A lot. This guy still isn't getting the respect he deserves, and I'm not even talking here. TSN, Sportsnet, the papers, Nichols in general seems to still have the game manager tag on him. I have to think some of it comes from our play calling and how stupidly conservative we can get, and that's understandable I guess if your a fan of another team and just catch a quarter or two. But for full time analysts and our own fans, this guy isn't Matt Dunigan but he sure as hell isn't Garza or Dinwiddie. 

Nichols finished last night with a QB rating of over 120, 4 touchdowns, 300+ yards, and 64% throwing. Yet you would think that he needs to elevate his game if you read some of the posts from the game thread. So yeah, I'm going to make a Matt Nichols bandwagon because after watching a long line of terrible quarterbacks (including the anointed Drew Willy) I like winners. And Nichols is a god damn winner.

 

 

26 minutes ago, SPuDS said:

Yup, held it back so much that they finished 1 and 2 in almost every offensive category.  Wow, what an anchor to our offensive game planning.  can't believe he crippled the offense so badly that we could only manage to score the most points in the league, or second most offensive only..  I mean, wow.  almost had Nichols as western MOP and set his career numbers pretty lofty..  but nope, you're right.. hes a bum

He's lucky he had Nichols and Harris to save his ass.

But hey, you read the stats without putting any thought into them at all, good for you. 

Just now, 17to85 said:

He's lucky he had Nichols and Harris to save his ass.

But hey, you read the stats without putting any thought into them at all, good for you. 

Hall is lucky he had ballhawks to make his defence look good, at least in terms of turnovers. 

Nichols should have a long successful career here so long as they get him some more weapons.

1 minute ago, shadybob said:

Hall is lucky he had ballhawks to make his defence look good, at least in terms of turnovers. 

and unlucky he got saddled with the need to play a canadian at middle linebacker and a bunch of rookies all over the secondary all season long. 

I am lucky that I have gin, to prop me up.....

26 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

He's lucky he had Nichols and Harris to save his ass.

But hey, you read the stats without putting any thought into them at all, good for you. 

ya thats all im doing, just basing it off stats.. not from the games ive watched where we went from 2 and out almost every set of down last season, kicking nothing but field goals... to consistently moving the ball and getting TDs..   your assumptions are so quaint.

41 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

He's lucky he had Nichols and Harris to save his ass.

Yeah, and that elite receiving corps that wasn't the most inferior in the West Division. Oh, wait...

39 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

and unlucky he got saddled with the need to play a canadian at middle linebacker and a bunch of rookies all over the secondary all season long. 

Yeah, two rookies at most is really "a bunch," eh... The remaining three players weren't rookies. Good to see you're paying attention, though.

I'm not sure if I should be amazed or disgusted at how many excuses you make for the defense while simultaneously going to such lengths to discredit the offense.

Just stop embarrassing yourself already.

Hey if you're happy with the "almost" offense we run go nuts. Here's the thing, I have never been thrilled with the D we run, but everyone is so down on it and only it I have to bring some balance to the discussion here and I am 100% behind statements I previously made that if I had to lose only one coordinator I would rather lose Lapo than Hall. 

 

2 hours ago, blue_gold_84 said:

Even before Westerman got hurt and the ratio was affected, the defense made the same mistakes it did all season.

Nobody's acting like the offense is fine, either. But if we're going to look at this team through a lens of objectivity and rationality, the offense was hands down the best aspect of the 2017 Blue Bombers. LaPolice has been here for two seasons and in that time, we've seen significant improvement on offense. On the other side of the ball, Hall just completed his third season as DC and even with changes and improvements to personnel, the defensive production has not improved. It's not rocket appliances here to see what the weak link is on this team.

And if LaPolice is a loser, what does that make Hall?

I agree with you that Hall is the worse problem. I also agree with 17 to not overlook Lapo's contribution to that disaster on Sunday.

10 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

Hey if you're happy with the "almost" offense we run go nuts. Here's the thing, I have never been thrilled with the D we run, but everyone is so down on it and only it I have to bring some balance to the discussion here and I am 100% behind statements I previously made that if I had to lose only one coordinator I would rather lose Lapo than Hall. 

