What a sad performance by our Leos team. Our offence stunk, our defense was shredded by Montreal's run, and we lost to a Montreal team that had not beaten us in B.C. Place for 15 years..and this was not a team coached by Don Matthews or with Anthony Cavillo at quarterback or Ben Cahoon receiving or Mike Pringle running the football. We had outscored 163-30 since 2010 and this was an Als team with Cato and not Cavillo at quarterback.
The problems with our Leos team are deep and comprehensive. There are serious problems with organizational leadership (Skulsky, Buono), coaching,schemes, personell, and team chemistry and coaching and player leadership. This is not going to get righted by a couple of NFL cuts who are integrated into the lineup mid-season.
Looking at last nights game, which was supposed to be a 'statement game' after our blowout loss to Hamilton, and what has happened to this team over the past two seasons, here are a few thoughts.
ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP and SCHEME
This is not a Bobby Ackles led football team. Our Leos enjoyed so much success after Ackles arrived and began to make the changes this organization needed. Buono gets most of the credit for our Leos turn around from 2003-2007 but it was Ackles blue print and it's missing.
With Ackles no longer running the ship our Leos continued to get worse and worse from 2008 to early 2011. But Shivers brought in enough good players and our assistant coaches coached well enough to get things turned around in 2011. Chap changed the offence part way through 2011 and got us out of the old Calgary spread offence that Wally had always insisted he use because Wally was plain desperate and finally allowed him to.
On defense, we had such a good defensive line in 2011 and such good defensive backs in Banks, Marsh, and Phillips, that even Benvedes couldn't ruin. things. Lulay thrived in our offensive scheme in 2011, Harris got a chance due to injury, our defensive line created great pressure, and we began to win and win all the way to the Grey Cup. Wally retired wisely. Fans and media had been calling for his head and the Grey Cup victory allowed us to forget our Leos erosion under Wally from 2008 until that season.
In 2012, a fateful decision was made to hire Benevedes as our Head Coach. However we had talent, Stubler was hired as DC and our defense that season went on to set records and our offence continued to thrive in Chap's new scheme. It was the best offence in the CFL in 2012. But what was obscured was the fact that Benevedes was in over his head as a Head Coach.
In 2013, with Lulay beginning the season with his shoulder still injured and getting hurt part way through that season, with Dorazio doing a terrible job with our running attack, our offence slid. But it was still a very good scheme and our offence looked one hell of a lot better with a rookie in DeMarco than it has ever since. We finished that regular season with Stulber leading a top CFL defense and our offence looked very good to end the 2013 season.
But instead of making the decision that needed to be made at the end of 2013, with another playoff loss, and firing Benevedes, Buono scapegoated Stulber and Chapdelaine. Its been a downhill slide since and that slide continues and continues.
Mark Washington is no Stubler, to make an understatement. Our offence, back to the spread offence in 2014 under Khari Jones 2014 and more spread offence under Cortez in 2015 has looked predictable and awful. This version of the spread offence under Cortexz looks even worse than the edition we used last year under Khari Jones. Give our present Leos Chapdealine's offensive scheme that he ran here from 2011 to 2013 and our offence would be so much better, especially with Malone coaching the offensive line. Lulay needs that type of offence - one that has a lot of misdirection and motion in it. He is not a pocket passing spread offence style of quarterback. The Riders have the best offence in the CFL this season, even handicapped by Dorazio and using Glenn and a third string quarterback.
The said part is that Tedford, whom we thought would usher in new schemes, has not done so. We're stuck in the most boring spread offence we've seen since 2005 and we're stuck in the most passive defensive scheme we've seen in the Buono era.
We also don't adjust. Montreal last night stuffed our run (Harris had 33 yds on 11 carries) because their defense overplayed our run game and Andrew Harris. That was not the fault of our offensive line or Harris. They blitzed and we couldn't take advantage. That was mostly the fault of our scheme. On offence, Montreal ran and ran and our defensive scheme and play calling did not adjust. Roh is not a defensive tackle and Brooks is not a nose tackle and we did nothing to help them.
This is just plain bad incompetence.
PERSONNEL
There is no question that we need a dynamic go to receiver. Arsenault is a number two receiver but he is not the guy who can lead our receiving corps. We don't have a stud defensive pass rushing end. We lack a top notch free safety. Lulay doesn't look like the Lulay of 2011 and most of 2012.
But this team is nowhere near as bad, personel wise, as we are playing. Even lacking a go to primary receiver, a top notch rush end, and a high calibre free safety there is talent on this Leos team. Travis Lulay showed that he can still play. He completed 33 passes against the Riders and threw very well in that game. He showed his stuff at the end of the game, in his comeback win against the Eskimos. He showed his ability to run the football out of the zone read play earlier this season and showed his ability to escape a rush last night at times against the Als.
Lulay had thrown 8 interceptions, while tossing only 5 touchdownsin his last 4 games before playing the Als. This is so uncharacteristic for Lulay. In 2011 and 2012, Chap had Lulay throwing the ball out of bounds on plays where the percentages were not good. Now Lulay is trying to make throws that he wouldn't attempt to make in the past.
