WestCoastJoe wrote:
Re Friday night ...
Did Wally go all the way back to total conservatism in his philosophy? It kind of looks like it. Ultra soft zone defence. No midgame adjustments. Lack of pressure on the QB. Predictable offence. Lack of specific, detailed planning for a particular opponent. Rolling out the same old, same old can flatten a team's morale.
I hope not. I hope it was more of a one off. Bad game. On to the next.
Is the OL product more of what we have seen from Dan Dorazio over the years? Including many periods of poor run blocking, poor pass protection, and player confusion.
How fast did Kirby Fabien regress?
How fast did Hunter Steward hit the skids?
Has Charles Vaillancourt already experienced confusion as an OL In this system?
Adcock for Johnson? O'Neill for Steward?
........
Too early for these reflections? Nah. In pro sports you are as good as your last game.
Detailed planning is the modus operandi in the CFL these days. MW and Khari can do it. So do it. (Dave D sure did it with the Stampeders. It is a chess game.)
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Football is a chess game. It's the sport with the most complex strategies. Its so much more than blocking, tackling, passing, receiving, kicking, and returning. Football is so complex because every play is planned over and over again. Football is the only game game that has only set plays, so therefore the highest level of planning is required.
As with every team sport, talent is important. Motivation and team discipline play are factors in winning. The quarterback position is crucial for executing each offensive play and the options within each play. All specialized positions play a role within a team sport. But in no other team sport does coaching, offensive and defensive systems, game planning, and play calling play as important a role as in football.
In the CFL, the talent level between most teams is not significantly different. On any Friday or Saturday night, most teams can beat another.
Videotape and advanced statistics enable teams to study the tendencies of their opposition and also their own tendencies. Knowing the tendencies of the opposing team is an advantage, sometimes a significant advantage.
When a football team like our B.C. Lions has used the same offensive playbook since late 2004 with some minor variations, it becomes predictable. In fact we have been a predictable team for a long time. Its been a factor in why we've suffered so many playoff losses, when we had more talent for most of those playoff games. A quarterback like a Jonathan Jennings may attack more often downfield than say a Travis Lulay did in 2013 or a Kevin Glenn did in 2014, but both were executing the same plays. Jeremiah Johnson is still running the same inside zone read play, with zone blacking as Andrew Harris did during his time in B.C.
The best teams are always changing or adding wrinkles to their schemes. Take the Calgary game. Play action to their tailback froze our linebacker. Calgary receivers cleared out. Rob Cote, Calgary's fullback, went in motion inside, then stepped back outside to block, and then slipped out to the flat and was wide open.
The best coaches don't stay married to a philosophy for too long. We've had the same basic philosophy on offence since 2004. The best examples of teams that have been successful because they did not stay married to an offensive philosophy for too long are John Hufnagel of the Calgary Stampeders and Bill Bellicheck of the New England Patriots.
John Hufnagel introduced the spread offence to the CFL as an offensive coordinator in Calgary. It was a pass first offence. But after returning to the CFL as Head Coach and GM of Calgary, in 2008, Hufnagel's offence became built around a successful running attack, with power backs such as Reynods and Cornish making life difficult. Calgary made variations to its passing attack every season. Dave Dickenson, as offensive coordinator of Calgary said “When I first came in the league, I had this opinion that he was a trendsetter. He was very creative offensively, and he was coming up with new ideas. “I don’t think anything has changed now I’m working with him as a coach.”
Bill Belichick's ability to adapt is his defining trait as a Head Coach. That includes changing the plan during a game, during a season and during the team-building phase of the offseason.They are a game plan football team, looking for smart, versatile players that can help the team to shapeshift on a weekly basis depending on their opponent. They adjust their offensive philosophy to their personnel more than any other team in the NFL.
In 2004 they won the SuperBowl as a power running team behind Corey Dillon. In 2005 they were a pass first team out of pro sets. In 2007 they introduced the spread offence and bombed away. In 2008 they were a ball control offence. In 2010 they became a two tight end team with Hernandez and Gronkowski. In 2012, they created problems for NFL defenses unprepared for their hurry up temp offence. They were back to being a power running offence in 2013. In 2014 and 2015 they came out of the shotgun and used a lot of direct snaps under center and employed a lot of single tight end, spreading Gronkowski out wide often for advantageous matchups.
In B.C. for almost a decade and a half, with the exception of 2007 and the variations of 2011/2012, we've used a cookie cutter approach. Have a mobile quarterback like a Printers, a Pierce, a Lulay, or a Jennings, and we still kept them or keep them in a pocket passing spread offence.
The salary cap changed things in the CFL. Coaching became even more important. Calgary was successful due to the work of Hufnagel. Trestmann inmovated in Montreal. Kent Austin changed Hamilton's fortunes. Ottawa went from a struggling expansion team to a very competitive team playing in the Grey Cup after one season under Rich Campbell.
Buono brings presence as a Head Coach. Jonathan Jennings is a young talent at quarterback. We have a lot of very good players on this Leos team. We got off to an excellent start this season. But if we want to be a consistent winner, we just can't out execute the opposition. It takes more than that to win regularly in today's CFL.
"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)
