It might be just a select few posters I'm seeing do this, but man some of these criticisms just get so old.  Sure it's all warranted and good to rip the guy when he throws bad passes or makes a bad decision, but now it's rip him even when he completes a deep ball to Matthews that was called back, or the one to Whitehead that stood?  I mean, what is this?  Some Nichols witch hunt where he can do no right or something?

I'm not going to pretend that Nichols was all good, but on series's where our offense was off he wasn't the only one who made the errors.  Andrew Harris was not good either outside his TD catch and had as much to do with the struggles, as did Fenner on defense, Adams and some of Lapo's play calls that 17to85 talks about.

Nichols isn't above criticism and he doesn't necessarily deserve heaps of praise on his head.  But it's absolutely ridiculous to assume that he single-handedly wins or loses games.  That's not how Mike O'Shea's team works.

And his passing yards are meaningless.  You can rack up yards all day against bend but don't break defenses, but if you don't get TDs out of them, you are overrated.  Yup, I said it.  Passing yards are completely meaningless.

Edited June 29, 20196 yr by USABomberfan

25 minutes ago, AKAChip said:

I have concerns with Streveler as well, don’t get me wrong but reading a defence is hardly Nichols strength either. If it were up to me, we’d go hard after Arbuckle in the off-season if Streveler looks mediocre in reasonable reps this season. Our record should be good enough that we can afford to give him a few starts. Again, really no downside to giving Nichols the Toronto game off. 

You deserve to be a Rider fan.

10 minutes ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

You can't even enjoy a win without complaining.  You & Burgess should start your own private website for just the both of you where you can feed your complaining off each other.

Well TBurgess I mean ... I don't always agree with him but I can see where he's coming from in most cases and find some useful nuggets sometimes.  Not so with Mr come out of left field and build the straw man up or pump up Willy Arbuckle's tires.

 

Here's what I'll say.  This is slightly unfamiliar territory we're in right now as the top team in the West even though it's still early.  We've spent so many years talking about how we catch the former West top dogs before we got there and now that we're here, it's almost strange.

I mean, obviously we still gotta slug it out on top of the hill to send the message to the Stamps that we're dethroning them.  But even so, you just couldn't script our start a whole lot better.

19 minutes ago, JuranBoldenRules said:

My concern with Streveler is that he's only checking the ball down and that's Lapolice's lack of trust.  This is a problem for all of our QB's right now, including Nichols.  At times there's a lot of movement in the backfield, misdirection, creative deceptive run plays, play action, rollouts.  This is when our offense hums.  This is when playing QB for the Bombers is very easy.  Then we go to 5-6 possessions of Harris dives, bellies and stretch/search runs (which Harris is awful at, never has been good at, the east-west find a hole runs) and straight dropbacks with very little misdirection or PA.  This is when we can't get a first down.  This is when our QB's struggle.

The way Lapolice preps for each week we won't see a playbook for Streveler unless he is starting.  Lapolice installs the plays for the starter and what he anticipates calling in the game, so Streveler's short-yardage package is in there too.  So if Streveler comes in he's running a ton of dropbacks, very little option stuff aside from the straight run option plays available for the set Lapo has for him with Nichols playing (we saw him run the same pitch option QB power play 3 times after Nichols went out).  Lapolice is a Plan A game prep kind of OC/play caller.  Personally I think this is a huge problem because as we see week after week, there's a high probability that you will need more than 1 QB to finish any game.

Well, and this is why Lapo has come under fire sometimes here.  I know some of Strev's runs are him calling them by design, and I think he does that too much.  Doing that I say causes bad habits of making QBs think they must run instead of chucking it in the window.

1 hour ago, AKAChip said:

I have concerns with Streveler as well, don’t get me wrong but reading a defence is hardly Nichols strength either. If it were up to me, we’d go hard after Arbuckle in the off-season if Streveler looks mediocre in reasonable reps this season. Our record should be good enough that we can afford to give him a few starts. Again, really no downside to giving Nichols the Toronto game off. 

That's just straight up bull ****. Nichols is extremely efficient at reading Defenses. 

Nichols did what he needed to win for sure,  what worries me is that he was not able to finish the game.  

1 minute ago, NorthernSkunk said:

Nichols did what he needed to win for sure,  what worries me is that he was not able to finish the game.  

I bet if it was a must win, he would have been put there. Never seemed to be that bad. Same reason they let Bighill sit, why push it this early in the year? Get the back ups some playing time.

2 minutes ago, Bigblue204 said:

I bet if it was a must win, he would have been put there. Never seemed to be that bad. Same reason they let Bighill sit, why push it this early in the year? Get the back ups some playing time.

Yeh eh, erring on the side of caution. Yes that would make sense.  Any rider fans bother me today and I'll use that for sure.

9 minutes ago, Bigblue204 said:

I bet if it was a must win, he would have been put there. Never seemed to be that bad. Same reason they let Bighill sit, why push it this early in the year? Get the back ups some playing time.

