wbbfan

Does any one know if the park n rides will be running early today? I expect nichols to either start out playing like the ball is on fire or to see streveler by half time. If he doesnt start well, it is gonna get ugly fast.

Gonna be a wet game tnite. I feel like rainy/wet turf game favors us.

Im happy with nubrady and bennett as the young guys. all is well that ends well.

Its true, but that a whole other era of the CFL now. Even in the early 2ks lots of teams played out of a pro form. RB, FB, QB under center. While the accomplishments of that time in football are great, they dont really have bearing today. Going back to the well with him was a poor decision at the time. No the title and build up hype came in 2004.

If he wasnt gonna play this week or be bloody close to ready last week they would have left him on the 6 game. The als are gonna be a tougher match up this time around. No one likes getting lit up that bad.

I dont really want a rookie HC again, but if it was gonna be any one itd be him.

id actually say he is about the same as his average here right now, and better then his worst year here. But that is my perception. I also dont think he is badily injured right now more banged up and being treated precautiously. if it was an important late-season game he would have dressed and played imo. He is not getting any younger, but still no doubt in my mind the wr core is better then it was.

If dressler comes back and i assume he is close, its a better core. thompkins is way better then bowman.

He used to be able to side step pressure and run well enough (better then willy etc) remember that 40+ yard run last year? Now he is approaching kerwin bell or danny mac levels of mobility.

@ good hcs have replacements on staff, this is the gospel right here. Though maybe its more like great coaches rather then good. But coaching lineages at any level or side of the border are a huge deal. Great coaches breed great coaches. And little else does. And yeah the coaches every team wants are the type who have the guys who are next to be scooped for HC jobs elsewhere, and they arent threatened by it. Thats how they continually attract the best young talent in position coaches to develop.

no you are correct. he isnt masoli. he needs to have one of the two skill sets. right now he is lacking at both.

yuuuuuuuuuuuup.

Id say its 60% qb and 40% system right now. Though its pretty close. If we made better use of our pieces we would not be in the hole we are right now. At the same time if our deep balls didnt float like butter flyes (and far more then deep balls the last few weeks) we also wouldnt have the problem. If you 100% fix either problem we are back rolling and doing better then ever. But still not calgary in the regular season levels of quality.

Yeah. Its hard not to like reilly as a player. Or be envious of the moes for having him. Nichols doesnt need to do that stuff, but if he isnt gonna do it he has to beat the rush with his read, and release. The timer in his head telling him to get rid of the ball seems to be broken right now.

With a good system and qbing he would be. Without it those guys arent. Dont agree that its too much to expect him to be the deep guy. He put up 259 yards after the catch last year on 1120 yards, and averaged a TD every 10-11 catches. This year he is averaging a touch down every 5.4 catches. Hes averaging 15.5 yards per catch this year. Stegall averaged 17.8 and 5.9 catches per td. Stegall also benefited from an offense that was designed around him to stretch the field for alot of his career. 3 of the last 4 years adams longest play has been in the 70 yard range. I mean 162 2 tds 20.3 ypc and 72 long against ottawa this year. 195 1 td 2.9 on his best game last year. Darvin adams ability to stretch the D isnt an issue. Its our ability to get it to him deep. We dont and cant toss a 50/50 deep ball. Our deep ball completions tend to be to guys with 4+ strides who stop to catch the ball or who have to come back to the ball to catch it. Kenbrell has done legitimate damage and started at the nfl level. He has caught everything thrown near him and is on track for 1000 yards receiving. Dressler, adams, demski plus wolitarski was on fire when we fed him the ball.

Didnt say it was. Hense the comma + the AND. He has coached an over all poor tackling team, because ya know hes a coach. Sure, but when you poorly coach tackling and have soft coverage you get a LOT of big plays which we have seen for a long while now. Because execution is the players understanding of how to do what and when. Thats coaching. Its preparation. When you see a new guy make a mistake you can write it off as him being new and not knowing better. When you see guys who have been around the whole year, and several previous years not executing or knowing what to do it is the coaching.

To be honest i dont think you can have disciplinarian coaches like you used to. I remember teams going back to 2 a days mid week. Full padded contact practices in the heat/cold etc etc. 1) I think the CFLPA has pushed out a coaches ability to be a real hard ass. 2) I dont think the modern generation of athlete (or in general) responds to that. I think you need to be a different type of leader today as a coach.

I think a home play off win, and a good effort in the final could do wonder for that. I also think we are going to see significant scapegoating of nichols, possibly plop and definitely hall.

Imagine how much better it would be if we didnt have hall, started MO at S and fenner at sam.

I think hall is in the most trouble, despite a solid overall effort by the d. (tackling stank several times but other then that and the usual softness) I dont think plop gets fired mid-season, and short of missing the playoffs (maybe even then) I think mos is safe. Plop should be on the hot seat, but nichols will take the bullet before it hits plop.

reilly isnt human. The way he can shrug off defensive linemen allows him to command the pocket like few else. Streveler created an extra dimension with his legs that opened up more for everyone else. Right now nichols is soo shakey in the pocket its taking away what we didnt have to give.

I would bet a years salary he starts on every team in the league. He is that good. Our usage of him and his strengths dont even mesh well with our offense and he still performs at an elite level. On one hand its easy to say, oh because its plop. And im well known to dislike him. But to be fair he already has considerable design rotating around adams, harris, demski, packages for streveler and stuff for dressler. Its good to have a play or two for each guy, but to have a package designed around each guy is too much to expect. Would be great though. And thompkins is going to be a guy that demands it in the future in my opinion. Woli seems like a guy who is never the deep look or the check down. He is kinda stuck in the middle though they did target him a good bit and he catches everything. I dont know if you build around him but he certainly should be used more as a hot read guy. With less talent we were rolling up 30-40 regularly. Without thompkins at that. The talent of our WR core with such low and suboptimal use of soo many guys isnt in question. Look at the off cut pieces weve let go that other teams have pounced on. Look at the flashes from guys buried on the depth chart. Remember back two years when we were forcing passes to hapless guys no one else would touch. We all know how much mos loves to start an extra NI to use an extra DI on teams. And weve seen how petermann can turn the ball up field for gains and how simonise can stretch the field. If the imps at the bottom were not very good we would be starting another NI wr. I could see an argument that each wr is used poorly in our system. Our system is rigid. We mash talent into it rather then adapt it to take advantage of what we have.

Nope. Iirc they have a fist full of interesting coaching types. That or its the other league that wont last a year.

Imo the run game was more feast or famine. Harris made the most out of cut back lanes and bouncing outside because the gaps were tight on a few plays. They did open a couple great holes for him as well. But it wasnt consistent at all. And a line can do much better at one aspect then the other. Especially a mediocre one. And our OL without bond and hardrick is pretty middle of the road. The second fastest pressure of the night was actually out of a 30 front. Id love to see some examples of a 7 second pocket though. Nichols was struggling with timing and pocket presence no doubt. He struggled more then the OL did/had, but they have also struggled.

Hesitating, and at times he is tucking the ball in bad positions I do agree with that. And that hurts the entire offense no doubt. If they stick with nichols plop does need to do a much better job of adjusting no question.