Lions 34 - Bombers 21 Post-Game Stats and Comments

[DanoT]

Game balls

https://www.bclions.com/2018/06/08/all- ... -winnipeg/

Who was the player who got the game ball on D?

[Rodu]

Game balls

https://www.bclions.com/2018/06/08/all- ... -winnipeg/

Who was the player who got the game ball on D?

Willis?

[DanoT]

Game balls

https://www.bclions.com/2018/06/08/all- ... -winnipeg/

Who was the player who got the game ball on D?

Willis?

Yes, it must be Willis. Elimimian called him O.D. which I guess is Odell's nickname.

[B.C.FAN]

Yes, there’s no mistaking that Willis smile, and that hoodie.

[CardiacKid]

I haven’t read any articles or reports about the Riders loss last night but the headlines make it sound like there was nothing from which to take comfort.

“Nothing positive” is how Jones described it.

As much as Jennings looked OK, Collaros and Bridge sounded like they were awful.

Methinks the West could potentially get all topsy-turvy this year.

[DanoT]

Lions two OTs looked suspect at times as well as the entire O in the first half. Lions starters played the Bombers backups even in the first half.

Once the Lions started running the ball a bit the offense seemed to get in sync, so Wally and JJ please take note.

And if Dan Dorazio won't retire than I hope he retires his complicated zone read angle blocking schemes. The Lions Oline is big and athletic and on run plays should just engage the man in front of him and then power on.

I also hope that JJ reduces the number of zone read QB pass/run plays. What I don't like is the fact that no one knows prior to the snap if it is a pass or run meaning the Oline cannot run block past the line of scrimmage and have to start out pass blocking, giving the advantage to the D if it becomes a running play. Far better, imo to call a pass and a run play in the huddle and then have the QB let the team know at the line of scrimmage, pre snap, which play it will be. So essentially a structured audible based on the D's formation.

[Rodu]

Dorazio had Figueroa and the OL doing cut blocks in pass protection. They shoot at the legs, then are on the ground as the men run past after Jennings. D'oh Stay on your feet. Lock on. You cannot lock on when you are on the ground. ''Look out, Jon, here come the cut blocks.''

Screenshot_20180609-021236.png

isn't the purpose of that blocking scheme on the play is to get the ball out quickly, Jennings might have hung on to it for to long

[B.C.FAN]

Dorazio had Figueroa and the OL doing cut blocks in pass protection. They shoot at the legs, then are on the ground as the men run past after Jennings. D'oh Stay on your feet. Lock on. You cannot lock on when you are on the ground. ''Look out, Jon, here come the cut blocks.''

Screenshot_20180609-021236.png

isn't the purpose of that blocking scheme on the play is to get the ball out quickly, Jennings might have hung on to it for to long

Yes, and he did the same thing last year, even taking a sack in the end zone when he held the ball after his linemen cut-blocked and he opted not to throw a quick pass in the flat. That pass has to be thrown quickly or thrown away. Fans blame the O-linemen when they're doing exactly what they're coached to do.

[CardiacKid]

Dorazio had Figueroa and the OL doing cut blocks in pass protection. They shoot at the legs, then are on the ground as the men run past after Jennings. D'oh Stay on your feet. Lock on. You cannot lock on when you are on the ground. ''Look out, Jon, here come the cut blocks.''

Screenshot_20180609-021236.png

isn't the purpose of that blocking scheme on the play is to get the ball out quickly, Jennings might have hung on to it for to long

Yes, and he did the same thing last year, even taking a sack in the end zone when he held the ball after his linemen cut-blocked and he opted not to throw a quick pass in the flat. That pass has to be thrown quickly or thrown away. Fans blame the O-linemen when they're doing exactly what they're coached to do.

If anybody has some special insight into what work Jennings and the Lions took in the off-season in regards to his mental prep for games, I would love to hear it. There was a sports psychologist at camp, hopefully there was work done to alleviate Jennings indecisiveness. At times it is very obvious he is struggling with what is happening between his ears.