Good plan, as we saw Calgary already has their contingency plan in place.  Strev. needs to be better prepared because it's likely this situation will occur again down the road.

55 minutes ago, NorthernSkunk said:

Nichols did what he needed to win for sure,  what worries me is that he was not able to finish the game.  

That was a random out of the norm injury/reason not to finish..other than the TC injury last yr Nichols has not been an injury concern..his minor Knicks he got before.. calf..hand/finger he eventually dealt with and played through

Streveler did what he needed to win too. 6 of 8 for 42. 75% passing. 2 rushing TD's and a great throwing TD. His Int was a tipped ball at the LOS, which wasn't really his fault.

1 hour ago, TBURGESS said:

Streveler did what he needed to win too. 6 of 8 for 42. 75% passing. 2 rushing TD's and a great throwing TD. His Int was a tipped ball at the LOS, which wasn't really his fault.

The other turnover was a fumble by Nelson which wasn't Streveler's fault either. Get Brent Monson in here to design a set of plays attuned to Streveler's strengths and watch him light it up!

3 hours ago, Throw Long Bannatyne said:

You deserve to be a Rider fan.

Yeah, starting to seem like a troll to me.

Told us  us that playing Briggs was "vomit inducing".  Couldn't have been more wrong.

 

 

 

Edited July 7, 20196 yr by Mark F

Briggs was great. I’m happy to eat crow. Wouldn’t want him starting all season but no complaints from me. 

For the record, I like 95% of our roster and while I don’t have any issues making grand claims about players being good or bad, I own it when I’m wrong. Kyrie Wilson is an example of someone I got wrong. Gaitor last year as well. My stance on Nichols isn’t trolling at all. It’s very hard to criticize players when the team is largely doing well without being considered a troll around here. Not that I expect any pity. I dish it to people so I can certainly take it. It’s just very clear that positive posts are ignored and the negative (mostly Nichols-related) posts are misconstrued as some sort of horrible anti-Bombers agenda. 

14 minutes ago, Mark F said:

Yeah, starting to seem like a troll to me.

Told us  us that playing Briggs was "vomit inducing".  Couldn't have been more wrong.

 

 

 

Nice edit

2 hours ago, TBURGESS said:

Streveler did what he needed to win too. 6 of 8 for 42. 75% passing. 2 rushing TD's and a great throwing TD. His Int was a tipped ball at the LOS, which wasn't really his fault.

Like I said, that's pretty good game manager stuff there.

Plus, seems in the case of Strev's numbers people are now buying what I'm saying about passing yards being meaningless ... Haha!

Edited July 7, 20196 yr by USABomberfan

The reason I like to see the QB get a decent amount of yards is so that later in the season..... when we need a 40-80 yard TD ... that we know it's possible.  Matty and his receivers have some of that this season so far..... I think (?)

 

34 minutes ago, AKAChip said:

Nice edit

thanks, got carried away there.

2 minutes ago, Mark F said:

thanks, got carried away there.

I realize my style rubs people the wrong way. I’ll tone it down. 

5 hours ago, USABomberfan said:

Well TBurgess I mean ... I don't always agree with him but I can see where he's coming from in most cases and find some useful nuggets sometimes.  Not so with Mr come out of left field and build the straw man up or pump up Willy Arbuckle's tires.

 

Here's what I'll say.  This is slightly unfamiliar territory we're in right now as the top team in the West even though it's still early.  We've spent so many years talking about how we catch the former West top dogs before we got there and now that we're here, it's almost strange.

I mean, obviously we still gotta slug it out on top of the hill to send the message to the Stamps that we're dethroning them.  But even so, you just couldn't script our start a whole lot better.

Just so you know, the two I was referring to were TBurg & AKA Chip. Not you.

1 hour ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

Just so you know, the two I was referring to were TBurg & AKA Chip. Not you.

I know, hence my first paragraph there

 

I am still waiting though for them to complain about Streveler's sub 100 passing yards game lol.

Edited July 8, 20196 yr by USABomberfan

It might be reasonable to hope that Nichols passes for 300 + against Argos and Streveler passes/runs for 50 or more.

(But passing yards are meaningless)

Edited July 8, 20196 yr by blueingreenland

1 hour ago, USABomberfan said:

 

I am still waiting though for them to complain about Streveler's sub 100 passing yards game lol.

Ha!

On 2019-07-07 at 7:08 PM, AKAChip said:

I realize my style rubs people the wrong way. I’ll tone it down. 

I hope you don't tone it down. Most of your posts come off as intelligent and thought out, even if everyone doesn't agree with them. Never change who you are for people you don't truly know.

Edited July 9, 20196 yr by MrFreakzilla
Added text

1 hour ago, MrFreakzilla said:

I hope you don't tone it down. Most of your posts come off as witch hunt and fishing expedition incoherent ramblings. Never change who you are unless you lose a bet about Arbuckle turtling under pressure in Hamilton.

Fixed for truth