johnzo

yeah, when I've gone to Bomber games in Vancouver I've met my share of good-natured ****-talkers but I've also met a few ******* drunks who want to top off a Bomber loss by getting aggro on me and my wife. Stay classy everyone.

Some stuff I noticed on the rewatch: Suitor is on drugs when he says that the good teams are at 70% or above in terms of red zone percentage. The best red zone team in the league is Toronto at 72% and the best teams in the league are around 50%. Is anyone making donations to Variety in memory of Jerry Maslowski? (here's some youtube embeds, they go straight to the play in question, even though they all have the same preview) Josh Bartel is gonna eat it in the film room when everyone watches him totally whiff on this block: People were talking about our endzone troubles, with Dressler and Sheppard both dropping touchdown passes. Interesting that Nichols threw inside on this play even though Dressler was looking for the ball outside: The Sheppard miss, on first watch I thought it would have been a heroic catch but it seems like a pro receiver ought to be able to catch a ball they can get both hands on, even when they're laying out like that: What on earth was Durant thinking throwing this lazy rainbow to the wide side? Watching the ball crawl out there, I knew it was a pick. Huge turnaround play in the game and a big blemish on an otherwise fine day for DD: And finally, everyone's favourite PI call:

Ottawa Rough Rider season ticket holder here, from 1995-1996. I will take a decade of Jones over a single season of Horn Chen.

It's hard to figure out where Glenn is going to land next because the team that needs him most just demoted him.

I think a team can turn it around quickly if their Canadian talent and QB are set. Durant will still be a decent starter next year (tho who knows what happens if Jones throws him away for Franklin) and they have some national pieces (St. John, LaBatte, Chambers, Clark, Walters, Capicotti if he emerges from whatever black hole he's disappeared into.) On paper, the Riders' national lineup looks way better than what the Bombers had at the start of the 2014 rebuild. Kohlert is the only starting seven guy from 2014 who's still with the BB, and Sorensen is the only guy whose dismissal I'd call a mistake. Murphy has found a lot of American talent in his time, and will find more for them. And I still think that Jones could be an effective head coach, he didn't suddenly take stupid pills in 2016, he's just out of his depth, trying to do too much.

That Bagg call on 3rd down was such a brutal call (and that was a quick pass if I remember correctly, so Bagg must have been the first read on that play.) Robb Bagg's a fine football player but expecting him to yac his way to a first down against a secondary that's playing short-yardage tight doesn't seem like a high-percentage play. (we hung Kohlert out to dry a couple weeks ago in a similar fashion, tossed him a short pass behind the line of scrimmage on a second-and-long and he just got buried.)

Seems like a decent move to keep a decent game-ready import kicker hanging around to see if a market develops for him or in case of Medlock disaster. Castillo was on the 6-game for a bunch of time this season so he was drawing his full salary, maybe the Bombers didn't want to spend the money on him anymore and maybe he wasn't interested in a practice roster spot. Good luck to him, he had some good stretches in Blue.

Hmm, what happened to the last coach to sideline Glenn prematurely? Mike Kelly echoes all over the league this week. Hope Cato plays well, though, we gotta keep the good young QBs coming into the league.

Red zone percentages (before this week's games) courtesy of cflmedia.ca: TOR: 72% (13/18) MON: 67% (16/24) HAM: 56% (13/23) CAL: 55% (18/33) EDM: 55% (16/29) BC: 53% (18/34) WPG: 50% (13/26) OTT: 46% (12/28) SSK: 41% (9/22) Interesting that, aside from the Roughriders, there isn't a super strong correlation between record and red zone percentage. The top three red zone teams are all under .500. Meanwhile, Calgary and BC and Ottawa have middling red zone percentage, but they get there more often than the teams that trail them,so they don't have to convert as often and can still be successful. Also interesting, the Blue Bombers' opponents' red zone success (before this week) was a whopping 73.7% (14/19). But teams so rarely get into our red zone that their success rate isn't so important.

Jones = Mike Kelly attitude + Tim Burke's onfield results. Etch turning up this week as a Rider defensive "consultant" was yet another Jones/Kelly parallel. Kelly tried to be a GM, head coach, and unit coordinator as well, but eventually he figured out he couldn't do it and Manny Matsakis parachuted in to run the O. Be interesting to see if Etch hangs around or moves into a full-time role with them. Has anyone ever been GM, head coach, and a unit coordinator successfully in the CFL? Maybe Pinball Clemons? I think he was both president of the Argos and its starting tailback at one point...

