Lions 33 - Bombers 16 Post Game Stats and Comments

[TheLionKing]

I think the attendance has to do with the ticket prices. It's no longer the best bang for your buck anymore.

Absolutely

[B.C.FAN]

It was a sloppy win with an uncharacteristic 11 Lions' penalties, six of them on the offence. Two holding penalties by Angus Reid and Matt Norman were drive-killers, nullifying first downs.

Norman had a tough first half before being replaced by Patrick Kabongo. As the only rookie starter, he was the weak link on the offence and the Bombers exploited him. Bryant Turner was a beast for the Bombers, recording all three of his team's sacks, equalling his total for all of last year. The pressure rattled Travis Lulay, who dumped the ball off well to Andrew Harris but didn't often get to go to his second reads, meaning the offence revolved around Geroy Simon, Harris and Lulay's scrambling, which was impressive. It was good enough to beat a good Bomber defence on this night, but the Lions can do much better if they can provide better pass protection.

The defence was solid, giving up only 185 net yards and providing constant pressure on the quarterbacks. All four sacks were recorded in the first half. I thought Alex Brink handled the pressure much better than Buck Pierce but he was still pressured into a lot of poor throws. The Lions dropped three potential interceptions, two of which likely would have gone for touchdowns. The Lions nullified the Winnipeg running game other than a few timely scrambles by Pierce and Brink.

I liked how the Lions responded with 17 straight points in the fourth quarter after the Bombers had cut the lead to 16-10. Tim Brown broke off a 59-yard punt return in the opening minute to set up Lulay's second touchdown, Lulay found Simon open for 56 yards in broken coverage for the record-breaking catch to set up a field goal, and Anton McKenzie salvaged the interception that James Yurichuk fumbled, setting up Arland Bruce's clinching touchdown. Good teams respond when the game is on the line and the Lions did that tonight.

Special teams coverage remains a concern, and has been since Chuck McMann took over as special teams coach from Mike Benevides. The Bombers kept exploiting Jason Arakgi, Stu Foord and Ryan Phillips on the left side of the kick cover team. They all got blocked easily, allowing some big returns. The Lions successfully ran an onside kick, which was alertly swatted out of bounds by Korey Banks but they nearly gave up an onside kick for a touchdown in the final minute. Special teams is about playing with heart and fighting through blocks, and the Lions didn't do enough of that tonight.

[TheLionKing]

Special teams coverage was terrible. Reminded me of couple of seasons ago. With the exception of Tim Brown's one long return, it was nothing to write home about.

[MikeAK]

I think the attendance has to do with the ticket prices. It's no longer the best bang for your buck anymore.

Bang on! All this talk about the roof being closed or other factors is nonsense. Ticket prices/section pricing is out to lunch and it is no longer an easy decision for some to head on down to the stadium. HDTV now offers a legitimate alternative given the prices of today's Lions games. We are going to see this all season long. The team is going to be very successful this season but the attendance will most likely be underwhelming for what the team will be doing. We've all talked about this in the past, that the Lions aren't concerned with selling out games. It's about the short term gain and it's going to come back and bite them in the ass. There are no new fans coming down to the stadium.

Just my opinion but I honestly believe 10 years from now we are going to be wondering why the team isn't as popular and why there aren't as many hardcore fans in the late 20's and 30's. Well, it'll be because they lost out drawing in new fans because ticket prices were too high ten years ago.

[274always]

Hey all,

That's actually not a bad attendance --just a few hundred shy of the home-opener in 2010, and we were playing the Riders at the height of their powers. Friday of a long-weekend, first sunny weather in a while --all things considered, not too shabby.

After the preseason I thought next week's game against Hamilton had the potential to be the game of the year, with two high-flying offences going at it. But after the egg they laid against the Riders, I don't think Hamilton is going to be much of a sell.

Cheers,

James

I agree but if vancouver Really wanted to show their appreciation ,they should have had 40,000.

[Centrum22]

What was the attendance? Looked like a good crowd was on hand.

Good crowd?

You want to know what the attendance was for the season opener, where the reigning Grey Cup Champions would be raising their championship banner in a special ceremony, where Geroy Simon would be rewriting the history books, and where the world-famous, pop sensation Dragonette would be performing at half time in a city of 2.5 million where no other major sporting events were taking place?

29,351: That's the worst attendance that the Lions have had since returning to the new state-of-the-art BC Place. By contrast, in 2007, playing in the old, depressing BC Place, on a night with no history at stake, the Grey Cup Champion Lions got about 33,000 for their home opener.

