Lionbackers.com

Despite the doom and gloom, there are some things to build on.

* Lemar Durant is having a breakout year. The Coquitlam native sits 6th in receiving yards (Bryan Burnham is 3rd) and is tied for the league lead with 4 receiving TDs.

* After a slow start, John White IV is proving to be a viable dual-threat. I like his speed and elusiveness that he showed earlier in his career before the injuries mounted. The 4.8 yard average isn't anything special, but he started very slowly and had a 138 yards along the ground against the Argos. He gets better with the more touches he's given.

* Sergio Castillo is tied for 3rd in field goals (12), with the lone miss the 42-yarder against the Argos on the 2nd attempt, after the offside call on Mat Boesen. He hit a 52-yarder last game.

* Overall, we have held opposing quarterbacks to under 300 passing yards in all games except McLeod Bethel-Thompson who passed for 303 yards.

* Lately too, we have been much more stingy against the run. CJ Gable only ran for 68 yards last week. James Wilder ran for 33 (with 19 coming on their final drive when Chris Edwards slipped setting off a chain of events), and Calgary as a team only ran for 30 yards.


DH

Felions are great as usual!

We don't live in Regina.

The positives thus far.....

That is all.

Regina's stadium looked very nice.

Fajardo looked awesome.

The Lions? Not good.

I get to say "I told you so" about a GM with an Eskimo fetish?

Reilly is still alive

Another game closer to the end of this pathetic season.

Again, for all of our grousing about the defence (and it has been justified, believe me) we have only given 300+ passing yards to one quarterback, and that was McLeod Bethel-Thompson with 303 yards (many of those yards coming on that late 4th quarter drive).

We just seem to break down at the wrong times and give up the easy plays, especially in the 4th quarter. But considering we put almost NO pressure on opposing QBs, I find this to be a remarkable stat.


DH

That may have been the best performance by the O-line since the Calgary game. I think there is something to build on with this 5-man group. The longer this group can stay together, the better we will be. Time of possession was 37:01 to 22:59 (which makes it sting even more!).

Norman had a couple of bad snaps, one proving very costly. The other sacks can hopefully be avoided with better communication, timing, and repetition. I thought the run blocking against Hamilton was excellent. Huge holes for Whyte.


DH

I'd be concerned about Reilly's ankle, could slow any positive building

Honestly, I can't really see any right now. The team is in a shambles, fans on this board are sniping at each other in uncharacteristic ways, attendance looks to be dwindling. There are players who are starting to look like they are finding a groove and I'm glad of that but when you are saying that half way into the season and it is limited to a small handful of names, it kinds of gets dwarfed in the greater pot porri of awfulness.

This year looks to be one of the worst in Lion's history if the trend continues and what is truly scary is that many of our losses are coming at the hands of teams playing essentially rookie QB's. Ottawa's team was dissected in the off season and they are playing better. Sask lost their starting QB at the beginning of the season and they are on a win streak. The Stamps are playing their second stringer and have suffered a raft of injuries and they are still in the hunt for first in the west. Montreal which has had a string of awful years looked to be putting it together finally until their QB got whacked. Hamilton as well has lost their starting QB and are still managing to make their way. Toronto is alone perhaps in being as bad and truthfully in a head to head comparison, I think their team overall has more upside at this point than ours. Especially now that Reilly has been hobbled.

I had said a couple of weeks ago that I thought the Lions were going to be hard pressed to win 5 games this year. I'm not so sure that number wasn't too high to hope for. At this point, I'm thinking more along the lines of 3 games.