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1989

Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 8:38 pm
by D
1989
Buoyed by their Grey Cup appearance in 1988, the Lions entered the 1989 season with optimism. But the team opened with a loss to Edmonton in Commonwealth Stadium, going on to lose three more games before Coach Larry Donovan was released and replaced by General Manager Joe Galat. After dropping their fifth straight game to Edmonton, the Lions put together a four-game winning streak, fueling playoff hopes. However, in games 10 and 11, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers shattered those hopes, rolling over the Leos 53-34 in Winnipeg, and then edging the Lions 24-20 in overtime in Vancouver. The Lions never did get back on track and finished the year with a 7-11 record. The Lions missed the playoffs for the first time since 1982, despite breaking the club's scoring record. Bright spots included Darrell Wallace, who was voted Western Rookie-of-theYear (he was second in the CFL in total offensive yardage) and wide receiver David Williams, who made the Western All-Star Team.

West Division Team GP W L T PF PA Pts
Edmonton Eskimos 18 16 2 0 644 302 32
Calgary Stampeders 18 10 8 0 495 466 20
Saskatchewan Roughriders 18 9 9 0 547 567 18
British Columbia Lions 18 7 11 0 521 557 14

East Division Team GP W L T PF PA Pts
Hamilton Tiger-Cats 18 12 6 0 519 517 24
Toronto Argonauts 18 7 11 0 369 428 14
Winnipeg Blue Bombers 18 7 11 0 408 462 14
Ottawa Rough Riders 18 4 14 0 426 630 8

Semi-Finals - Saskatchewan 33 - Calgary 26
Semi-Finals - Winnipeg 30 - Toronto 7

Finals - Saskatchewan 32 - Edmonton 21
Finals - Winnipeg 10 - Hamilton 14

Grey Cup - Saskatchewan 43 - Hamilton 40

Re: 1989

Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 10:32 am
by Robbie
For some reason, everybody seems to criticize and ridicule the 1990 season much more than the preceding 1989 season even though IMHO, both seasons could be considered very bad and disorganized. In 1990, the team went 6-11-1 for 13 points and went through three coaches. But the 1989 team was also a huge disappointment as after a Grey Cup appearance, the team went 0-5 to start the season which costed Larry Donovan his job. The team missed the playoffs for the first time in seven years with a 7-11 for 14 points record and that also costed Joe Galat his coach/GM job. Yet, that bad 1989 season seems to be totally overshadowed by the 1990 season, which everybody seems to want to criticize instead. Why is that? :???:

In another message, someone said that team went to a nosedive when Dunigan left. But with Matt Dunigan, remember that in his second and final season as a Lion in 1989, the Lions finished 7-11 for 14 points while in 1990 after he left, the team finished roughly in the same position at 6-11-1 for 13 points, so it wasn't exactly a nosedive.

Re: 1989

Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 9:49 am
by Robbie
A great news article on the firing of Larry Donovan by Joe Galat after the Lions went 0-4 to start off the 1989 season.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=W- ... 61,5084765

Re: 1989

Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 7:49 am
by Robbie
Robbie wrote:For some reason, everybody seems to criticize and ridicule the 1990 season much more than the preceding 1989 season even though IMHO, both seasons could be considered very bad and disorganized. In 1990, the team went 6-11-1 for 13 points and went through three coaches. But the 1989 team was also a huge disappointment as after a Grey Cup appearance, the team went 0-5 to start the season which costed Larry Donovan his job. The team missed the playoffs for the first time in seven years with a 7-11 for 14 points record and that also costed Joe Galat his coach/GM job. Yet, that bad 1989 season seems to be totally overshadowed by the 1990 season, which everybody seems to want to criticize instead. Why is that? :???:
Repeating what I said earlier, it seems like the 1989 season was spared in terms of bad seasons in Lions history and with that, comes three players that may have since been forgotten: Anthony Parker, Eugene Mingo, and Bernie Glier

Re: 1989

Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2012 11:03 am
by Robbie
Seasons in which the Lions don't make the playoffs are always bad seasons, and the last four time the Lions didn't make the playoffs were 1989, 1990, 1992, and 1996. While there's lots of criticisms of 1990, 1992, 1996 the 1989 season seemed to be spared from criticism despite the fact that the Lions had come off a GC appearance in 1988 and it was the first time in 7 years the Lions didn't qualify for the playoffs.