Last night against the Als, we ran very few crossing patterns. When we did they were successful, as in Arsenaults' touchdown. We did't run the screen pass. We kept Harris in to block almost all game. Christ, Harris was *beeotch* when Chap kept him in to block half the time in 2013 against the Montreal blit z. I wonder how Harris is feeling right now that he was kept in for almost the whole game to block against Montreal.
We used no check downs against Montreal, no hot reads, and we didn't move the pocket or use motion or misdirection against the Montreal blitz. Montreal sent 8 blitzers at times against 6 blockers. Overall, our offensive line did a great job and Lulay threw quickly or escaped and did a good job as well but our scheme and play calling was horrible, our pass patterns poorly designed to combat a blitz, and we handicapped ourself.
On defense, we gave up over 250 yards rushing against a team that we knew wanted to run against us and wanted to throw sparingly. We didn't adjust at all. But we had placed our defense in a bad spot to begin with because we are so undersized at the tackle position. Brooks is a good defensive tackle but he is undersized to play nose guard. Roh is a defensive end/linebacker who is being expected to play defensive tackle at 260 pounds with no experience at the position. Westerman is being expected to play defensive end with no experience at the position. Bazzie is an undersized defensive end at 228 pounds (that is small for a linebacker these days) and he is rotated at defensive end with an aging Smith. This is so stupid its incredulous.
So offences are blowing out our defensive line in the run game and our linebackers, focused on pass defense, are making tackles 10 yards downfield when they can.
On special teams, we not only discarded Stefan Logan, who looked great last night on special teams and Brown as well, which is all well and good, if we had been able to replace either one but we haven't. Antolin is not the guy nor was Tillman before him and McMann continues to give us bad punt return blocking and bad downfield coverage.
As Joystick Logan said before the game, our Leos made the decision to release him and `we would have to live with it`. Last night we did and the result was not fun.
Watching the Als use so much misdirection on offence and also use Logan as a slot for reverses and as a tailback as well at times, was very good use of personnel. Iwish we would do the same with our offence. Watching Montreal use so much misdirection and motion was disheartening.
Our Leos are miusing our personnbel. Our scheme does not use Lulays' strengths or our reciver's strengths. They are not vertical style receivers except for Arsenault. We misuse our tight end as a slot back. We should be integrating Lawrence's speed on reverses in our offence. We misuse Roh and Westerman. We misuse Bighill and we were misuing Eliminian before he got injured.
We should be using Lawrence and Iannuzzi as punt returners.
Our Leos are not using our players strengths. Even worse, we are misusing them.
COACHING AND PLAYER LEADERSHIP and TEAM CHEMISTY
Players like Dante Marsh, Korey Banks, Stefan Logan, and Erik Taylor were leaders who complimented leaders like Travis Lulay. Geroy Simon could be narcissistic but he also role demanded performance from teammates. We haven't replaced that leadership. Andrew Harris is a talent but he is not a player who has the type of leadership ability as a Korey Banks. Manny Arsenault should be a leader on offence but he is not. Leaders elevate those around them.
The team chemistry that Benevedes ruined and Wally badly hurt due to his treatment of vets and his controlling ways has not changed. Its obvious watching this Leos team that this is not a together team. Tedford has not been able to create a new chemistry that is conducive to winning and coaches like Cortez, McMann, and Washington are not going to be able to play an important role in helping to create a new chemistry from the coaching position.
Lacking both coaching and player leadership, this is a team that looks listless too often. Hampered by schemes and personell decisions, lacking talent in a couple of key spots, and absent quality leadership from top to bottom, from organizational leadership to coaching leadership to player leadership. this is a Leos squad that is floundering.
However, with some key scheme changes and a few personell changes, this Leos team could be very competitive. Get Lulay out of the spread, use our tight end properly, change our pass patterns so that our possession recievers could thrive, introduce some motion, misdirection, and anti-blitz strategies and our offence could be so much better.
Put Westerman at tackle, Roh at defensive end,, and use a big nose tacklke and we could stop the run and get better pressure on. Let our defensive backs, who can ball hawk, play more aggressively, and we could be much better on defense than allowing teams to shred us with the run or take all day to throw the football.
Stupid is doing the same things over and over again when they are not working. Right now, we are doing so many stupid things with the personnel that we have, that we don't even know how good they could be, if used our personnell propertly, let alone feature their strengths. All you have to do is look at our early 2011 season. We changed our scheme on offence after starting the season badly, made a couple of personnel changes, and voila, and our offence rolled. A the same time, on defense, all we did was change our defensive line scheme and we started to get huge pressure and our defense, which still used a boring pass defense scheme, became dominant. Winning, like losing, can become contagious.
WRAP
Something better change quickly and cutting a player (Wally's favorite strategy) as a scapegoat is not going to do it. A Pee Wee football coach would not be using his personell this badly or using schemes that so baldy fit his personnell.
Fans are going to walk away, as they have been continuing to do and some of them will not be back. Tedord said its time for some serious soul searching and that goes right to the top as well.
It had better happen and quickly!!!
"When I went to Catholic high school in Philadelphia, we just had one coach for football and basketball. He took all of us who turned out and had us run through a forest. The ones who ran into the trees were on the football team". (George Raveling)
Time for change at the top.