 

Well, I'm glad that you're 100% behind your statements.  Being firm in your opinion won't magically make you right, but hey, fight the good fight!

13 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

Here's the thing, I have never been thrilled with the D we run, but everyone is so down on it and only it I have to bring some balance to the discussion here

 

Wouldn't balance in a discussion about the defense be noting what they did well, as opposed to bringing up a different topic?

16 minutes ago, J5V said:

I agree with you that Hall is the worse problem. I also agree with 17 to not overlook Lapo's contribution to that disaster on Sunday.

offense scored enough points to win a playoff game imo.  defense makes some stops.. .hell, 3 key stops and we are off to calgary.  Bowman was open.. wide freakin' open... 3 times and made 2 of em count for TDs.  

 

thats not simply execution anymore.  a DC should have grabbed the DBs and said "get your collective heads in the fawking game!" and the DB's should have.. and yet, it happened again and again.   Then there was the wide open throw to Walker in the middle of our defense.. THE MIDDLE! the most protected place in a zone defense.

 

honest to christ.  if anyone here believes we lost this because of the offense, you are deluding yourself.

22 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

Hey if you're happy with the "almost" offense we run go nuts. Here's the thing, I have never been thrilled with the D we run, but everyone is so down on it and only it I have to bring some balance to the discussion here and I am 100% behind statements I previously made that if I had to lose only one coordinator I would rather lose Lapo than Hall. 

That "almost offense" that led the league in rushing yards per game all season and prior to October when injuries mounted, was among the best in passing yardage and total yardage, as well as offensive points scored...?

I would argue you wanting LaPolice gone over Hall qualifies as grounds for dismissal from this forum. What a completely idiotic statement.

23 minutes ago, J5V said:

I agree with you that Hall is the worse problem. I also agree with 17 to not overlook Lapo's contribution to that disaster on Sunday.

Yeah, I'm still not seeing it. Giving up 29 points in 20 minutes of football is about as bad as it gets. Oh, and I pointed it out in another thread, but I'll say it again here: in the third quarter, the offense ran 15 plays on three possessions. Of those 15 plays, 9 were rushes compared to 5 passes and 1 sack allowed.

13 minutes ago, blue_gold_84 said:

Yeah, I'm still not seeing it. Giving up 29 points in 20 minutes of football is about as bad as it gets. Oh, and I pointed it out in another thread, but I'll say it again here: in the third quarter, the offense ran 15 plays on three possessions. Of those 15 plays, 9 were rushes compared to 5 passes and 1 sack allowed.

The game plan against Edm is to run the ball. Here is how we went about that ...

1st Possession - Huh? Why are we not running the ball? I thought we were going to run the ball. Two passes for 8 yards, 0 points. 2-and-out. Punt.

2nd Possession - After Edm TD we start the series with 5 straight running plays and they can't stop us until, for some reason, we abandon the run and throw 3 straight passes and stall. 37 yards rushing, 23 yards passing. Settle for FG.  7-3 Edm.

3rd Possession - Back to three straight runs for 23 yards and ends with a passing TD. 23 yards rushing, 45 yards passing. 10-7 Wpg. Success when we run the ball.

4th Possession - Two passes for a fail. Gain 0 yards. Again, why are we not running the ball here? Punt and no yards penalty. Leads to Edm FG. 10-10

5th Possession - Again we abandon the run. Punt. Last two possessions: 6 passes for 19 yards, 2 runs for 4 yards, 0 points. 10-10

6th Possession - 2 runs for 3 yards, 2 passes, 1 attempted pass play, for 8 yards and a sack for 8 yards. Punt. 10-10

Halftime - At the half I cannot understand why we quit running the ball when every time we do, good things happen.

7th Possession - 2 runs for 1 yard, 1 pass for 4 yards, turnover on fake.

To this point we have run the ball 14 times for 68 yards, passed 16 times for 107 yards.