Short of hosting an actual Grey Cup, the circumstances do not get any more favourable than last night. This was a truly disappointing attendance and is proof that the front office is doing something terribly wrong. Prohibitive ticket prices and the absence of proper advertising campaigns (i.e., television commercials, etc.) are failing to impress the casual public. The city population is growing but the fan base is shrinking.

And the poor visuals of all those empty seats will make things even worse. It looked bad on television and will only reinforce the narrative that the CFL is a bush legue and not cool enough to get into.

I felt bad for Geroy Simon. It's probably not the way he imagined it.

[Blitz]

On positive side, I was pleasantly surprised by Henley and Taylor. I thought they were both prominent on D tonight as was Williams. Didn't hear Mitchell's name tonight very much.

This really seemed like a battle between the Lions Offense and Winnie's D. Winnipeg probably has one of the stronger D's in the league and it looked like the Lions had a difficult time gaining traction at times. But all things being equal, the Lions overcame and the Lions D looked to be getting more solid as the game went on (except in garbage time) Agree on the Spec. Teams. Is our kick coverage so woeful because the punts aren't getting enough hang time? Paul also shanked two punts tonight. So hopefully, some of the dropsies and missed opportunities are just early season issues. Congrats to the LIons for starting the season off on the right foot and to Geroy for the record.

Rajon Henley made some big plays which was great to see..Ive been pulling for him to play since he signed with our Leos...and he also had a sack negated due to a penalty. Keron Williams and Eric Taylor played otustanding. Even more impressive was Stubler and how he brought pressure on the quarterback. Our bliz packages were outstanding, well disguised and timed, and we brought heat all gane long.

In the middle, Adam Bighill demonstrated his speed and James Yarichuk looked very good when he played too. Both bring different asoects to the position. We should have had at least 3 interceptions with Bighill, Banks, and ....

Offensively, we were hamped by too much pressure on our quarterback and it wasn;t only Norman and Kabongo who had their struggles at times protecting Lulay. Olifoye was also beat, which was a rare sight to see. Chap went back to the run on first down more often in the second half in an attempt to negate Winnipeg;s pass rush.

Andrew Harris is such a dangerous receiver out of the backfield and his moves in space are a joy to watch. Lulay ran very welln with the football and had to. Last season, Lulay had a tendancy, when he ran, to mostly bail out wide to his right but now he is very skillful at picking the seams upfield and running to his left...and he's an excellent runner.

It was obvvious Lulay looked to Geroy Simon more than he should have in the second half and Gore, who was open at times, was ignored. However, that was easy to understand, with Geroy having the opportunity to break his record at home and the hype around it. Chap used a lot of packages, misdirection, and formations. It was obvious that our offence is going to continuen to play with the same philosophy this year as during our winning streak last season and that's gratifying.

Our offence was tremendously assisted all game by our defense, who only gave up a little over 200 yards (and a big cunk of that was on Winnipeg's fourth quarter touchdown drive. With our defense giving our offence great field position from two and outs and a big turnover and Brown also delivering a big punt return, our offence had good field position for most of the evening but was not able to take advantage as often as one would have liked to see.

Winnipeg played tight man press coverage and they have outstanding defensive backs. The pass pressure that Winnipeg brought made their job easier. There is a reason why Winnipeg's defense is so good and its not only personell..Tim Burke has been the defensive coordinator in the last four Grey Cups. The game was a battle of two outstanding defensive minds with Stubler and Burke leading their respective units.

No question though that the biggest strength of our team is our defense and it looked awfully good for most of the game. Special teams were not that special, outside of Browns big run. I agree that McMann has not been a special teams coach that makes you want to give him a raise after each season...he really does not inspire.

For all those expecting our Leos to just roll over the oppostion this season, last night showed that a lot of games are going to be tough and we'll need to bring our A game always in order to win.

Nice way to start a season, with a big win at home against a motivated Winnipeg team that really wanted to beat us.

[pennw]

Things not looking good for Peirce in Winnipeg . Only 11 yds passing in almost a half and he's injured again . Will we see changes for the Bombers this season ? Discontent seems to be growing over there . Many calling for Brink to be named their starter and honestly can you blame them ? IMO they've seen the best of BP . Wally made the right call in moving on when he did .
http://www.ourbombers.com/messageboard/ ... hp?t=33168
http://www.ourbombers.com/messageboard/ ... hp?t=33158

[sj-roc]

What was the attendance? Looked like a good crowd was on hand.

Good crowd?

