Odds and Sods - Blue Bombers at B.C Lions

[do or die]

Things started ok, in first quarter.....

Willy was getting protection....

Bombers were controlling the ball....

Glenn was being pressured....

2nd quarter....another story

...Grigsby fumble sets up BC FG....

...Bad snap...another gift Safety....

Then a long BC drive puts them up 15-3.....

Glenn had a nice 3 quarters.....

....while Blue were loading up against the run

Willy goes down, before the half......

...might as well been 150-3....

As Brohm accomplished nothing, in 2nd half...

...with nobody doing anything around him, as well.......

Bomber D shut the Lions down in the 3rd.....

...while Bomber O continued its ineptitude.....

175 yards in O....  is not going to cut it...

Grigsby kept going down on first contact.....

Receivers struggled to get open....

Some strange play calls  on O, as well...

Romby took a major penalty ....and just took up space, otherwise....

Hard to run hitch passes, when nobody blocks.....

Can't block on screens, either....

Not having a backup snapper......black mark....

D reverted back to the ole matador run tackling again, late

This team simply lacks jam..... on both sides on the line of scrimmage

We can't find a way to get Sears into this lineup??

Lions 160 rushing....Grigsby 25.......

Another week....another spate of bad penalties.....dumb majors....

This team needs a bye, in the worst...physically and mentally.....

No more gin references.....medical team has me on morphine, now...

....watching stuff like this...perhaps just as well....

[DR. CFL]

Wins and losses aside coaches will tell you that what they want a team to do is to progress and improve In their execution in every facet of the game each week. This team has now continued to struggle to show an improvement for an extended period of time.

[dmillerywg]

Wins and losses aside coaches will tell you that what they want a team to do is to progress and improve In their execution in every facet of the game each week. This team has now continued to struggle to show an improvement for an extended period of time.

Yes that about sums up the last 6 weeks, no improvement if anything they are going backwards at this point in the season. Good time for the Bye lets hope the time off will allow the players to heal and the coaches  to review what they have been doing wrong and correct it. It would be nice to bring in some DTs that have some size and a RB or 2 that doesn't go down on first contact...

[LeBird]

It almost seems as if the players are not really working any more and have not fear of being replaced. This does not appear to be the same team we had at the start of the year. 

[mfranc]

The Bombers are not playing any worse but are starting to feel the effects of the schedule, injuries and playing western opponents.

[do or die]

Yeah.....bunch of things,,,

 

Injuries in the D front 7 are catching up with them - the patchwork front 4 looked none too good.  Ian Wild is sorely missed

Needed a bye a couple of weeks ago

Tough that Willy went down.....but we need more than 33 yds from the backup

Special teams and discipline have taken a left turn

Still question what our OC and DC are doing out there - BC made more adjustments.

Running game still sporadic

We have some receivers who are not fighting through tough coverage

OL still at the bottom 3rd of league

Western teams are just far better than the East

[Tracker]

When everyone was healthy and the wind was blowing in the right direction, we were competitive, but the margin was so thin that it didn't take much for the tide to turn. We were lulled into a false euphoria because we wanted so much to believe that we had rapidly turned the corner, but it wasn't and isn't so. We appear to be on the right track but until the gaping deficiencies in the roster are filled, we are in for a rough and downhill ride. For this year at least, the best is NOT yet to come.

[iso_55]

The decision to hire Etcheverry is really coming back to bite us. I swear, I don't know sometimes what that guy is thinking with the sets he throws out in certain situations. He needs to be replaced next season as he's not doing the job. That would really be a step up defensively. We've had 2 crappy DC's here in a row & it shows. 

[do or die]

Trouble is.....the Etch thing robs Peter (run D) to pay Paul (sacks, turnovers)......when this D is not getting the "big plays"  it looks pretty ugly.  We desperately needed the ball back, the last 6 minutes.....and the Lions (like everybody else) ran the ball up our asses.....

[Tracker]

I think we really can't accurately assess Etch until we have a better D-line and middle linebacker, and the recruitment is not in his hands. How long the defence stays on the field has a lot to do with it as well- they must be starting to feel that they have to carry the load for the whole team while the offense flails around pointlessly. Can't win if you can't score.

[iso_55]

Etch has a wish list of the kind of players he wants. Our DL averages 259 lbs  &  our linebackers are barely over 200 because Etch wants it that way. So, the scouting staff goes out & finds those types of players. I think Etch can be assessed now based on this & other years defenses he ran. Not good. 

[DR. CFL]

People want to turn this back onto Etch and the defense.....this team has failed to show improvement in all three aspects of the game.

[iso_55]

No, you're wrong Dr CFL. Our offense is better, much better with Willy compared to last year. Some aspects of our special teams aren't very good like long snapping. Others aren't bad like punt & KO returns. Defensively we just out & out suck. 

[pigseye]

Trouble is.....the Etch thing robs Peter (run D) to pay Paul (sacks, turnovers)......when this D is not getting the "big plays"  it looks pretty ugly.  We desperately needed the ball back, the last 6 minutes.....and the Lions (like everybody else) ran the ball up our asses.....

 

That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

 

I now understand why Walters said there was no quick fix, it's because the system itself is flawed, subbing one undersized player for another will accomplish nothing.

