swervynmerv
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Once again the Lions turn in a stinker when they have a chance to establish themselves as an upper eschelon team and distance themselves from the bottom teams.

IMHO:

1. Was Lulay that sore he couldn't start? He looked better than Jennings in the time he played. Jennings was not ready to play. Timing was off and had happy feet all night. Some was due to the poor O Line protection but missed several guys early and uncharacteristic picks.

2. It was mentioned that Brooks gets hurt every game. Maybe I'm wrong to say this but I think fitness is an issue with him!

3. We got down early but play calling was awful! I expected much more from Chris Williams and forgot he played for much of the game. Again O line protection was an issue and maybe didn't allow Jennings time to go deep but I didn't see a lot of slant passes or quick hitters to allow Williams to use his speed to out run defenders.

4. I've said it before but we DO NOT have a championship defence. If I had to rank the front four of the teams in the West, the Lions would be 4 or maybe 5. I'm not sure I'd rank them ahead of the Riders after tonight! Pass rush is almost non exsistant at times. Glenn had tons of time all night.

5. Biggest contingent of Lions fans I have seen at a game in Regina in a long time. Lots of orange in the stadium. The fans deserved a better effort!

I can take losing but not with that kind of effort. The Lions were embarrassed in every aspect of the game and looked like they could barely beat Hamilton.

This is a year when many expected the Lions to turn it up a notch and be able to win it all.

Right now I see Edmonton and Calgary as 1-2, the Lions 3-4 jostling with Winnipeg and the Riders 4-5 depending how the next couple of weeks go.

Not acceptable to this fan!
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Sir Purrcival
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When I was watching this game tonight, I wasn't sure how to react. Obviously the emotions were shock, anger and disbelief but I find myself somewhat resigned to that after some hours of reflection. Was it Oline, coaching, QB, D? It doesn't really matter. Tonight nothing worked and I guess sometimes that is how it is. If there is any kind of silver lining, I hope it will be that this kicks any sense of complacency on this team, all of this team, squarely in the nuts. Tonight, was about as unprofessional as you can get for a team when it came preparing to be in what was a very important game at several levels.

1. they dropped to 4th place tonight after failing to keep pace with Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary.
2. they lost the season series with the Riders.

They now find themselves 4 points up on the Riders who have a game in hand. If point of fact, they find themselves in 4th place with every team in the West having a game in hand. It doesn't get easier as they now get to face the Stamps. A well rested Stamps team no less on a short week.

To lose this game was damaging in a number of ways all by itself. To lose it the way they lost it is about a disastrous as it gets. I wish I could say it was just one of those things but this team is just not as good as they think they are. They have several glaring problems which have been problems for some time. We know this because they have long been discussed and debated on this forum. Coaching, D-Line, O-Line are among the favourites but hardly inclusive. What we saw tonight I hope was an extreme aberration, an extreme example of the problems we know this team has. Until the powers that be with the Lions finally recognizes and corrects them, we will continue to be a mediocre team that tantalizes us from time to time with flashes of brilliance. Good luck to them next game. From what we were treated to tonight, they are going to need it.
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B.C.FAN
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On the bright side, the Lions moved into the crossover position with the loss tonight. If the season ended now, they would have to go through Toronto and Montreal to get to the Grey Cup. Maybe they should just try to hold their position. :wink:
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