Eskimos 35 - Lions 29, Post-Game Stats and Comments

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DanoT
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I am not ready to give up on Jennings. With better coaching the O line and better play calling, better play design we will see a better Jennings. I am convinced that none of this will happen without a HC and assistant coaches change for next year.
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WestCoastJoe
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The drive to tie. 2nd and 10. We blitz a man. But the Eskimos are well prepared for it. We get nowhere near to Reilly.

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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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Even the Eskimo in the middle of the field is given separation. We want everything in front of us. But we do not go for close cover.

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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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2nd and 10. One might think it's a good time to switch things up and go for close cover.

Our DBs give big cushions to the receivers. Reilly looks at only one man.

The receiver does a quick comeback. Easy completion for the 1st down. And on down the field they go.

Reilly does not need to go through reads. He looks at one guy. And he even has that receiver in the middle. Easy pickings.

Did our guys fail to execute? Not in my opinion. Our prevent defence put our guys in hopeless positions. The old theory is that if you make the offence pick their way down the field, they will mess up before they get to the end zone. Not these days. The athletes have way too much skill. We have seen it over and over.

IMO you must attack. You must pressure the QB. And you must mix things up in the coverage. IMO lots of tight coverage is needed in this situation.

But, Isn't tight cover gambling? No more than loose cover. They all have risks. Contain-type defences want to keep everything in front of the defenders. IMO that gives up too much. Defenders nowadays have amazing skills in close cover. We tend to not do that. We fear getting beat deep. The deep threat is best minimized with hellacious pressure on the QB.

But we can't get to the QB. Yup. Our International DL personnel lacks pocket collapsers. And we have not had an effective rush end. IMO both of these types of players are seen throughout the league. When we blitz, it is easy to see coming, and easily countered. We don't move around much on the defensive LOS. We tend to line 'em up and play it straight.

Just IMO ...

2017-10-24_1909__That_just_might_have_been_a_time_for_tight_cover.__1st_down_at_their_own_30..png
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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.
Blitz
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cromartie wrote:
Mon Oct 23, 2017 10:07 am
This team needs an enema.

In all seriousness, most of the preseason talk was about how good the Lions were at the skill positions, and in the secondary. And I think that can be true.

But if you aren't good in the trenches, you aren't going to win, and there's no more stark illustration to this than when you put on tape of the Eskimos, a team with significant enough talent on both lines to thrive despite a plethora of injuries, and the Lions, who couldn't buy a pass rush all year long, along with an offensive line coach who should have stayed retired.

And this is before we get to a coaching staff that does the talent no favors, and hasn't, all season, from a pedestrian offensive gameplan to a persistently soft defensive scheme.

Blow this staff up and start over again. It's time.
Always interesting to read what you have to write cromartie.

Totally agree with what you have written. Buono, with all of his years of coaching should know that, along with the quarterback position, the key units of any football team are the offensive and defensive line and neither were priority over the skill positions before this season.

Given that was the situation as the season progressed, we also did not adapt our schemes, game planning, and play calling to take into account our weaknesses in the trenches.

Your comment to blow this staff up and start again hits the nail on the head.
I am not ready to give up on Jennings. With better coaching the O line and better play calling, better play design we will see a better Jennings. I am convinced that none of this will happen without a HC and assistant coaches change for next year. Dano T.
I am not ready to give up on Jennings either Dano T. Jennings has shown, when he gets anything resembling reasonable protection this season that he can make all the throws.

I'm not ready to give up on a lot of Leo players who have not have a stellar season. Jennings is not the only Leo who has not had a banner season. Many players on both sides of the football have not shone as they should have this season. When you have so many players struggling to 'execute' and who have shown they have had that ability in the past (and age is not a factor), the root of the problem is not execution or lack thereof.

I'm not read to give up on Chris Rainey or Anthony Thompson or Cody Husband or Kirby Fabian, or Louchez Purifoy or numerous others whose play has not shone as was anticipated prior to this season.

Anthony Thompson is an example of a long lineup of National safeties who have struggled. We haven't had a National safety that has played well since we began playing a National there after Barrin Miles retired. A part of the reason why Miles had 10 interceptions in 2006 was that Dave Ritchie allowed Miles to play safety the way the position should be played. Miles also had great anticipation skills.

Now we have our safety playing so far back, he is almost useless. Last season Jennings and Lulay worked with our safety after practice to improve his angles and it helped. Why we had to have our two quarterbacks coaching up our free safety after practice begs a different question. This is the job of the defensive coordinator and defensive backfield coach, who on our Leos team is the same coach.

Dan Dorazio has our offensive line giving up the most sacks in the league. Its a state of affairs we have been far to familiar with too often with Dorazio as our offensive line coach.

