Just to not start an overreaction, I know this is part of the CFL.  We had a big road win last week and unfortunately after so many games when things go right, you often have one that goes wrong, and such was tonight.

 

But having said that, RichiHall's chickens have come home to roost again.  This D has to be able to step up and get turnovers at some point, and his refusal to call blitzes is preventing them from doing that.  And Ryan Lankford ... I don't have any issues with him returning kicks, but his play as a wideout has been awful.  Killing our offense when he's in there.  Dom Davis sure didn't tear it up but our guys were making his numbers worse with the drops.

 

I think we can still get home field for the WSF, but it doesn't look like we're ready to knock off Calgary yet.

Edited November 13, 20178 yr by USABomberfan

Just now, JuranBoldenRules said:

40 minutes time of possession shows you how efficient the O is?  They can do something about that too.

Yeah I agree. I'm not defending our soft D, but this offense often takes really untimely 2 and outs. Even on the medlock kick we lost 2-3 yards on the hand off to Harris.

Medlock wears the goat horns today, not Hall, imo

28 minutes ago, HardCoreBlue said:

A huge liability. At times, it's like we are playing with eleven defensive players on the field.

I actually think we'd be better off fielding 11 players on D.  At least then, with Hurl on the sidelines, none of his teammates will mistakenly think he's going to make a play.

2 minutes ago, blueandgoldguy said:

Not writing him off.  He is not earning $185,000 per season though.  He probably is making nearly twice as much as the next highest paid kicker.  While he does punt - average at best in that department - he is probably only worth 2/3s of what he makes at this point.  $185,000 kickers make 38 - 45 yard field goals, they don't miss two in a game.

Yes he's not playing to his usual level of late but I think he has been an incredible investment for this team overall thus far for $185,000. He has given this team a jolt of confidence knowing they have him there.  That type of stuff is hard to quantifiably measure. 

7 minutes ago, JuranBoldenRules said:

Let’s be completely honest here. Our offense has regressed to where it was early in the season where for long stretches of the game even driving by putting together 3-4 first downs together doesn’t happen.  Injuries need to be overcome.  Lapo and Nichols both have to give new receivers trust to make some plays (as they did on the final drive to set up the kick.

That the Argos didn’t put 40 on us at least is huge given the hibernating O.  The D came to play.  FFS though Loffler and Walker need to wrap tackles.

Thing is injuries or no, the kind of points and drives we were putting up can be hard to maintain.  That's a real high level of play, and just as we've seen with Calgary, that's a tough level to maintain.

But that's why I'm calling on this defense to step it up and get rid of Richie Hall's silly prevent mode.  That's an archaic form of defense.  Scrap it and scrap Hurl and Knox off this team.

4 minutes ago, BomberBall said:

I actually think we'd be better off fielding 11 players on D.  At least then, with Hurl on the sidelines, none of his teammates will mistakenly think he's going to make a play.

Ouch.

Sam Hurl I'm sure is a great guy, but as I've said before, he could have a really nice career as a special teams player. He is jeopardizing that right now.

Nope pinning this all on Medlock is wrong. You win as a team and lose as a team. You don't hear that when Medlock kicks the winner that he won the game on his kick alone,same for the few that he has missed. I'd rather if he is going to miss the odd one it's now and not in the western final. (Which we WILL be in)

Even before today Bombers FG kick percentage was worst in the league. Even before today Bombers D surrendered most yards of all teams on 1st down and gave up most yards on average per play - worst in the league. This is football bread and butter and signals continued major weakness. This weakness is just being exacerbated down the stretch.

2 minutes ago, bb1 said:

Nope pinning this all on Medlock is wrong. You win as a team and lose as a team. You don't hear that when Medlock kicks the winner that he won the game on his kick alone,same for the few that he has missed. I'd rather if he is going to miss the odd one it's now and not in the western final. (Which we WILL be in)

That's why I'm holding Richie Hall responsible for giving up that go-head TD and making so we had to rely on Medlock instead of relying on the D to get a stop.  It's ridiculous and it's Richie Stinko Hall's chickens coming home to roost.

I can't wait until he is given his pink slip and Joe Lobendahn or somebody hired to replace him.

The D was garbage. 
The O did what they had to, to deliver a win. An easy,  under 40 yard field goal. Our high priced kicker blew it, period. Trying to shine up that turd is pointless. The offence should have, once again, bailed out our crap D.

I think I may just check out on the last 2 games and see what the semi has for us. But I suspect its more of the same

18 minutes ago, HardCoreBlue said:

Yes he's not playing to his usual level of late but I think he has been an incredible investment for this team overall thus far for $185,000. He has given this team a jolt of confidence knowing they have him there.  That type of stuff is hard to quantifiably measure. 

