Thanks for posting it David. Its an excellent analysis that is balanced and reflects football knowledge and insight.
I particularly took note of his comments regarding Jarious Jackson.
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Out of all the coaches in the league, the one who should be most firmly on the hot seat is Lions’ offensive coordinator Jarious Jackson. As much as the players have struggled, Jackson’s monotonous play calling has set them up for failure.
It has been a familiar refrain in Vancouver. Once again, Jackson failed to establish the run game for an offensive line built to be physical road graders. He took a quarterback under continuous pressure and gave him slow developing deep routes.
Jackson’s play calling has left Reilly a sitting duck, with no attempt to roll him out of the pocket or discourage blitz through screens and hot routes.
Lions’ followers were anticipating a season of excitement, with shiny weapons on offence and the best gunslinger in the league. Instead, they’ve been treated to an offence that doesn’t challenge defences schematically.
J. C. Abbott
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I think its very important that accountability for our Leos poor performances offensively be appropriate and balanced.
PLAYER SCAPEGOATING A COMMON THEME
As I highlighted in a previous post on this thread, in the past, making a player a scapegoats has been a common theme. It can be an easy thing to do for some people, wishing to target one person for their frustration.
After all, most of us fans had the opportunity learn from the best, as Wally Buono was the Zen Master of scapegoating and blame.
Last season Jonathan Jennings got a dose of that from Jarious and Hervey and Travis Lulay, Jeremiah Johnson, and Chris Rainey got a dose of it from Wally. It was also an attempt to deflect away from Jarious Jackson's dismal RPO offensive scheme and Jarious' coaching performance. Well, Jennings, Lulay, Johnson and Rainey are not here and the results so far have been worse, even with all the expensive free agent signings on offence.
DURON CARTER IS AN EASY SCAPEGOAT
Duron Carter has become a lightning rod for criticism from some and perhaps is being scapegoated too much. While I did not want us to sign Duron and also believe that it would be best for us to go with a different International in his place, by no means is Duron Carter mostly responsible for our pathetic offensive showings this season so far.
Going into the Edmonton contest, we had been least successful, in terms of completions, throwing to Brian Burnham, who has been well covered often this season, dispite being given prime routes based upon combination pass route design. Carter has mostly been used as a possession style receiver and been given the same type of 'plug and play routes' that Davier Posey and Ricky Collins were given last season.
While I don't blame Carter for our offensive woes, I believe we need a different style of International reciever to compliment Burnham. At the risk of signing another Eskimo, if Duke Williams became available, he is the type of receiver that I believe would compliment Burnham best.
OFFENSIVE LINE PLAY HAS BEEN OFFENSIVE
Duron Carter also doesn't protect Mike Reilly on most plays. The problem of our quarterback taking so many sacks is not a new problem. Defenses run and pass blitzed our offence all last season too and Jarious has no clue as to how to attack a blitzing defense. The problem is that his RPO offence invites that type of defense to be played against us.
But the blocking of Brett Boyko has been miserable. Foucault struggled at left tackle after Figuroa went down with injury. Our best offensive line play this season was when we played Calgary and had Figuroa at left tackle, Steward at left guard, Roy at center, Chungh at right guard, and Foucault at right tackle. Its the only time we have used that offensive line combination.
Against Calgary our offence scored 32 points as Reilly completed 86% of his passes for 354 yds. and two touchdowns. We only gave up 2 sacks in the contest.
So, what did we do? The next game, we went back to Boyko at tackle and Foucault at left guard. Why stick with something that works when we can go to something that doesn't work and then stick with something that doesn't work.
SACKS ARE NOT ALWAYS 'ON' THE OFFENSIVE LINE - ITS NOT THAT SIMPLE
But sacks are not always attributable to offensive lineman. The scheme is so important and on second down plays we have too many slow developing plays as well as too many receivers running deep routes. On first down, we often go RPO and the defense just overplays our short routes. Our offence has no balance....its either quick slant or out plays or wide screens on first down and long developing second down plays with no hot routes.
Sacks are also attibutable to the running back and as this article points out, White has not done a good job of picking up blitzers. Why we don't go two back set or tight end set mroe often with Mackie is puzzling. He is a good blocker and a good receiver. But Jarious likes spreading it out for his RPO scheme.
THE KEYS TO OUR OFFENCE
If I was given the keys to the offence for a day, I would
1) be bringing in a third International receiver
2)going with a starting offensive line configured of Figuroa, Steward, Roy, Chungh, and Kneval on the offensive line, with Foucault and Boyko as backups (and trading one of them), and
3) using more tight end and two back sets, taking advantage of Mackie's skill set.
But really, while some personnel changes could help our offence, they would not solve the 'elephant in the room' that our Leos brain trust will not take on and that is Jarious Jackson's offensive scheme and play calling.
WE DIDN'T NEED TO KEEP JACKSON AS OUR OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR
I don't buy into the concept we had to keep Jackson as our offensive coordinator this season. We could have said goodbye to Marcus Howell as our receivers coach. We could have named Jackson our 'passing game coordinator' and had him work with our quarterback and receivers. The passing game coordinator is just a fancy title that Jackson had in Edmonton and Regina but in reality he was just the quarterback coach.
We didn't need to hire Drew Tate and could have gone ahead and hired Chui (offensive line) and Nic Lewis (running backs). The salary that we spent on Howell and Tate could have been used to hire an offensive coordinator for this season. The reality is that Ed Hervey wanted Jarious Jackson as our offensive coordinator for this season. He went to the wall for Jackson last season and wanted him back this year in that same role.
WE PRESENTLY HAVE 5 OFFENSIVE COACHES
We presently have five ofensive coaches in Jarious Jackson, Brian Chui, Marcus Howell, Drew Tate, and Nik Lewis and this 'offensive' coaching staff is involved in coaching an offence comprised of a former MOP Grey Cup winning quarterback, two experienced tailbacks, three veteran receivers in Burnham, Carter, and Durant, and an offensive line comprised of three established veteran offensive lineman in Figuroa, Steward, and Chungh (along with two highly rated offensive lineman in Foucault and Boyko who were good enough to get NFL contracts)
Yet, somehow, with that amount of talent and experince, Jarious Jackson, with a bevy of assistant coaches helping him, can't conjure up one touchdown in a home game against a team that had its roster decimated last season.
WRAP
Until we deal with the 'elephant in the room', personnel changes will only improve our offence to a certain degree. In other words, we can renovate as many rooms as we wish to, or put an addition on, but until we have a solid foundation, the house is not going to be solid.
Until we change our schme and play calling and game planning on offence, there will be stuggles. Like last season, there will be a good game here and there that will entice us, as players make special plays or play 'above their heads'.
But like last season's embarrasing playoff loss in Hamilton, we still have the same equation and that equation is our offensive scheme and the man leading that equation is none other than Jarious Jackson, who mysteriosly still has the keys to our offence and is driving it the way he wants to, dispite dismal and embarssing results for 24 games and counting.
