Lions at Montreal Sept 6, 2019 - Post-game stats and thoughts

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pennw
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Dusty wrote:
Sun Sep 08, 2019 10:41 am
Toppy, it already seems like a VERY long season.... It will be a relief when it finally ends... The start of a new season, with all its built-in positivity, cannot come along soon enough to me.
The key to enjoy a game still to me is stop worrying about getting a win . Just one game at a time , expect a loss and no angst over losing . It's only a game , there is more to life than the game . I used to get stressed from losing but no more .
Dusty
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pennw wrote:
Sun Sep 08, 2019 1:42 pm
Dusty wrote:
Sun Sep 08, 2019 10:41 am
Toppy, it already seems like a VERY long season.... It will be a relief when it finally ends... The start of a new season, with all its built-in positivity, cannot come along soon enough to me.
The key to enjoy a game still to me is stop worrying about getting a win . Just one game at a time , expect a loss and no angst over losing . It's only a game , there is more to life than the game . I used to get stressed from losing but no more .
As I say to my seat mates when we win... "Great game"....
As I say to my seat mates when we lose... "Its a night out"

It's all good!!
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BC 1988
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pennw wrote:
Sun Sep 08, 2019 1:42 pm
The key to enjoy a game still to me is stop worrying about getting a win . Just one game at a time , expect a loss and no angst over losing . It's only a game , there is more to life than the game . I used to get stressed from losing but no more .
Once the playoffs were realistically out of the question (about a month ago) I've had the same mindset. There's no stress, no pressure for me. I'm now more interested in the result these games will have on what happens to the Lions at seasons end.
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BC 1988
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David wrote:
Sat Sep 07, 2019 8:29 am
* Great atmosphere at PM Stadium. We had excellent seats on the 45-yard line (opposite the benches). Music exceptional throughout. Cheerleaders far superior (have both a dance team and co-ed acrobatic cheer squad but the guys are not really noticed - just to launch and catch the females).

* Loved the tarps they have put up. Not noticeable and everyone packed in tight. Felt like more than 17K. Crowd is a mixture of ages....maybe slightly fewer kids than we get but many more 20s and 30s than we see at BCP.

* Hard benches not much of a treat but you don't really notice it after a while due to the great atmosphere.

* One big scoreboard on the north end (small one on the south end) shows the replays but not on every play. No stats! BCP has huge advantage here. However, I feel BCP/Lions have become too reliant on our centrepiece. All they do is show crowd shots but no creative short videos or images.


DH :cool:
Thanks for the game experience perspective. I've been to see NHL and MLB (just before it was gone) there but missed out on an Als game. I had heard that the end zone seating was hard benches, surprising that the more premium seating is also still college level spartan.
I saw this film on DVD last night. Interesting because the stadium is the really the centerpiece of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hochelaga,_Land_of_Souls
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David
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Toppy Vann wrote:
Sun Sep 08, 2019 10:32 am
Nice report from David on the Montreal game experience. From the TV shots, it appears that fans are really into it.
Yes, Toppy, the fans are really into it there. It gets quite loud when the opposition is 2nd and long. The odd part is that you see far fewer Als fans wearing jerseys, merchandise, and team colours than other CFL stadiums.

I also share your frustration with our reluctance to go deep and stretch the field. Ball/clock control is great, and for the most part we did a really good job of converting on our 2nd downs, BUT....you still have to throw intermediate/long once in a while to keep defenders honest.

2019 is all about crappy field position for the Leos. Starting drives inside our 20 due to dumb special teams penalties and getting "out-punted" by the opposition. Chunk plays would help get us out of a hole but instead we painfully dink and dunk out way down the field.


DH :cool:
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Toppy Vann
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pennw wrote:
Sun Sep 08, 2019 1:42 pm
Dusty wrote:
Sun Sep 08, 2019 10:41 am
Toppy, it already seems like a VERY long season.... It will be a relief when it finally ends... The start of a new season, with all its built-in positivity, cannot come along soon enough to me.
The key to enjoy a game still to me is stop worrying about getting a win . Just one game at a time , expect a loss and no angst over losing . It's only a game , there is more to life than the game . I used to get stressed from losing but no more .
You seem like a fan versus a fan-atic who takes it too seriously.

This Lions team though for me is somewhat a perplexing mystery as there is just so much to blame starting from decimating the team of leaders and players to the coaching where the HC is a great guy with a great rep but I don't see his tone and philosophy in place nor see him as that strong leader overall ensuring all sides of the ball are working. Dickenson said he was a delegator but that has to be to those who know what they're doing.
"Ability without character will lose." - Marv Levy
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B.C.FAN
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Ed Willes sums up how this season went wrong.
Beginning with the CFL’s free agency period in February and continuing right through training camp and the regular season, general manager Ed Hervey and head coach DeVone Claybrooks have attempted to recreate a Lions’ team that might have needed some tinkering but didn’t need to be taken down to the studs.

The result? Well, look at the record.