We've been talking a lot about Darian Durant in the Willy trade value thread and I think we caught a glimpse of Durant Prime this afternoon. He moved crisply in the pocket, stepped away from the rush calmly, threw bullet passes and a couple real nice long balls, made some opportunistic yards with his feet, and faked Leggett out of his adidas with an option play in the red zone. I don't think you can put either of his two picks on him, and he absolutely destroyed Adams after that first pick anyway. (tho he did get kinda lucky when Cole let that easy one clank off his hands early.) But for some crappy kicking and some marginal penalties and some terrible coaching he'd be 7-0 on Labour Day. Looks like he's still got some in the tank, if he didn't play for a dumpster fire of a team I think people would be talking about this being a comeback season for him. I wonder if he lands in Toronto or Montreal next year...

Shame about Adams if he's out for the season. He really seemed to be coming into his own when he went down.

When D. Adams and Smith come back, we've got a huge logjam at import receiver: McDuffie, Smith, Dressler, Adams, Mayo, Sheppard, Denmark. Who are your four? We're going to have to sit a couple quality players, which is a weird position for the BB to be in. Liked what I saw of Sheppard tonight, a couple clutch catches, using that big body to advantage.

(edit, no, this was a dumb post)

...in the middle of the third quarter...

I close my eyes and all I see is Rocky Butler stabbing us like we're Julius Caesar. Very apprehensive today.

I know it's old news that Hardrick is in for Foketi but it's interesting that the BB chose not to roll with the lineup that kept Nicholls squeaky-clean in Toronto. Is this a "veteran" guy not losing his job due to injury, or is Hardrick the better choice? Also interesting that they like CJ Roberts over Frederick. Glad to see that 35 is gonna get a game check whatever happens, he really looks like a keeper and I hate to see him moldering on the practice roster.

When you bring Etch aboard midseason to help with your defensive coaching ... and it's not the craziest thing your team does that week ... that is some kind of achievement you've unlocked.

How many of those turnover opportunities have come in garbage time? We had a ton of picks in the back end of the Toronto and Hamilton games, when we were on cruise control and Lapo was calling things even more conservatively.

Ok, now I see what you're saying. Damn, our D did a lot of damage in that game.

I'm talking about the Hamilton lightning home game, the one where we went up 28-0 on a CJ Roberts pick-6, a Denmark TD set up by a Fogg return, a Mayo TD set up by a Thomas fumble, and a Harris TD. Nicholls was having zero trouble converting his opportunities in that game. That first game you're talking about, that was a Willy game, and yeah, we didn't convert our opportunities, and that's exactly what the expected points scoring stat is saying -- Willy can't capitalize, but Nichols has been capitalizing at a better rate than the CFL as a whole.

Durant, at his peak, could make plays that other QBs in the CFL simply couldn't. The guy had power escapability, I remember him keeping plays alive by shrugging off defensive ends. And Durant vs. Calvillo was a classic CFL QB duel, those guys always seemed to bring out the best in each other. You want an example, look at the 2010 Canada Day overtime game. It's on Youtube. One of the best CFL games ever, and Durant was every bit as good as Calvillo in it. Durant's a good QB. I don't think he was ever the absolute best QB in the league in his time, but he was always up there. It's too bad he's fading away, a victim of injuries, bad coaching, and (lately) terrible management.

I think this might be a little bit of selective memory -- sure, we took a lot of early threes last week against Montreal, but against Hamilton, we turned every mistake they made into a TD.

The QB talk that wasn't play calling was interesting to hear -- at one point Collaros gave his RB **** because he lined up on the wrong side of the formation, and had to reposition him like a peewee.

This team reminds me of the 1990 Bombers a little more -- Salisbury was an NFL-caliber passer who could really huck the ball, but the 1988 Grey Cup was played in a vicious wind that wasn't going to flatter any quarterback. Burgess (and Nichols) are more lunchpail types, and Moe Leggett is on a total Greg Battle tear right now. The 1990 Grey Cup win looks a lot like our recent victories.