Still, its possible to win with a bad offensive line, with Dorazio leading the to offensive line to mediocrity. We won the West Division in 2005, giving up the most sacks in the CFL (65 of them) and our Leos also gave up the most sacks in the CFL in 2006 and we still won the Grey Cup.

Why our offensive line gave up so many sacks, say for example, in 2006 is confounding, when you look at the talent Dorazio had that 2006 season. Our offensive line was comprised of Rob Murphy, Jason JIiminez, Angus Reid, Shirko Rasouli, Kelly Bates, and Bobby Singh. But we had a hell of a defense and an outstanding defensive line in 2006, as we did in 2011.

You can't win with weak line play on both sides of the football, combined with deficient schemes and play calling, as Cromartie says in his post.

Looking forward to watching Maddy get a chance to play against the Bombers. We definitely need more push and penetration from the interior of our defensive line.

However, we can focus on personnel forever and improving it and it won't solve the elephant in the room. Our coaching is not up to par.
"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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WestCoastJoe
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Here is a swarm in the end zone. Barely 3 seconds before the avalanche gets to Jennings. Not sure if we had an effective check down package on this one.

Maybe the RB, but when JJ10 is looking his way, the RB is looking forward.

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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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2nd and 5. Trying for 2 TDs in a row.

3 man rush. 9 men back in zone coverage, a little bit tighter this time.

Reilly looks at one man only. He is wide open.

That has to be a hopeless feeling on defence. Can't we stop anything? Not when you have 9 men back, and guys are still wide open.

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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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Another big cushion given. Reilly looks at one man only, and he is wide open. Zylstra turns this one up for another 10 yards.

2017-10-26_1639.png
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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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Reilly looks at one man only. Bowman goes right to the hole in the middle of the zone. Our guys are in their zone, stationary like pylons. TD.

There are 4 defenders in a zone very near to Bowman. They surround him. No one gives him close cover. The zone might as well not be there.

2017-10-26_1642.png
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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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EE receivers are wide open. Only one read necessary for Reilly.

2017-10-26_1645.png
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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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This is just too easy. One read for Reilly. Triple set gets us in poor position. Watson wide open. TD in OT.

We have 6 'blitzing.' Eskimos well prepared, with MTM blocking. Loads of time for Reilly.

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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.
Blitz
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Your last set of photos WCJ is an example of something that has happened all season long.

Edmonton lines up trips to the wide side. The two receivers lined up to the outside run a post and a slant route. The inside slot receiver runs a sideline route and is wide open.

In zone, the safety should take the post and the corner should release his man to the safety and stay home in the wide flat.

Our defensive backs have continuously have problems knowing whom to cover all season, especially on the wide side. Its not that they can't cover...its that we don't know who to cover.

We also have had a problem all season with coverage of the back out of the backfield. We have our linebackers drop into underneath zone, leaving the flat open. The only time we didn't do this was our last game against Winnipeg.

Most of the time, opposing recievers are not wide open because our defensive backs are not talented enough. We play our safety too deep and our corners and halfbacks repeatedly have assignment breakdowns.

I would blame the defensive backs for not 'getting' it but the same thing happened last season, with different personnel.

One reason we get beat on deep routes is that the corner thinks the safety or halfback is taking the outside receiver on a deep route, depending on the type of zone we are playing and the corner stays up to take away the sideline route to the deep flat. However, the safety or halfback end up covering someone else and the outside deep route is open.

How many times have we seen our field corner let a receiver run by him deep, thinking the safety or halfback has the coverage and then see the football thrown and the corner starts racing downfield as fast as he can to try to cover the wide open receiver.

Most fans must think the corner has just been beaten badly but that is not the case. Opposing receivers are not 20 yards wide open because our defensive backs are that bad at coverage.

Oh, dam, I forgot.....our defensive backs are allowing these receivers to be this wide open because 1) they are not 'executing 2) they are not 'making plays' 3) they are not 'angry enough' 4) they didn't want it badly enough and are not playing with enough 'urgency' and 5) because the players set up a fund for their wives so they could attend the Grey Cup game if the team eventually won a berth to the Big Dance.

You rarely see our receivers this wide open. In fact, most of the time our recievers are covered and it takes an excellent throw and catch to 'execute' the pass play.

There are coaching and scheme issues on this Leos team that all the personnel changes in the world can't fix....which is why I don't over-focus on personnel as the remedy to what mostly ails our Leos.
"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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B.C.FAN
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Chandler Fenner's outstanding performance on defence and special teams tied a team record and earned a mention in the CFL's weekly Game Notes:
Chandler Fenner: Had an incredible defensive game last week with 13 total tackles and a 2017 CFL season-high (for any player) 6 on Special Teams. The last CFL player to have 6 ST Tackles was Jacoby Rhinehart for Calgary on September 22, 2005. Fenner tied the BC Lions club record with 6 in game and that has now been done just 4 times but not since 2001.
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