[B.C.FAN]

If anybody has some special insight into what work Jennings and the Lions took in the off-season in regards to his mental prep for games, I would love to hear it. There was a sports psychologist at camp, hopefully there was work done to alleviate Jennings indecisiveness. At times it is very obvious he is struggling with what is happening between his ears.

I don't have any special insights. Much has been written about Jennings, and what may be going on in his head.

Here's one article from Ed Willes:
Ed Willes: Will the real Jonathon Jennings please stand up?

[KnowItAll]

If would be a huge bummer to me if JJ had to take a notable back seat to Rutley.

[Blitz]

This is the way I see things at present.

Jonathan Jennings came to the B.C. Lions from a spread offensive system in college. In the spread, the receivers are spread out to stretch the field, there are no tight ends, the system uses an ace back or an empty backfield, and the quarterback is confined to the pocket. He reads the entire field, goes through his progressions, and is coached to throw from the pocket, often throwing under pressure, while finding the open receiver.

Jennings came to our Leos in Tedford's first and only season with our Leos. Tedford, with a reputation for developing quarterbacks spent time coaching Jennings up. Jennings started the last six games for us in 2015 and became our starter in 2016. In his first six starts at the end of the 2016 season, Jennings excited Leos fans with his play, completing 66% of this passes while achieving a quarterback efficiency average of 99.8.

Buono took over the Head Coaching job in 2016 and named Jennings as his starting quarterback. Jennings had a very successful season in 2018, starting all 18 games, in leading our Leos to the second best regular season record in the league. He completed 67% of his passes, threw 27 touchdown passes, and had a quarterback efficiency average of 102.1.

Jennings first offensive coordinator was George Cortez. In 2016 and 2017, he was coached by Khari Jones. This season, he is working under Jarious Jackson.

Jarious Jackson is Jennings third offensive coordinator in four seasons. In his first three seasons, Jennings played in a spread offence and this season he is being asked to play in a very different offensive system.

Jennings was recognized, and in fact encouraged, to play quarterback in Khari Jones spread system that wanted him to hang in the pocket while under pressure, in order to throw a lot of deep intermediate and deep footballs, mostly to our slotbacks, It was a plug and play spread offensive system, that involved Jennings going through read progressions.

It was not a quick strike, short passing game style of offence. It was anything but that. In fact, it was a very vertically oriented offence which required Jennings to throw passes, most often under pressure, to provide the necessary time for our slots to get open on mostly deep intermediate patterns.

In 2015 and 2016, Jennings was given more time to throw the football, even though he often had to throw with pass rushers in his face. He was highly regarded for his poise in the pocket, for the accuracy and velocity of his throws, and for making big plays.

In 2017, without the effective running attack we had in 2016, and thrown to the wolves each game, in terms of pass protection (reminiscent of the season Kevin Glenn played here in 2014) we attempted to run the same style of passing offence as we did in 2016, with an emphasis on slow developing deep intermediate routes. With two offensive tackles who couldn't pass protect and Fabian often struggling, Jennings was hit, sacked, pressured, and beaten down without mercy, each and every game he played.

Jennings injured his shoulder, which impacted his accuracy. He lost confidence as he tried to play injured behind a woeful offensive line, in terms of pass protection. Jennings play suffered, his confidence suffered, and he was left to take most of the blame for an offence that continued to attempt slow developing pass plays with poor offensive pass protection, while being predictable.

The same thing happned to Lulay. Lulay's 2015 season mirrored Jennings season last year. Playing with a shoulder that was not healed and quarterbacking in a spread system under Cortez that favored longer routes, Lulay struggled badly before finally going down to injury. When Jennings played so well in the last six games of the 2015 season, it was easy for some to put the blame on Lulay as the major reason for our 2015 season woes.

Last season was very similar to our 2015 season except the roles were reversed. Jennings struggled as our starter (and for the same reasons as Lulay struggled in 2015). Lulay came in and played well in his four starts. Therefore it was easy to make Jennings the scapegoat for most of our offensive woes in 2017.

Jarious Jackson's offensive system is another type of plug and play offensive system, emphasizing the run/pass option offence, which is very in vogue right now at the U.S. college level and is the flavor of the day going into the 2018 NFL season.

