B.C. at Calgary Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021

[B.C.FAN]

Flintoft was mainly a punter at UCLA but he competed at both punter and placekicker in training camp. His leg is as strong as anyone's but the Lions handed the placekicking duties to Yamasaki fairly early in camp and left Flintoft to compete with Jake Ford for punting duties. I thought Flintoft was a more consistent punter than Ford but the latter improved as camp went on.

[KnowItAll]

What good is Butler??

[TheLionKing]

Unfortunately both the place kicker and punter are Global players. If the Lions choose to replace one or both, it will require some roster juggling and Global players to replace the ones they let go. Don't think they have any other Global players on the practice roster.

[KnowItAll]

I would not be too quick to write off Jake Ford yet. At least he can tackle.

[Rammer]

Looks like the Lions require a tackling punter given the coverage tonight.

[B.C.FAN]

CFL teams need to dress only one Global player this year. The Lions have been using two Global kickers. They also have Global DT Nik Gustav on the practice roster.

[Reg18]

I take back every negative words or thoughtsvabout Michael Reilly. I was wrong and he has demonstrated one most important qualities a player needs to succeed. His leadership was on full display. Our defense is looking great but there is potentionally more upside for them as they get used to working within our system one thing that is very obvious our recruiting is sure paying big returns with new players contributing all overt the field. And that's on our Hc. Things will get even better as the games go on. We might be on the verge of a dynasty! Make room on the bandwagon its a good time to be a lions fan.

[Belize City Lion]

Why not punt for a single point? I get that coach Campbell probably had no confidence in his FG kicker, and a missed FG might result in a big return. But from the 35 it should be no problem to either punt the ball out of the end zone or kick it deep enough that the returner concedes a single point, which would have given the Lions a 7 point lead. Instead, the Lions turned the ball over on downs and essentially gave Calgary possession on the 35 for free.

[Sir Purrcival]

Not to mention that a punt or fg is going to shave a few more seconds off the clock.

[DanoT]

Is the D, that hasn't allowed a TD in 6 quarters while playing against QBs and OCs that are among the best in the CFL, playing above their heads?

The Lions have 2 returning experienced DBs in Lee and Peters and one former LB, now returning Lion, in Lokumbo and one former all star DB, Sayles, new to the Lions and playing out of position at Free Safety. All the rest of the starters on D are either raw rookies or are new to the CFL, having previously had a cup of coffee in the NFL.

Is it coincidental that Co-Gm, HC, DC, Rick Campbell has seen this picture before when he coached and help draft an expansion team that got to the GC is their second season?

[Lion Guy]

Is the D, that hasn't allowed a TD in 6 quarters while playing against QBs and OCs that are among the best in the CFL, playing above their heads?

The Lions have 2 returning experienced DBs in Lee and Peters and one former LB, now returning Lion, in Lokumbo and one former all star DB, Sayles, new to the Lions and playing out of position at Free Safety. All the rest of the starters on D are either raw rookies or are new to the CFL, having previously had a cup of coffee in the NFL.

Is it coincidental that Co-Gm, HC, DC, Rick Campbell has seen this picture before when he coached and help draft an expansion team that got to the GC is their second season?

Stayed away from the forum yesterday. Spent the evening and this morning pleasantly eating crow. THAT is the makings of a really good defence. My hat is off to the GMs and coaching staff. Even waiting for a shut down D for years

[cromartie]

Going to echo some thoughts here, having finally had a chance to sit down and watch a game for the first time in, forever.

The defence is really, really good overall. This is a well rebuilt back eight and it shows. I'm not terribly pleased with how the defensive line isn't schemed (wait, let me guess, you're going to rush five and the fifth guy is going to come from the quarterback's right) by that secondary is more than making up for the lack of imagination on the line. I literally have not felt this good about an ascendant defense since 2003.

The offense is a work in progress, but in general it's so refreshing to see a run game that employs a mix of zone and power blocking in the same game and actually gets some push as part of the process. Schematically we've made Reilly a bit more mobile than his last couple of years in Edmonton (or even in 2019) and even if the results don't show up on the scoreboard he's being well schemed, making good decisions and the arm strength is improving as part of the process.

You could buy both kickers plane tickets tomorrow and it would improve the Special Teams considerably, and the lack of confidence in either leads us to making risky decisions. The proper call at the end of this game was to punt the ball out of the back of the end zone for a single to build the lead back to seven. You're not taking the risks on 3rd down you did (especially the 3rd and two run) if you have confidence in your kicker.

