Did Jarious get spooked by the 55,000?

[Solar Max]

Did Jarious get spooked by the 55,000? He looked nervous, tentative.

After all the whining about crowds of 35,000, signs, and making it difficult for opposition qbs to call signals..this.

Come out of the closet, 120: you're really Shelley Austin, aren't you? C'mon out and just say it; it's ok, they know already.

Incredible. Sure hope you don't make birthday wishes before you blow out the candles.

[Disturber]

Jarious should have been allowed to finish the game.

The offensive game plan, as drawn up by the coaches, was horrid. It was like a repeat of the regular season home game we had against Sask in the summer.

What impresses me (and I say this through gritted teeth) is that the large crowd and noise didn't seem to affect Kerry Joseph one bit. He truly is deserving of the Offensive Player of the Year award.

Do you think Tillman would trade KJ to us for DD and a case of Crown Royal?

[Power-O-O-O-O]

Being forced into playing Lorne Plante at guard/tackle was the the single biggest reason the Lions lost the game.

There also seemed to be a failure to adjust to the insertion of Plante. Green or someone should have been deployed to stay in the backfield and help Plante.

I also question why Plante was dressed. He is nowhere near ready. If you feel the need for another OL, tweak the lineup and dress Farrow. Plante gives you nothing.

I agree that the game plan should have been adjusted. We have Green and Bwenge that could have been used to help out. Also running the ball with Smith even for a short gain is better than taking sacks :-)

Dressing Farrow may not have been an option due to import/non-import ratio.

[Tighthead]

Being forced into playing Lorne Plante at guard/tackle was the the single biggest reason the Lions lost the game.

There also seemed to be a failure to adjust to the insertion of Plante. Green or someone should have been deployed to stay in the backfield and help Plante.

I also question why Plante was dressed. He is nowhere near ready. If you feel the need for another OL, tweak the lineup and dress Farrow. Plante gives you nothing.

I agree that the game plan should have been adjusted. We have Green and Bwenge that could have been used to help out. Also running the ball with Smith even for a short gain is better than taking sacks :-)

Dressing Farrow may not have been an option due to import/non-import ratio.

I know the ratio is an issue, but there must have been a someone who could be dropped to make way for Farrow. That is what I meant about tweaking the lineup. If you think you need another lineman, which is prudent, make it someone who can actually play.

[Blitz]

Jarious should have been allowed to finish the game.

The offensive game plan, as drawn up by the coaches, was horrid. It was like a repeat of the regular season home game we had against Sask in the summer.

We were only down by 3 points going into the second half. We were down by 7 points in the third quarter when we beat the Roughriders in Regina when we played them for first place a few weeks earlier.

Even with Plante in the game we could have run to our left side or even sprinted out to that side. We also could have gone two back set as was mentioned with Green and Smith and alternated with Smith at fullback and Smart at tailback.

When we were playing our best football we used the two back set a lot more. It allowed us to run counters, counter tosses, off-tackle plays, and pitches to the outside. The two back set was one of the best features of our redesigned offence this season.

However, we went away from using the two back set in our final games of the season.

Another reason I believe we didn't run the football in the second half was because we inserted Dickenson. Dickenson is a rythym passer who favors the single back spread offence. We believed we could exploit the Riders defense with Dickenson throwing the high percentage underneath stuff. It used to work but CFL defenses have changed and are much more proficient at stopping that stuff these days. Another factor was that Dickenson is also a pocket style quarterback and that's where he likes to set up.

However, I also believe we could have still semi-booted Dickenson to the left or just moved the pocket a little to the ledt side and we still could have run the football to that side. We could have used the counter toss, counter, off-tackle, and pitch toss all to the left side. It was a shame we didn't but going into this game I had my doubts we'd see the two back set. We did once and we ran Smart inside for a short gain...that was it!!

I also agree that we shoud have activated Farrow for this game and not dressed an extra import linebacker. It would have slightly weakened us on special teams but it would have been worth it!! The way we pass block and run block Farrow could have played guard.


As for our offensive game plan we just moved back to the single back set pocket passing spread offence for our final regular season games and the playoff game. Gone were all the running plays I mentioned above and play action. Why we did that still astounds me. Was it to gear the offence for the reappearance of Dickenson? Was it to appease some of the receivers who wanted a return to Chap Ball? Hard to say but why we changed our offence from a running team and deeper passing team back to a primary focus on pocket passing and throwing the underneath stuff again is beyond me!!

It was such a treat this season to finally see us get away from the addiction of throwing crossing patterns. First of all they require a very accurate pass. A pass thrown to high can result in a tipped ball or an overthrown football for an interception. A pass thrown slightly behind makes it very difficult for a receiver to make an adjustment. Finally, against underneath zone it gets your reciever killed if the quarterback throws it a fraction too late.

We just never saw the crossing patterns thrown very often this season and then we see Clermont just getting killed out there the past three games running crossing patterns!! Makes me angry!!

[TheLionKing]

I too was frustrated at the lack of adjustments by the coaching staff. Dorazio and Kruk now has the off season to think about it.

[pennw]

I agree too , bad coaching lost the game for us, nothing to do with crowd noise. Of course JJ is used to that from his college days. As Blitz says , not adjusting to the o-line changes lost the game for us .I thought DD should have been pulled by the end of the third quarter and either Buck put in or JJ re-inserted as DD seemed to not be able to counter the rider blitz . At least those other two could have run out the other way. With two backs in and JJ , along with some smart adjustments to the game plan that could have been taken advantage of .

Oh well maybe next year , we won't be stuck with the same scenario with Wally refusing to pull DD in a bad situation , because there will be no DD playing for us by '08 play-offs.

[Stui]

Jarious should have been allowed to finish the game.

Do you think Tillman would trade KJ to us for DD and a case of Crown Royal?

I think you'd have to sweeten that pot with a case of canned crowd noise to fully entice him. After all we do possess the sneakiest and most effective stuff.

[wildthing]

Jarious should have been allowed to finish the game.

The offensive game plan, as drawn up by the coaches, was horrid. It was like a repeat of the regular season home game we had against Sask in the summer.

What impresses me (and I say this through gritted teeth) is that the large crowd and noise didn't seem to affect Kerry Joseph one bit. He truly is deserving of the Offensive Player of the Year award.

Do you think Tillman would trade KJ to us for DD and a case of Crown Royal?

I honestly don't think anyone would trade more than a draft pick for DD with his injury history at this point.

[West Coast Blue Fan]

Nominated for Dumbest Thread of the year......

[Dan_Payne_fan!!]

Nominated for Dumbest Thread of the year......

seconded

[joesports]

Nominated for Dumbest Thread of the year......

seconded

Motion carried.