Last year he was a good investment, this year he is a bad investment.  Other teams have better production from their field goal kickers this season at nearly half the salary. 

1 minute ago, White Out said:

The D was garbage. 
The O did what they had to, to deliver a win. An easy,  under 40 yard field goal. Our high priced kicker blew it, period. Trying to shine up that turd is pointless. The offence should have, once again, bailed out our crap D.

I think I may just check out on the last 2 games and see what the semi has for us. But I suspect its more of the same

Agreed. Raging over the D is misplaced today in my opinion. Our most expensive kicker of all time was hired for this situation. He failed. It is what it is 

Edited October 22, 20178 yr by Judd

28 minutes ago, JuranBoldenRules said:

At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter what’s going on he’s missing kicks.  Maybe needs to drop some of the histrionic stuff and kick the ball.

That statement makes no sense to me. If something mentally is going on that is affecting his kicking but can be corrected or tempered with work, then it does matter. 

The D stunk today. Piss poor roster management DIing both Wild and Knox who both did very little. Having Nevis would have helped. Hurl is terrible, I could pick a random poster, insert him and get the same production.

34 minutes ago, HardCoreBlue said:

Yes he's not playing to his usual level of late but I think he has been an incredible investment for this team overall thus far for $185,000. He has given this team a jolt of confidence knowing they have him there.  That type of stuff is hard to quantifiably measure. 

 

26 minutes ago, bb1 said:

Nope pinning this all on Medlock is wrong. You win as a team and lose as a team. You don't hear that when Medlock kicks the winner that he won the game on his kick alone,same for the few that he has missed. I'd rather if he is going to miss the odd one it's now and not in the western final. (Which we WILL be in)

Win as a team, lose as a team. I think people comparing Medlock this year to last year are forgetting that last year he kicked the most field goals in a single season. Ever. To be honest, in this game, the Bombers were completely outplayed and were lucky to even have a chance at winning on a last-second field goal. They played badly as a team, and they lost, as a team.

We have too many players who’ve done nothing all year. We’ve finally benched Lankford, but we still have underperforming guys like Hurl, Denmark, and Washington doing nothing in the lineup. Then we have Medlock continuously missing routine kicks.

This is a great team, despite the fact that we’re missing some great players. Our one flaw is that we have too many players who provide literally nothing to us.

Edited October 22, 20178 yr by Blueandgold

10 minutes ago, rebusrankin said:

The D stunk today. Piss poor roster management DIing both Wild and Knox who both did very little. Having Nevis would have helped. Hurl is terrible, I could pick a random poster, insert him and get the same production.

No need for that. Dan Lefevour is bigger and faster than Hurl. Put him in there. My guess is he would anticipate the play better than Hurl, get to the right spot on time, and make the tackle. Plus he'd love to blitz and clobber opposing QBs.

Nice to see Thomas Miles making an impact on 2 plays today. Stuffing that TD was nice. Briggs seems to go on for Hurl on passing downs a lot, but maybe Miles could start spelling Hurl more often.

This game was a microcosm of the 2017- riddled with a few obvious (to most of us)  flaws and almost good enough but not quite. The problems that were there last year are still mostly there- the worst MLB in the league, a porous defence, and a head coach who is apparently loyal to "his" players and staff to the point of stubbornness. Our O-line is suddenly suspect, the offence is absent in critical situations, and the revamped D-line is just not good enough. Yes, BC, Edmonton and Calgary have problems, but our participation in the playoffs is going to be short and ugly. As much as we have mocked the Riders, they have progressed through the last half few games, whereas we have regressed.

2 hours ago, HardCoreBlue said:

That statement makes no sense to me. If something mentally is going on that is affecting his kicking but can be corrected or tempered with work, then it does matter. 

What I mean is that is his problem.  He’s not going to keep a job because of kicks he made 8 weeks ago or last season.  It’s not a reason to keep a player.

15 minutes ago, tracker said:

This game was a microcosm of the 2017- riddled with a few obvious (to most of us)  flaws and almost good enough but not quite. The problems that were there last year are still mostly there- the worst MLB in the league, a porous defence, and a head coach who is apparently loyal to "his" players and staff to the point of stubbornness. Our O-line is suddenly suspect, the offence is absent in critical situations, and the revamped D-line is just not good enough. Yes, BC, Edmonton and Calgary have problems, but our participation in the playoffs is going to be short and ugly. As much as we have mocked the Riders, they have progressed through the last half few games, whereas we have regressed.