From the time of the 3rd down fake onwards everything went off the rails although when we ran the ball we were successful. 

3 hours ago, 17to85 said:

and unlucky he got saddled with the need to play a canadian at middle linebacker and a bunch of rookies all over the secondary all season long. 

Honestly, the best thing for this Defence (besides ditching Hall) might be Bond going to the NFL( asumming that happens) allowing a CND to play LG.

god damn it what happened to my thread lol.

17 minutes ago, Bigblue204 said:

Honestly, the best thing for this Defence (besides ditching Hall) might be Bond going to the NFL( asumming that happens) allowing a CND to play LG.

after seeing how well our o-line has been with Bond in.. I hate this idea.

 

I'd rather go with 2 canadian receivers, a starting NI DT or even a canadian DB before going away from the line we've built. 

 

I do want to see Hurl elsewhere though, his MLB experiment has got to come to an end and Ive been one of his biggest fans.  He has been embarrassed one on one far too many times when it counts.   Cable leaving him diving for empty air before that TD really did it for me but even the last 3-4 games it had become apparent that I'd been wrong on him.

17to85 said the team would be better with Khari calling the plays than Lapo and in the 15 years since then, he's been too stubborn to change his opinion regardless of what has happened in that time.  Don't bother with numbers, it's futile.

22 minutes ago, SPuDS said:

after seeing how well our o-line has been with Bond in.. I hate this idea.

 

I'd rather go with 2 canadian receivers, a starting NI DT or even a canadian DB before going away from the line we've built. 

I agree about Bond. I just honestly don't think he's back next year. 

30 minutes ago, SPuDS said:

I'd rather go with 2 canadian receivers, a starting NI DT or even a canadian DB before going away from the line we've built. 

OL looked good though against a couple good defensive lines the 2 games without Bond though. We've spent a bunch of draft picks on OL, it's time to make them work for us in terms of the ratio. Need that help elsewhere. 

2 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

OL looked good though against a couple good defensive lines the 2 games without Bond though. We've spent a bunch of draft picks on OL, it's time to make them work for us in terms of the ratio. Need that help elsewhere. 

the one big sack that I saw Nichol's get rocked by was straight up the middle between Goose and I think it was Neufeld.  that made me worry about if Bond was gone for good.  I do agree, the guys we have been drafting need to showcase themselves and show well but at the same time, I'm getting flashbacks to the last time we tried to force 3+ canadians there and what it did to our QBs..

 

*shudder*

12 minutes ago, Bigblue204 said:

I agree about Bond. I just honestly don't think he's back next year. 

good point and its possible.. he looked very good this season.

1 minute ago, SPuDS said:

the one big sack that I saw Nichol's get rocked by was straight up the middle between Goose and I think it was Neufeld.  that made me worry about if Bond was gone for good.  I do agree, the guys we have been drafting need to showcase themselves and show well but at the same time, I'm getting flashbacks to the last time we tried to force 3+ canadians there and what it did to our QBs..

 

*shudder*

That's a pretty good DL in Edmonton though, in fact DL is the absolute strength of the Edmonton D and is the only reason they won a bunch of games early in the year. Soon as they started losing their tackles their wins went away and didn't come back until those guys got healthy. I thought the offensive line for us held up great agianst them all game. Assuming they have some quality american tackles I have faith that they can play 3 Canadians on the interior. 

Just now, 17to85 said:

That's a pretty good DL in Edmonton though, in fact DL is the absolute strength of the Edmonton D and is the only reason they won a bunch of games early in the year. Soon as they started losing their tackles their wins went away and didn't come back until those guys got healthy. I thought the offensive line for us held up great agianst them all game. Assuming they have some quality american tackles I have faith that they can play 3 Canadians on the interior. 

ya very true.  I did forget how good EDM's line has been.. they probably were the best in the league and we didn't give up a ton of sacks and had a run game going.  maybe going interior canadian might not be that bad of an idea..

*knocks on wood*

 

 

As good as our defensive tackles have been this year, if Mulumba magically appears at training camp and is as good as hoped, this will solve a lot of our problems.