[AKAChip]

Brohm looked awful in the NFL, awful with Hamilton, awful in TC and preseason this year and awful yesterday. As a guy who has always seen the positives in almost every backup this team has put into uniform, I will never see it with this clown. No mobility, fires a fastball with no touch on every throw, terrible accuracy and no poise in the pocket. Max Hall was head and shoulders better than this guy even while coked up. If Willy is out for a period, I don't see any reason to trot Brohm out for more than a game. He just doesn't have it.

 

Watching this game last night sort of depressed me in the sense that without Wild and Sears in the lineup, there aren't a ton of guys in the front seven to like on this team. Some of that is injury, some of that is on scouting but I also recognize that Etch's scheme greatly limits the available personnel. Guys like Louie Richardson I get are playing pretty much exclusively due to injury but Greg Peach gets a ton of opportunities and snaps and he's about as average as you can get from an import at that position. He'll have one strong game followed by weeks of invisibility. And the offense has been getting worse progressively since week one. This was another perfect game to illustrate why Grigsby isn't a starting tailback. Maybe there isn't anyone better on this roster right now but if there isn't, that's also a failure. Denmark, Watson and Kohlert are all very good players who I want on this team for a long time and Moore I'd put in that category as well but the longer Romby Bryant is in the lineup even as a replacement the more I feel like it's an insult to the fans. I think he legitimately has as many penalties as receptions this year and I don't even think that's an exaggeration.

 

I guess I'm just ranting for a number of reasons. I'm frustrated that this team gave us a sliver of hope and then injuries and ineffectiveness hit. There will be better times in the future, no doubt. But the thing that I keep coming back to is in years past, no matter how bad we were, there were always guys on the PR that from either TC or watching practice or just reading scouting reports, I wanted to see in action. One of my favorite parts about the CFL is that young guys can come in midseason due to injury, ineffectiveness or whatever and actually make a significant positive contribution. I look at our PR right now and save for a few names, I see lots of other team's cuts and stopgap Canadians. Meanwhile, a team like the Argonauts are forced to make injury changes and they have young guys with upside! Okpalaugo, Whiteside, Vince Agnew (who I wish we got back after his NFL try) even a guy like Greg Childs who hasn't played yet is an exciting prospect like we haven't seen in awhile. We get an injury? "Have another kick at the can, Romby. Sixth time's the charm!"

[B-F-F-C]

No, you're wrong Dr CFL. Our offense is better, much better with Willy compared to last year. Some aspects of our special teams aren't very good like long snapping. Others aren't bad like punt & KO returns. Defensively we just out & out suck. 

 

I'm not so sure about that.  3 points in the 1st half with Willy at the helm for most of it.  Last night I saw a defence that just ran out of gas but played pretty well  until the 4th but again the offence didn't help them out.   

[AKAChip]

We have essentially the same offense as last year, just with an effective QB.

[Noeller]

Injuries make this team look a lot worse than it actually is. With our Game 1 roster, I believe we go toe to toe with anyone, but as depleted as we are, we are an awful team. Thought the D actually looked pretty good until they got absolutely gassed at the end of the game.

[Mr Dee]

Picking on the defence looks to be the easy thing to do, but we played an unspectacular game on Spec. teams, a below average game on Offence and BC didn't make any mistakes that we could take advantage of.

In other words, they beat us, at home, and executed a pretty good game plan all game.

They were the better team last night.

 

Our guys do have fight…maybe this break is just what we need.

[AKAChip]

We did play an unspectacular game on ST, absolutely. But let me wonder out loud, we are now down a LS and were coming off a week where the snapping was poor. Yesterday, the snapping was poor again. Were we content just letting Jones and Fitzgerald muck around in that spot to the detriment of the team?

[pigseye]

We did play an unspectacular game on ST, absolutely. But let me wonder out loud, we are now down a LS and were coming off a week where the snapping was poor. Yesterday, the snapping was poor again. Were we content just letting Jones and Fitzgerald muck around in that spot to the detriment of the team?

 

You can apply that across the board at every position that is underachieving on the team. Change is only coming because of injury, the coaches believe that cleaning things up is all that is required. The question though is how many more losses are you willing to accept. 1 - 5 is the reality.

[AKAChip]

As much as I disagree with that sentiment, I agree. Problem is, there WAS an injury to our long snapper and it appears to me that everyone involved was happy to just wing it.

[pigseye]

As much as I disagree with that sentiment, I agree. Problem is, there WAS an injury to our long snapper and it appears to me that everyone involved was happy to just wing it.

 

Yup, the emphasis is on rolling with what you got and hope it turns out differently.........not unlike insanity.

[pigseye]

The decision to hire Etcheverry is really coming back to bite us. I swear, I don't know sometimes what that guy is thinking with the sets he throws out in certain situations. He needs to be replaced next season as he's not doing the job. That would really be a step up defensively. We've had 2 crappy DC's here in a row & it shows. 

 

At least the defence has been mostly consistent, for all the flaws and lack of talent, Etch is getting about what you would expect from his players. It's the offence that has been too on and off for the talent they have, Marcel is a bigger problem than Etch imo.

[Noeller]

We'll get a lotta guys back after the bye and things will hopefully look brighter if BC can lose next week...