In the run/pass option offence, essentially the quarterback meshes (slower handoff) with the tailback out of the shotgun and reads a defender (often a linebacker but sometimes a nickel back or defensive back, and then, in a split second, decides to either hand the football off or keep it, and if he keeps it, he moves away from the direction of the tailback and throws a quick strike to a receiver running a short pattern.

The run/pass offence is another NCAA innovation that moved into the pros last season and with the Philadelphia Eagles using it to win the SuperBowl its very in vogue right now.

Jennings has had a brief training camp to try to learn a completely new offensive system, with new terminology and with a very different methodology and approach. This offence often splits the field in terms of reads for the pass.

While I was in favor of our Leos finally moving out of a very predictable, vanilla spread offence, I am not a big proponent of plug and play offensive systems. They are usually most successful when they are new, when defenses have not seen them before, and therefore have not adjusted to them. Plug and play offensive systems work best when they mesh with a quarterback's style.

For too many seasons, we had mobile quarterbacks (Printers, Pierce, Jackson, Lulay, and Jennings) who we forced into a pocket passing spread offence. Now we are attempting to take a quarterback (Jennings) and possibly a Travis Lulay later this season, and are forcing them to learn to play quarterback in a completely different style than they have played in college or pro.

If they are going to be successful, its going to take time. Its going to take a lot more time than two exhibition games. Jennings is not a quarterback who has been trained to make post snap run/pass option reads. Nor is Lulay for that matter.

Now Jennings is expected to get his confidence back while learning a completely new offensive system with a completely different style of quarterback play, different terminology, and different methodology. It is a VERY DIFFERENT offensive system. It will likely take at least a year to learn, with any measure of real comfort.

Our Leos dropped Alex Ross, a pocket passing spread style quarterback and signed Ricky Lloyd, in part, because he played in a run/pass offence (RPO) in college. Its not surprising that he looks quite poised in this style of offence. He has experience at the college level playing quarterback in a RPO offence. He looks more comfortable with it, as he should be.

Jennings will take time to get comfortable with it as will Travis Lulay. I don't see an RPO offence as an offence designed around the quarterback style of Jennings or Lulay, who were both developed as spread style quarterbacks and who just have different styles of reacting when the pocket breaks down.

This offensive system may turn out to be a very good one for our Leos. At least its designed to get rid of the football quickly, which is a good thing when Dorazio is coaching the offensive line. But its not a good offence is you take offensive penalties, if you don't run the football successfully on first down, or if you don't run hardly at all, or if you have second and long situations, which is what happened in the first half of last nights game.

Overall, I thought it was a good outing for Jennings, based upon the fact that he has only had a brief training camp and a little over three quarters of playing in this offensive system. He passed for high percentage, he made some very good throws, and he didn't throw an interception.

This is a new offence for everyone on our offence.

None of our receivers are used to running routes on a play that could be a run or a pass. Our offensive line run blocks on each run/pass option play whether the quarterback hands the football off to the tailback or throws the football. They have no idea whether the play will turn out to be a run or a pass. On run/pass option plays, there is no pass blocking.

But its easier for the offensive line and receivers and backs to adjust to a new offence than it is for the quarterback. Neither Lulay have any experience in playing in this type of offence, where the quarterback, AFTER the snap, reads a defender, in a split second, and determines at that point whether the play is run or pass.

The run/pass option offence reminds me of the days of the inside zone read offence. For the quarterbacks who played in this style of offence in college and the NFL (eg: Russel Wilson, Colin Kaepernick, Robert Griffin, Cam Newton) they were very mobile quarterbacks who had been trained in college for this style of offence. They were used to reading the defensive end post snap and then either handing off or keeping it themselves. But you didn't see Tom Brady quarterbacking that style of offence.

In the zone read offence, the offensive line zone blocked, the quarterback read the defensive end after the snap. If the defensive end crashed down, the quarterback kept the football. if he stayed square the quarterback handed the football to the tailback.