Have we? Lots of this is just made up. I mean nice try but u talking to ppl who have watched these games and lots/most/all the stuff u talk about is truly just not accurate. 

I think people tend to overreach especially after losses. 

Reality this game. We gave up 560 yards Net O. Just under. We had the ball on O for 22 minutes or just over. We lost because our kicker missed a 39 yard field goal. 

All in all stats say blowout.. Final score and scenario in how it ended was close. We played like **** and lost by 1 cuz our kicker missed a 39 yard FG. Against a pretty good team with pretty good players in Posey Wilder and Ray. 

Edited October 22, 20178 yr by Goalie

2 hours ago, Judd said:

Agreed. Raging over the D is misplaced today in my opinion. Our most expensive kicker of all time was hired for this situation. He failed. It is what it is 

Sure he is a highly paid kicker, but our defense and Richie Hall get paid too and they are not earning their checks.

Personally, (and this is not an excuse for him), I'm wondering if Medlock hasn't let his 61 yard miss from the WSF last year get in his head a little.  He might be trying to kick too perfectly instead of just doing his thing.

I'm more mad at Hall cuz he's been a liability all year and has been doing nothing to adjust or fix this D.

1 minute ago, USABomberfan said:

Sure he is a highly paid kicker, but our defense and Richie Hall get paid too and they are not earning their checks.

Personally, (and this is not an excuse for him), I'm wondering if Medlock hasn't let his 61 yard miss from the WSF last year get in his head a little.  He might be trying to kick too perfectly instead of just doing his thing.

I'm more mad at Hall cuz he's been a liability all year and has been doing nothing to adjust or fix this D.

The D does give up tons of yards but... 11 and 5 is still pretty good. 

Hall needs to go tho and im sure he will but... Fun fact... We would be 12 and 4 and playing at IGF if our kicker hit the FG. We all know.. Our D isnt good but nothings gonna change scheme wise now... Hall is Hall. We Hall know that. 

D sucks? Yup. Kicker missed a FG to lose today? Yup. D played like crap? Yup but.. They also pretty much scored a TD also.. So.. I dunno man.. Id say Medlock cost us the W.. 2 missed FGs. 

3 hours ago, USABomberfan said:

I'll leave it up to our scouts and GM to decide whether Medlock should stay.  Seems like this team is always a turnstile for kickers as it is.  One kicker gets hot, then gets cold, but I'd like to think it's that way just about everywhere.  You get the Ridirt fans just about ready to crucify Crapigna at one time, and then he gets made a hero another.  Borris Bede is inconistent, Parades the same.

I blame the defense more because it's been another "here we go again" outing from them.  Hall loves that prevent D too much and is too stubborn to stop it.  He must be the first to go as soon as that clock hits zero on the season.

I think Medlock can bounce back next year but our Defensive Coordinator can't. 

The way we've used our defensive personnel all year has driven me nuts. Way too many participation medals being handed out.

The fact that we DI a second-string and third-string WIL while we leave Nevis out of the lineup blows my mind. Bench one of Knox or Wild and get that constant rotation on the interior going - it's what allowed JT to have so much success earlier in the year.

At one point in the fourth quarter, I saw us line up with Thomas, Jones, Briggs, Hurl, Loffler and Ekakitie on D. Why? Why on earth do we have 6 Canadians out there at once? On a key down? Come on.

We're suddenly thin and I don't see how we're going to overcome it. That being said, we've got a lot of talent.

37 minutes ago, tracker said:

This game was a microcosm of the 2017- riddled with a few obvious (to most of us)  flaws and almost good enough but not quite. The problems that were there last year are still mostly there- the worst MLB in the league, a porous defence, and a head coach who is apparently loyal to "his" players and staff to the point of stubbornness. Our O-line is suddenly suspect, the offence is absent in critical situations, and the revamped D-line is just not good enough. Yes, BC, Edmonton and Calgary have problems, but our participation in the playoffs is going to be short and ugly. As much as we have mocked the Riders, they have progressed through the last half few games, whereas we have regressed.

I watched #10 repeatedly run into the line, get buried, and have no positive impact whatsoever. He is slow, lacks power, and doesn't give himself an opportunity to make a play.

The defence was indeed porous, especially between the 20's. They made some good goal line stands though.

Why do you say our O-line is suspect? You do realize Bond got his bell rung early and was out, right? I thought Lapo's play calling was poor today and Andrew Harris suffered for it. I thought Matt Nichols did an excellent job running the offense today.

I agree about the D-line. Nowhere near enough pressure on Ricky Ray.