Lions @ Eskimos -- Post Game Stats and Comments

[Belize City Lion]

Stephen Clarke played a pretty good game considering he was forced to play every down after Yell left with an injury. I don't know if TV shows it well but Clarke is small. Very small. Even small by our undersized defensive secondary standards. I bumped into him at Surrey Central Mall this summer and if he had not been dressed in Lions gear and carrying his personalised Lions backpack I would have never thought he was a pro football player.

[WestCoastJoe]

Stephen Clarke played a pretty good game considering he was forced to play every down after Yell left with an injury. I don't know if TV shows it well but Clarke is small. Very small. Even small by our undersized defensive secondary standards. I bumped into him at Surrey Central Mall this summer and if he had not been dressed in Lions gear and carrying his personalised Lions backpack I would have never thought he was a pro football player.

Unlike Edmonton, which likes size and athletic freaks, we recruit small and fast. Uh huh.

[Belize City Lion]

The Good:
-Position changes on the D-Line resulted in a game where for possibly the first time this year our defence gave the other team offence something to be concerned about. If hadn't been left on the field for most of the second half the Lions defence might have won this game for us.

-Jennings showed he has the tools and the smarts to be a good QB. Now he needs an OC that can take advantage of his skills.

The Bad:
-Coaching once again showed they are lost. Whatever bump the team may have enjoyed by Jennings taking over could be undone by the guys realising that regardless of who is starting at QB the brain truss of this team is not putting together a game plan that can win. The only question for me is will the players give it one more shot next week, or will they resume quitting on Teddy and Cortez as it seems they were doing a few weeks ago?

-Our offensive line is brutal. Even worse is they eat up 5 international spots which really hurts now if our star national running back can't go next week.

[Don Miller]

WALLY has to wear some of this. He hired Tedford and Tedford hired Cortez. Cortez is well past his due date. Sask got rid of him. At least Chap ball is moving the sticks in Sask. This year looks like the East crossover. I doubt we see any coaching changes until the end of season. They will be some die hard Rider fans at the next game to get the numbers up around 24000 but I doubt much more. Very frustrating Edmonton were ripe for the picking they knew we couldn't run the ball and just stuffed the box, short quick passes between linebackers and the line. Leone had his worst day as a Lion.

[WestCoastJoe]

We are 4 and 8. Wally was upset when we were 4 and 5.

Our offence is near the bottom.

Our defence is near the bottom.

Do we deserve to sneak into the playoffs?

Edmonton probably did that thing with the underdog. It is hard to take weak teams seriously. The brain knows the danger. But the body takes the game for granted. Finally the better team wakes up.

At 9 and 9 last year, we could see our team backsliding. Badly. Systems? Attitudes? In terms of a season's results, this year may be approaching a rout.
............

Keep the ball in the hands of Jennings. Get some reps for McGhee.

Changes in philosophy? Ummmm, Yeah. Not likely. We did go to more size in the DL. Perhaps a few more blitzes.

Edmonton has done a nice job of recruiting size and freak athleticism. Watkins. McCoil. We might want to consider that approach.

Defence? Whatever. Old news.

Offence? Hmmmm ... Lack of creativity. As Forde said, we went even more conservative in the 4th Q.

Any hope? For this year? Slim.

Next year? Could be more of the same. Humble times.

End of 2016? Possible sweeping changes. Throw it all out and start over. (Keep the top Nationals and Internationals. Keep Kato and Bill.)

Too tough? That is how it looks.

By the end of 2016, Wally will have 2 Grey Cups in his 14 years here. That is close to par for the course for a good organization, or even less than par for the course for an outstanding organization. But we have not been an outstanding organization since the passing of Bobby Ackles.

[B.C.FAN]

Quite a somber mood on the bus here in Edmonton. Very quiet. People are deflated and really feel the defeat.

Fun trip, fun game, wrong ending. We went away from what was working and seemed to play way too vanilla.

I feel bad for Lions fans who made the trip to Edmonton but I still came out of the game with more positive than negative feelings. The players made plays, except on special teams, which looked too much like what we saw for the first half of the season. I'll give the Esks credit for good downfield coverage and excuse a rare subpar game from Leone. The Lions suffered some key injuries to Harris and Yell and still competed to the final play. I was hoping for a victory this week but, as others have said, the next two weeks are must-win games. There is little margin for error for the rest of the season.

