Heeere's Johnny! B.C. at Montreal Sunday

Saturday, October 15, 2005 03:45 AM

-by John Goodwin

A little reflection

There’s been an implosion!

This litter of felines not only took it on the chin against the Bombers, but inished in disarray and bad need of a transfusion of hope.

Don’t have to be an insider to think it likely Coach Whally Buono returned from Wpg. with a lot on his mind.

The offensive line (mostly like a bad movie all season), not only key to giving protection to the QB is also supposed to provide blocking and open lanes for the running game. Neither happened!

No running game means the Lion’s attack becomes much more predictable and ineffective. It also results in a nightmare for the QB as opposition defenses turn up the heat on the rush.....it’s likely going to be aired out in one form or another.

Duncan O’Mahony missed his only FG try last game, a 35 yarder wide to his left. Speculation has it that the breakdown was less a case of kicker accuracy but more so a timing issue, as the holder mishandled the snap and was late getting the ball on the tee. It’s been nothing short of a gong show over the past few weeks, and while they’ve changed holders, cajoled and nursed O’Mahony it now looks as though coaching has come to the conclusion they’ve been polishing poop, and every alternative will be exhausted before they call O”Mahony’s number again.

In a frantic move to fix the problem, the Leos have convinced kicker Mark McLachlan to come out of yr. two of his retirement to take over the place kicking job.
This relegates O’Mahony to punting duties only. The jury’s out on this one....

Special teams: The early loss for the season of Tony Simmons has mostly shut down their return game and kick coverage needs a blood transfusion.
Antonio Warren and Aaron Lockett are being stopped early by opposing coverage on a high percentage of their opportunities. Missed tackles, assignments by BC coverage teams have given up significant yardage over the past few games.

The Lions early on were the pride of the league in the discipline department. Penalties have become a serious matter and have been drive and field position killers. The Leos took 17 penalties for 223 yards (that’s two full lengths of a football field) in the last game.

Although not really quantifiable, one has to wonder how much difference it makes losing three impact players to injury.

Firstly return specialist Tony Simmons, followed then by the loss of safety Mark Washington to injury has offered up untold opportunity to exploit this position in the BC secondary. No slight on rookie fill in Tony Tiller who is forced to do too much at this point in his career.

The QB merry-go-round as they fall to injury, has on more than one occasion cost Dave Dickenson precious playing time, and now the possible CFL player of the yr. candidate and his GPS like passing accuracy has missed the last game and a half, putting the ball during that period in the hands of head case number two man Casey Printers, number three....rookie Buck Pierce and now they’re even “considering” the possibility of starting the number four guy against
Montreal Sunday. This if Printers cant get his act together.

And lastly, a personal observation:

Coach Buono has made the decision in each of the past three yrs. to go with an all Canadian offensive line. The lack of star power in some of these positions have cost them dearly in offensive effectiveness as well as healthy QB’s.

Not questioning his decision or judgement here, as it’s clearly his option (and his CFL coaching success speaks for itself) as to how he deploys his imports, but some expectation management for the average fan may be in order to better understand the situation.

It doesn’t get any easier from this point on, as the Lions now 11 and 3 take on the Montreal Alouettes at Percival-Molson Memorial Stadium on Sunday.

Previous Story - Next Story