You want to know what the attendance was for the season opener, where the reigning Grey Cup Champions would be raising their championship banner in a special ceremony, where Geroy Simon would be rewriting the history books, and where the world-famous, pop sensation Dragonette would be performing at half time in a city of 2.5 million where no other major sporting events were taking place?

Doesn't matter how big the population is if they aren't sports fans.

29,351: That's the worst attendance that the Lions have had since returning to the new state-of-the-art BC Place. By contrast, in 2007, playing in the old, depressing BC Place, on a night with no history at stake, the Grey Cup Champion Lions got about 33,000 for their home opener.

Bob Ackles was still around then; it's been widely acknowledged (on here anyway) that the Lions' business operations have not sustained themselves to his (admittedly high) standard. We have to keep things in perspective; the Bob Ackles era is not really the standard for measuring CFL attendance in this market: it's the APEX. Look at last night's attendance against the numbers of the last 20 years and you'll see what I mean. I'll note one stat in particular: when 33k showed up for Lui Passaglia's last game @BCP in Nov 2000, it ended a streak of 46 regular season and/or playoff games that failed to crack 30k, one which dated back over five years. Yes, 46, forty-six, that's not a typo.

Short of hosting an actual Grey Cup, the circumstances do not get any more favourable than last night. This was a truly disappointing attendance and is proof that the front office is doing something terribly wrong. Prohibitive ticket prices and the absence of proper advertising campaigns (i.e., television commercials, etc.) are failing to impress the casual public.

First you say circumstances do not get more favourable, then you immediately contradict yourself by citing three factors: lacklustre business ops, pricy tickets and poor marketing. And don't forget, they never bothered to open the roof, either.

The city population is growing but the fan base is shrinking.

That ties in to my first comment above. Pop'n growth means nothing if it's coming from a demographic that has no previous exposure and/or emotional ties to this game in general and the Lions in particular.

And the poor visuals of all those empty seats will make things even worse. It looked bad on television and will only reinforce the narrative that the CFL is a bush legue and not cool enough to get into.

I was there so I wouldn't know how good or bad it looked on TV.

I felt bad for Geroy Simon. It's probably not the way he imagined it.

I seriously doubt he put that much thought into it. One doesn't scale his heights by worrying about such things over which one has little to no control and which only serve as a distraction from focussing on one's game.

On another note related to attendance, I noticed three or four sections in each corner of the upper deck were tarped off last night; not sure if that was just for the pre-game banner ceremony or if it'll be that way for the whole season.

[Rammer]

I suspect the tarps were to eliminate the fans from moving to the higher priced seating and until the Dome is filling up more, will be the standard operating mandate for the season.

[DanoT]

Having a closed roof is not going to help attendance. Next time the club plays on a nice night, some fans may think twice about heading down, thinking the roof will be closed again (they may even be correct in that assumption).

DH

Terrible decision. Muggy inside. Smoke from from the fireworks hung around like a fog.

IMO the smoke from the fire works is unacceptable in a closed roof building that is suppose to be smoke free. A one point I thought to myself that i guess it is fortunate (smoke wise) that the Lions aren't racking up the TDs. The fireworks should be on the big $$ video screen and I plan on emailing the BC Lions with this suggestion.

[sj-roc]

I suspect the tarps were to eliminate the fans from moving to the higher priced seating and until the Dome is filling up more, will be the standard operating mandate for the season.

I see, but couldn't they just do that via the concourse anyway? I suppose they might have blocked off that part of the concourse, too. Anyway, I guess it removes the optics of people being clearly *seen* moving to the higher rent areas and triggering a copycat mass migration.

[Centrum22]

First you say circumstances do not get more favourable, then you immediately contradict yourself by citing three factors: lacklustre business ops, pricy tickets and poor marketing.

You are seriously confused about the argument I made. Let me repeat it for you:

Premise 1: This game had everything going for it ON the field (i.e., season opener; Grey Cup Champions; history-making night; popular half-time entertainment, etc.).

Premise 2: Such a game should have high attendance.

Premise 3: The game had the worst attendance since the Lions returned to BC Place.

Conclusion: Therefore, the problems must be OFF the field (i.e., "lacklustre business ops, pricy tickets and poor marketing," etc.)

As I said, if the Lions' off-the-field team was doing its job more effectively, more strategically, attendance should be growing and special games like last night should be excellently attended.

No contradiction there. Understand now? I'm not sure why that was so confusing for you.

[Dan_Payne_fan!!]

http://bclions.com/video/index/id/75405 inside the locker room after the game last night!

[MikeAK]

http://bclions.com/video/index/id/75405 inside the locker room after the game last night!

thank you for posting that video, Dan. I really liked it.