WestCoastJoe wrote:Those calling for change, and those calling for status quo, and those calling for changes in the ranks of the assistants, can look back farther than just this year in making their judgments.
Wally Buono has given the Lions 7 years of unmatched stability and quality in the team's history. It has been far from per-fect. Underachievement considering the talent assembled by Buono? I would say so. One championship in 7 years. In a league of just 8 teams that is not much to brag about.
I could happy with Wally running the show, with some provisos:
* When a team quits, or mails it in, that is unacceptable. That is tantamount to a team that has tuned out the message of the coaching staff.
* Some fans and coaches prefer the conservative philosophy. Fair enough. But I would be more in agreement with Wally if he at least used all the strategies available at some time in the course of a season. We do not vary things, or use innovation or subtlety. We stay with a dysfunctional short yardage "scheme" and goal line "scheme" long past the time when it became a concern (vs the Alouettes some eons ago).
* IMO the quality of coaching in the CFL has risen due to the input of Hufnagel and Trestman. If we stay status quo, it may well get worse for us next year. I think most of us would agree that Wally likes to stay with those schemes that are comfortable for him. I will go a bit further and surmise (after observing for 7 years) that he does not like change. That he values execution much higher than the scheme itself. That he is not an X and O's guy. (That Trestman and Hufnagel are very much X and O's guys). That Wally has assistants who coach in his image. That they deliver what he wants philosophically. That things will not likely change as long as Wally runs the show.
* If Wally would bring in assistants who have resumes of great success, who thereby have some independence, who use all the strategies available, including some very aggressive, innovative schemes, then I could be content to stay with Wally's unsupervised leadership.
* But I expect it wiil stay status quo. And I expect the results will continue to be greatly disappointing, if not get worse. The book is out on how to attack the Lions' offence and defence. We have seen how well prepared teams are for us. And we have seen, IMO our team out-coached time and time again.
It's no good Joe you can hit these guys over the head with facts until the cows come home, but they are wearing Wally blinders and that is just how they want to stay.
They say just one more season and they will have had enough but that's not how they will spin it at the end of next season, because like Wally they do not like change...they fear life after Wally Buono because they have no reference of better times to compare it to, other than the Adam Rita era...ohhh it was so scary then.
IIRC Steve Buratto won a Grey Cup during that era (just like Lord Buono in his seven years here) and it's a good bet he might have won a couple more if he had been afforded the chance like Wally got.
But never mind Joe their little world should fall apart if Wally ever left with his play-not-to-lose predictable tendencies, and vanilla philosophy which has so long since been hungrily gobbled up like the cannon fodder it has been reduced to, by leading-edge innovative defenses and offenses around the league. God knows they want us to keep Buono right here in BC too, so as we will always be their *beeotch*!
God help the hue and cry if Pasquale should decide to hang them up of his own volition... the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth, the like of which could very well shake the foundation of the rock of ages, and the woe of his disciples and followers might well be heard league wide.
