Lions v Bombers July 9

[David]

Had to laugh at the in-stadium Players Of The Game (I needed SOME comic relief from this debacle!).

Offense - Dominique Rhymes
Defense - Marcus Sayles
Special Teams - Stefan Flintoft

Rhymes, yea he was great. No issue there. But Flintoft? Are you kidding me?? One horrible punt out of bounds in the first quarter. Two failed squib kicks that gave the Bombers great field position, including the back-breaker before the half that led to a field goal.

I haven't watched the replay but Sayles look like he was being picked on.


DH

[tedbear]

Quick Observations

Negatives
Lions seemed flat to start the game.
Defence couldn't stop the run and consistently gave up chunk yards on first down.
Special team coverage was poor.
For the 2nd straight game we struggled to run the ball.

Positives
Although offense was not great they showed that they can put points up against the Bombers
Team continued to play hard and never threw in the towel
Rourke did not play that bad and this kid is a winner and he will continue to get better.

Summary

Bombers came in fired up looking to prove that they are still the top team in the West. Lions did not manage to afford the same amount of energy early on in the contest. Getting behind the eight ball against a team like the Bombers you are not going to come out on top very often. Pretty tough for the offence to claw back you have to play near purrfect football.

In my opinion the turning point was at the end of the 2nd quarter after we scored our 2nd touchdown and we pooch kicked the kick off, giving the bombers great field position and 3 points. We also did this in the 2nd half once again giving the great field position. Kick the ball deep and cover, If they get another great return at least they earned the field position. Coaches seemed to give up on the cover team and by doing so gifted Winnipeg great field position.

When we did get pressure on Collaros he was good and seemed to elude us and make some great plays. They are a good team but take away the Kickoff return and the two field goals we gave them by pooch kicking It would have been a much closer game.

Give credit to the Bombers they came into our house on a short week and took it to us. Today they were the better team. They are not unbeatable and we will get another couple of shots at them.

[Hambone]

Had to laugh at the in-stadium Players Of The Game (I needed SOME comic relief from this debacle!).

Offense - Dominique Rhymes
Defense - Marcus Sayles
Special Teams - Stefan Flintoft

Rhymes, yea he was great. No issue there. But Flintoft? Are you kidding me?? One horrible punt out of bounds in the first quarter. Two failed squib kicks that gave the Bombers great field position, including the back-breaker before the half that led to a field goal.

I haven't watched the replay but Sayles look like he was being picked on.


DH

Rhymes was fairly easy. Sayles recorded a game high 10 tackles. Flintoft was a "process of elimination" pick if not a pure coin toss. Whyte had 2 converts to show for the night leaving it up to a tossup between Flintoft and Ross and Ross never looked threatening. One failed punt, yeah OK. The squib kickoffs were coaching decisions that I hate. You should respect a returner but never kick in fear of him. Kick the damned ball deep and make the coverage unit do its job. Make the opposing return team earn it. Don't gift them the ball close to midfield.

[DanoT]

Better to get handed your lunch than lose a close one and think you are better than you are. The run game and the run stopping game look a lot like last season, but the Bombers do have the best Oline and Dline and LBs in the CFL.

This was not just a statement game by the Bombers but in particular this was Collaros reminding everyone who the real best QB in the league is. That said, I am still quite happy overall with Rourke's play and development.

[cromartie]

A necessary loss as part of the growth process. I’m fine with it.

[David]

Rhymes was fairly easy. Sayles recorded a game high 10 tackles. Flintoft was a "process of elimination" pick if not a pure coin toss. Whyte had 2 converts to show for the night leaving it up to a tossup between Flintoft and Ross and Ross never looked threatening. One failed punt, yeah OK. The squib kickoffs were coaching decisions that I hate. You should respect a returner but never kick in fear of him. Kick the damned ball deep and make the coverage unit do its job. Make the opposing return team earn it. Don't gift them the ball close to midfield.

Ross would have been a far better choice. 16.8 yard average on punt returns, including a 36-yarder. Flintoft has been a disappointment for me this year.

And while I don't root for anyone to lose their job, if Dan Yanowsky were to get canned mid-season, I would not be too upset.



DH

[Hambone]

A necessary loss as part of the growth process. I’m fine with it.

Some of us were talking about that in the concourse post game. LFITQ said as much that a good punch in the nose is good for a young squad starting to feel their oats. It's far better to get knocked down a peg in Week 5 than in the playoffs. I felt this game was as much a test for the Bombers as the Lions. I think we saw a very proud veteran club in the Bombers having heard what the media was tossing out there saying to the young upstarts "not yet Sonny".

[David]

Any idea why the official game stats lists the attendance at 17,603?