[WestCoastJoe]

Oct 3 Sask @ BC

Oct 10 Winnipeg @ BC

Oct 17 BC @ Edm

Oct 23 Ham @ BC

Oct 30 BC @ Tor

Nov 7 Cal @ BC
......................

Ours is a young team. Young teams can be resilient. But they can also fold the tent.

Probable outcome? Somewhere around 6 and 12. Maybe higher. Jennings definitely gives us some hope. IMO he can lead a team. He got a jump ball in the end zone on the final play that could have fallen our way. Dunno what happened to him in Q4. Play calling put him to sleep? EE defence outsmart Cortez?

[maxlion]

Disappointing that we lost in the final minutes, but good that we hung in until the end with a new qb against a top team. I thought that there were a couple of questionable calls against us that might have swunv things the other way, but oh well. That's football.

Jennings played well. Strong accurate arm, good decision making. The fumble was costly, but overall one of the better qb performances we've seen this year. Still want to see McGhee. Come on Tedford!

Leone has been really hit and miss the last few weeks. Can't miss from 15 yards!

Our running game is in dire need of improvement. Protection is pretty good, but no holes for rbs. Unacceptable given the number of internationals starting.

Hawkins is looking good, as is Manny. Good game by Ianuzzi.

Playoffs are looking far away now. Have to cheer for Sask I guess.

[DanoT]

Jennings gives us hope but the play calling of Cortez and the lack of a Tedford influence does not.

[leo4life]

Outcoached Outschemed signed Wally Bouno

[peeby]

Jeez, some pretty bitter posters here. Even when the Eskimos were down, I don't think they were worried. They looked confident the whole time. And for good reason, they're a good football team. When they had to, their defense tightened up, and when they had to, Mike Reilly and the offense got going. Whatta ya gonna do?

I thought there were positives with the Lions. One thing I don't like, however, is that they have no reasonable back-up plan for when Andrew Harris goes down. Shaque L-M is not ready and with the ratio and maybe lack of CDN receivers, there was no real way to get Rainey in there. To me, one of the main reasons the Lions offense dried up (aside from the Eskimos tightening up) was Shaque having to play for Harris. He couldn't run the ball and he wasn't in the right place when Jennings had to dump the ball off.

If the Lions were not having to use an extra import on the O-line, they would be using 4 American receivers like many CFL teams (I think). Harris goes down? Rainey or an American RB goes in, one of the INT WR's comes out and Ianuzzi goes in. I'm pretty sure it's the O-line ratio that's an issue here.

Not meaning to knock a young player like Shaque, but if you were watching him carefully, he was simply not helping Jennings by being a reasonable release valve as the RB should be.

[TheLionKing]

Interesting comment from Chris Burns in the post -game. Blamed Cortez for being too conservative. Instead of continuing to attack, he pulled in the reign on Jennings, making sure he didn't make any mistakes.

[DanoT]

Outcoached Outschemed signed Wally Bouno

Except Wally isn't doing the coaching or calling plays, but the loss definitely is on the coaches.

[TheLionKing]

Regarding Richie Leone's missed field goal and convert, that's what happens when you have a natural punter trying to learn how to place kick.

[Sir Purrcival]

Most of the comments focusing on OC and game plan for second half. When the commentators start talking about how predictable your offensive choices are especially on 1st down, it becomes really difficult to watch. Just had a feeling the entire second half that this game was done. Kind of got that sinking feeling a the end of the 1st when Phillips made a pick and it was nullified by PI. Edmonton carries on for the TD and the pendulum swings.

The illegal punt really hurt too. One of the few parts that has been a strength this year has abandoned us today. Missed, FG, Missed extra point, illegal kick. They all hurt but not as much as hand offs on first down.

It is a definition of stupid to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. That wasn't working so of course we kept trying it and that was all she wrote. Did we throw to Hawkins in the 2nd half? I noticed we finally tried Burnham near the end of the game. Too locked in on too small a menu and the other team figured it out.