All option style offences, in which the quarterback makes a decision AFTER the snap of the football, from 1) the old option offence in which the quarterback either handed the football off to the fullback or not, and if not, ran down the line and then chose to keep it or pitch it to the tailback, to 2) the zone read offence, in which the quarterback read the defensive end and either handed off or kept it or 3) the RPO offence, in which the quarterback reads a linebacker or nickel back or defensive back and then either hands off or throws it quickly, are offensive systems that attempt to have simple reads after the snap of the football.

I understand this RPO offence conceptually much better for American football better than for our Canadian game. In the U.S game, I can see the quarterback reading the strong safety after the snap. If he remains in a two deep, then the quarterback hands off whereas if the strong safety is in the box, then he throws the football. Or the quarterback reads the linebacker after the snap and determines whether he is in run or pass defense mode by his movement and then makes his decision.

Jon Gruden calls the RPO offence the Ridiculous Pass Protection Offence because the quarterback has no choice but to throw quickly because each play is blocked like a running play.

I would prefer to have an offensive system that is multi-formational, has lots of motion, and has a little of everything from West Coast to Pro to Spread. This offence is not designed around a Jennings or a Lulay or even a Bryan Burhham. I prefer an offence that is designed around the strengths of personnel. This is a plug and play offence. How well we adapt to it and execute it will be interesting.

We needed change. The book is out on whether this will be the right type of change offensively or not. We haven't even seen most of Jackson's RPO offence yet. Its a work in progress that will continue to be added to as the season progresses and the comfort level improves.

Its way too early to be too critical of it or anyone playing in it. Its going to be an adjustment for the players and the fans too.

I hope its successful. At least it should be less predictable over our previous offence, which was well past its due date.

[WestCoastJoe]

Excellent review, Blitz.

Re cut blocking ... Dorazio is kind of channeling Alex Gibbs of NFL fame. Gibbs loved cut blocking in the run game. It is very effective at times, used with zone blocking. I've posted a lot of material on it on this site.

Defenders consider cut blocking dangerous, even dirty, as do I, taking out the legs of players, who oftentimes have their feet firmly planted on the ground.

I also consider it ineffective in pass blocking. If the defender keeps his feet, as they usually do, it is a free run to the QB. Better IMO for the blockers in pass protection, to keep their feet and lock on to the defenders.

There is a ton of material on Gibbs on the net. I've long had the impression that Dorazio tries to emulate his approach to blocking. Inside zone read run play. Extremely detailed technique.

I like zone blocking but do not like cut blocking.

Just IMO ...

[WestCoastJoe]

Dorazio had Figueroa and the OL doing cut blocks in pass protection. They shoot at the legs, then are on the ground as the men run past after Jennings. D'oh Stay on your feet. Lock on. You cannot lock on when you are on the ground. ''Look out, Jon, here come the cut blocks.''

Screenshot_20180609-021236.png

isn't the purpose of that blocking scheme on the play is to get the ball out quickly, Jennings might have hung on to it for to long

Cut blocking on a pass play is a head shaker to me.

Figueroa's man kept his feet as did the others. It was a jail break pass rush. Blockers on the ground. Pass rushers in hot pursuit of the QB.

Others fault JJ10 for sacks. Not me. I've seen that play a few times. Instant pressure on the QB.

Other than sending a message to the DL, Be Wary, imo cut blocking on a pass play is inappropriate and ineffective.

Just IMO.

Re zone blocking and angle blocking, about which I have posted numerous times, here is information on Alex Gibbs. I first heard about angle blocking at a coaching clinic downtown in the early 1980s.

Cut blocking on a run play can be very effective, but dangerous to the defender.

Angle blocking is very effective.

https://www.google.com/search?q=alex+gi ... e&ie=UTF-8

[maxlion]

One positive sign for the defense was the points off of turnovers. If we can be positive in the turnover department, that will be a big improvement over last year.

Otherwise, I wasn't too impressed with the defense given that they were up against a Winnipeg's second stringers. Washington's defenses have shown flashes of excellence throughout the years, but no real consistency or year-by-year improvement. I don't think it's a matter of being aggressive. It just seems that our weaknesses get exposed too easily, especially when it matters most.