It was painfully obvious to anyone who was there that there were many more. I'd say in the 23K range but if it read 24K, I would not have been surprised.

You can even see the full stands on the west side (endzone) and north stands (attached). The concourse was busy and food lines were long.




DH

[Hambone]

I looked at cfldb.stats. They showed 20132 which seems fairly accurate from my perch in 213.

[TheLionKing]

Bombers obviously spotted a weakness in the Lions' coverage team and exploited it. Do not agree with the decision to kick the ball short and squib kicks. You don't want to give the Bombers good starting field position and they made the Lions pay

[aklawitter]

I haven't watched the replay but Sayles look like he was being picked on.


DH

he was. perhaps he learned his lesson - stfu about other teams before you play them

[Ravi]

Had to laugh at the in-stadium Players Of The Game (I needed SOME comic relief from this debacle!).

Offense - Dominique Rhymes
Defense - Marcus Sayles
Special Teams - Stefan Flintoft

Rhymes, yea he was great. No issue there. But Flintoft? Are you kidding me?? One horrible punt out of bounds in the first quarter. Two failed squib kicks that gave the Bombers great field position, including the back-breaker before the half that led to a field goal.

I haven't watched the replay but Sayles look like he was being picked on.


DH

Rhymes was fairly easy. Sayles recorded a game high 10 tackles. Flintoft was a "process of elimination" pick if not a pure coin toss. Whyte had 2 converts to show for the night leaving it up to a tossup between Flintoft and Ross and Ross never looked threatening. One failed punt, yeah OK. The squib kickoffs were coaching decisions that I hate. You should respect a returner but never kick in fear of him. Kick the damned ball deep and make the coverage unit do its job. Make the opposing return team earn it. Don't gift them the ball close to midfield.

Ross had one good punt return which set up the Lions' final TD.

The Lions should be using Lucky Whitehead on at least kickoff and missed FG returns. The man is simply not getting enough touches and he is too dangerous not to be giving him chances with the ball in his hand.

I completely agree on the squib kicks. Horrible "strategizing" by Rick Campbell and/or the special teams coach with those. They were momentum-killers.

[B.C.FAN]

That was a dominant performance in all three phases of the game by a proud Bombers team. It was obvious the Lions were in tough when the Bombers returned the opening kickoff for a TD. Add three interceptions and a fumble for a 4-0 turnover margin, and the Bombers couldn’t
lose.

The Bombers dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, regularly racking up 9 yard carries on first down and holding Butler to 33 yards on 8 carries. Curiously, Nathan Rourke didn’t even try to run the ball and the Lions didn’t try to stretch the field horizontally with jet sweeps, allowing the Bombers to focus exclusively stopping the inside run game by Butler.

Zach Collaros played a masterful game, exploiting the B.C. defence by repeatedly hitting Ellingson underneath the Lions’ soft zone coverage or using his feet to buy time in the pocket and hit Ellingson or Schoen on deeper routes in man coverage. Marcus Sayles was exploited over and over but Ryan Phillips was the real victim. His no-pressure defence had no answer for Collaros and the Winnipeg offence.

We’ve seen the Lions at their best and at their worst in the first four games. Despite showing great promise, they sit in fourth place in the ultra-powerful West and are likely to lose more ground next week during their unfortunately timed second bye of the season. They could really use a bounce-back game. Instead the sting of this loss and the second guessing of their poor play will sit with them for an extra week.

[TheLionKing]

First real test for Ryan Phillips and he failed.

[Lui05]

A necessary loss as part of the growth process. I’m fine with it.

Some of us were talking about that in the concourse post game. LFITQ said as much that a good punch in the nose is good for a young squad starting to feel their oats. It's far better to get knocked down a peg in Week 5 than in the playoffs. I felt this game was as much a test for the Bombers as the Lions. I think we saw a very proud veteran club in the Bombers having heard what the media was tossing out there saying to the young upstarts "not yet Sonny".

I agree completely. I had higher hopes for a more competitive game, but I knew this was going to be a tough match up. As it turned out, we were given a lesson. As the season progresses, we will find out if we learned anything. Based on what I've seen so far this season, I still have high hopes that lessons will be learned.
We played 3 of the weakest teams in the league and completely manhandled them. That's a good sign. We played the best team in the league and never gave up on offense or defense. If they never squib kick another kickoff the rest of the season (clock killing end of game scenarios excepted), I'd say one lesson was learned. Looking forward to the next 2 games to see how they respond. Hopes are still high.

Aside: How many bye weeks does each team have? And I bet CFL really hopes the Schooners materialize some year - it's always better to plan byes into the schedule instead of being dictated to by math.