I do think the Special Teams talent is better (a testament to improvements in the front office) even if the return coverage isn't great yet (coaching).

If you walked into this year without expectations, this is going to be a hell of a season. If nothing else, Rourke's development and the defensive performance make this team fun to watch for the first time in awhile.

[maxlion]

A good write up on the game by JC Abbott here: https://3downnation.com/2021/08/13/reil ... y-calgary/

Quite an entertaining game despite the low score (though I have a feeling Stamp fans weren't as entertained).

It is surprising how quickly the D has gelled. I am especially impressed with the D Line given that they are mostly rookies and our D Line coach left the team just before training camp. Kudos to Rick Campbell and the other coaches.

I am also impressed with the offensive play calling. This seems like the first year in many that we haven't had controversy about the approach on offence (though it is still early).

[The_Pauser]

I think a lot of credit has to go to Ryan Rigmaiden who returned to the team in November. Our US scouting was always solid when he was here, and I think we can all agree did not look that good after he left. He, and McEvoy have done an excellent job in bringing in good US talent and have completely rebuilt this defense.

The offense is also looking very good. That O-line has continued to look good since Bates took over midway through the 2019 season. Giving Reilly time will unlock the potential with this offense. I'm also super impressed by Lucky Whitehead. I thought Rhymes would be our key #2 receiver behind Burnham, but it's been Whitehead so far. Rhymes is still a big play threat so when D's start keying on Burnham and Whitehead in the future I would look for Rhymes to have a big breakout game.

Only concerns for me right now:

1). FG kicking. Yamasaki isn't good enough to be a FG kicker in this league. Maybe keep him around not he practice roster to see if he's someone you can develop. There might be some potential there, but we need to move on. You could make an argument that his missed FG's and PAT last week cost us the comeback in Saskatchewan. And you can definitely say his kicking last night nearly cost us the game again. I don't know if the answer is to turn it over to Flintoft, or bring in someone else (Justin Medlock is a free agent), but the answer right now is not to go into next week with Yamasaki as the kicker.

2) RB - Chris Rainey definitely looked good in limited time, but I'm not that impressed with Butler. With RB's basically a dime a dozen, how much longer do we want to stick with Butler and the very mediocre production we're getting there? I know Shaq Cooper is our starting RB, though I'm unsure about his injury and when he's expected to return. I would be looking to give Rainey/Lyles more looks, and probably looking at other options as well.

3) Coaching - I know I have harped on people blaming coaching for everything in the past, and while I think the coaching for the most part hasn't been too bad I do have a few complaints about some of the decisions that have been made.

First, the whole QB situation of will he start, won't he start, I'm not a fan of. I get you want to go with your number 1 guy if you can, but if he is injured and can't go you need to make a decision and stick with it. I did not like the decision to only dress 2 QB's last week when one of them basically couldn't throw. And it appeared they were doing the same thing this week (until we saw that Reilly actually could throw which felt like a miracle). I know it's a CFL trend now, but I just hate the idea of only dressing 2 QB's, especially so if you know one is already banged up and the other is a rookie.

Finally, I'm not a fan of his in-game decision making. This is something I questioned when he was in Ottawa too (I recall a game against Calgary where Ottawa was up by 4 with 2 or 3 minutes left, rather than punting out of the end zone he conceded a safety and gave Calgary the ball and opportunity to hit the game winning FG, which they did). I don't at all understand, or like, the call to go for it on 3rd down at the end of the game last night. You're only up by 6 points. A Calgary TD, with how good their kicker is, wins them the game. I do support not going for the FG because of how bad our kicker has been, but at least punt the ball. Whether you want to punt the ball through the end zone for a rouge (and give up field position basically where Calgary started anyway), or punt the ball and try to pin them deep inside their 10, I'll have time for that discussion. But the worst thing they could have done was give up possession where they did without any points at all. The decision to run the ball on 3rd and long was also puzzling since it isn't like the clock is going to keep running after the turnover. The whole sequence of events and decision making, for me, was just bizarre.

[Hambone]

It is surprising how quickly the D has gelled. I am especially impressed with the D Line given that they are mostly rookies and our D Line coach left the team just before training camp. Kudos to Rick Campbell and the other coaches.

While they may count as CFL rookies Kamalu and Gwachum, both starting, are far from being pro rookies. Both bounced around the NFL for 4 or 5 years and both suited up for 15 NFL regular season games.