Perhaps one reason is because offensively, they were still a very good team. Matt Dunigan had a decent first year as a Lion in 1988 with 268 completions for 3776 years, and 1989 was even better with 331 completions for 4509 yards. Statistically in his 14 CFL seasons, that was 3rd best after 334 completions for 4682 for the Blue Bombers in 1993, and ironically his best season was in 1995 when he had 362 completions for 4911 yards, but in both cases his team couldn't advance much in the playoffs. And also ironically in his two Grey Cup seasons in 1987 and 1991, he passed for less than 2990 yards. And also ironically in 1989 the team set a then-record for 521 PF. It was a terrible defense partly caused by losing three core defensive players from the completion of the Dunigan trade that caused this bad season as the team also set a then-record of 557 PA.

Just like the 2011 team, the 1989 team started off 0-5 and started to rebound with 4 straight wins at 4-5 at the halfway point. But unlike the 2011 team they couldn't continue the momentum and miss the playoffs with a 7-11 record.

Saskatchewan 42 at BC 37:

Throughout the three seasons from 1987 to 1989 in Saskatchewan, there was still a lot of indecisiveness as to whether Kent Austin or Tom Burgess will be the started QB.

BC 38 at Hamilton 44:

This was the loss that costed Larry Donovan's job as he was fired after starting off 0-4.

Edmonton 33 at BC 13:

Things didn't change right away on Joe Galat's first game as head coach. And I think this is the first time that the Lions wore both orange jerseys and pants in a game.

BC 11 at Calgary 51:


These are not Lions clips but I'll show them since I'd say these playoff games were notable:

EDSF - Winnipeg 30 at Toronto 7:

Even though Sean Salisbury quarterbacked the Blue Bombers to the 1988 GC and led in passing yardage in the east division in 1989, he had serious problems with Cal Murphy and walked away from the team just before the start of the playoffs. His replacement was Lee Saltz who played adequately to upset Toronto and almost upset Hamilton in the EDF as well. But that wasn't enough for him to get a starting position in 1990 as he was replaced by Tom Burgess.

WDF - Saskatchewan 32 at Edmonton 21:

In my most unbiased opinion, I would say this is the biggest CFL playoff upset ever - bigger than even the 1994 WDF. At least the Lions did have a fairly good team in the regular season at 11-6-1, whereas the Roughriders did indeed have a very mediocre season at 9-9 and had it not been for the Lions bad season Saskatchewan probably wouldn't have made the playoffs. They were up against the goliath 16-2 team that appeared to be invincible led by MOP Tracy Ham. But at Commonwealth, the Roughriders captured a fair and square, convincingly win over the Eskimos.

Re: 1989

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 1:51 pm
by Robbie
Robbie wrote:In my most unbiased opinion, I would say this is the biggest CFL playoff upset ever - bigger than even the 1994 WDF. At least the Lions did have a fairly good team in the regular season at 11-6-1, whereas the Roughriders did indeed have a very mediocre season at 9-9 and had it not been for the Lions bad season Saskatchewan probably wouldn't have made the playoffs. They were up against the goliath 16-2 team that appeared to be invincible led by MOP Tracy Ham. But at Commonwealth, the Roughriders captured a fair and square, convincingly win over the Eskimos.
The video is not very good, but this huge upset playoff game in its near entirety.

Re: 1989

Posted: Fri May 11, 2018 11:11 am
by Robbie
Detailed highlights of the 1989 CFL season, including a couple of Lions games.

Statistically, Matt Dunigan performed better in 1989 compared to 1988, but a bad defence partially caused by the Dunigan trade gave the Lions a bad season overall at 7-11 and missing the playoffs since 1982. I was at Matt Dunigan's last game as a Lion in the regular season finale in which the Lions easily won 46-21 over the Stampeders. But who would have known that Dunigan would be traded in the off-season and that would be a prelude to another bad 1990 season .

Good highlights one of the biggest playoff upsets as I mentioned before in the form of the 1989 WDF.

Re: 1989

Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2020 10:09 pm
by Robbie
September 16: Winnipeg 24 at BC 20.



If you want to see Sean Salisbury in action.
Kato Kasuya served as a field goal holder for Passaglia's FG practices.
Joe Galat as head coach for the Lions.

Re: 1989

Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2023 12:29 pm
by Robbie
Edmonton 33 at BC 13



First game for Joe Galat as head coach after he fired Larry Donovan. But the team still lost with giving them a 0-5 record.
Unlike the 2011 season, the Lions would never recover for this and missed the playoffs for the first time since 1982.