The Lions still aren’t a team so much as they’re a collection of mercenaries who’ve been assembled for this season. As such, they lack the cohesion, the shared experience that creates the collective belief in themselves and each other and that shows up in those game-defining moments.

They had a chance to establish that early on, most notably in a Week 3 loss in Calgary where they blew an 11-point lead in the final two minutes. But in Week 11 they’re still trying to find it and all those losses don’t exactly help the process.

As to who’s to blame for this mess, pick your poison. Hervey has miscalculated on some key players — Carter, Sukh Chungh, Odell Willis — but his larger mistake was in eradicating the Lions’ core from last season, leaving a huge void in the team’s makeup.

In the meantime, look at virtually any roster in the league and you can find former Lions having success: DeVier Posey and Lokombo in Montreal, Winston Rose and Chandler Fenner in Winnipeg, Ricky Collins and A.J. Orange in Edmonton, Loucheiz Purifoy and Cody Fajardo in Saskatchewan.

Consider also Solomon Elimimian, a Lions’ lifer, a leader who was synonymous with the franchise. Yes, at his age and price point he represented a risk. But he’s doing the same thing with the Roughriders this year he did in his nine years with the Lions.

As for Claybrooks, his young, inexperienced staff hasn’t been able to coach up the players who are here and firing offensive line coach Bryan Chiu isn’t going to fix that problem. That staff, with or without Claybrooks, will be subject to major revision next season.
Ed Willes: Can the rebuilt-but-still-broken Lions figure out how to win again?
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DanoT
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1-10 and almost 2/3 of the way thru the season:

"Nothing Rhymes With Orange".....but garbage comes close.
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BC 1988 wrote:
Sun Sep 08, 2019 3:56 pm
pennw wrote:
Sun Sep 08, 2019 1:42 pm
The key to enjoy a game still to me is stop worrying about getting a win . Just one game at a time , expect a loss and no angst over losing . It's only a game , there is more to life than the game . I used to get stressed from losing but no more .
Once the playoffs were realistically out of the question (about a month ago) I've had the same mindset. There's no stress, no pressure for me. I'm now more interested in the result these games will have on what happens to the Lions at seasons end.
Being the eternal optimist who has lived through many bad BC teams in the past I hadn't quite given up on the season going into the Montreal game. However I was also realistic enough to know odds of digging out of the hole rested on knocking off Montreal and riding confidence from that through the next 4 games all against teams that account for Edmonton's only wins against teams not wearing orange. The Esks are 6-1 against Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and BC but zero for the season against the rest of the CFL. In my imaginative mind I could see BC going into the Edmonton game in October riding a 5 game winning streak and sitting at 6-9 while Edmonton would be floundering at 7-8 reeling from losing the back to back games versus Calgary and the pair of upcoming games against Hamilton while edging out Ottawa for what would be their only win over the previous 6 games. Then BC squandered the necessary win in Montreal and I woke up. :wink:
You're as old as you've ever been and as young as you're ever going to be.
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cromartie
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"Offensive line protection was much better in this game than in previous ones."

Please look at the tape. The Lions had a six man line on almost half of the plays. On another 25 percent, the inside slot receiver was lined up in a TE position, standing, to chip block a defensive lineman before leaking into a pass pattern.

More protection isn't necessarily improved protection.

On a 2nd and 18, when you need the ball back to give your offense a chance to win, only rushing three defensive lineman and dropping nine into zone coverage is a recipe for disaster, and yet our defensive brain trust does it every. single. time.
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Toppy Vann
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cromartie wrote:
Wed Sep 11, 2019 4:39 am
"Offensive line protection was much better in this game than in previous ones."

Please look at the tape. The Lions had a six man line on almost half of the plays. On another 25 percent, the inside slot receiver was lined up in a TE position, standing, to chip block a defensive lineman before leaking into a pass pattern.

More protection isn't necessarily improved protection.

On a 2nd and 18, when you need the ball back to give your offense a chance to win, only rushing three defensive lineman and dropping nine into zone coverage is a recipe for disaster, and yet our defensive brain trust does it every. single. time.
Hard to argue with your points!

I keep thinking of the old adage that Jarius and the Lions seem want to defy that goes like this -

More of the same won't give you a different result.

Took in a practice Monday and not much is changing in how they are doing things. Not giving away secrets here but the Lions have to get off this crap of too much happening behind, at or too close to the line of scrimmage to get results.

You didn't mention but other posts suggest dumping Carter. I get it, he has no results but those watching practices will see he runs the routes and turns exactly what they do in practice. The REC coach doesn't step in and correct this - as it's Jarius' show I presume.

At the end of practice I saw Ed Hervey stop by and give tips to Cottoy. Stayed out in the rain with him showing him how to move past a DB close to the LOS.

Defensively that was brutal but it tells you that they've no confidence in their personnel as there's no leader on that defence and no play makers it seems. Just Odell averaging down the front line's performance.
"Ability without character will lose." - Marv Levy
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