I don't create threads very often but I was kind of missing a good ol' post-game thread.

The title of the thread sums up my take on last night's game. Going from a Sunday game that went about as far into overtime that you can get to a Friday match against a high powered Calgary offense. This wasn't going to be easy. I'm not going to say that we win this game otherwise, but a lot of what I saw can be attributed to this.

Everyone, to a man, was a half step behind. First few drives looked like we were trying to conserve energy. That was embarrassing, particularly our first defensive effort. At a point though, they all realized they have to give more if this game was going to stay close.

That said, they were not able to overcome their physical limitations..and that really exposed that we are not a great team. Great teams have enough talent that they will find a way.

The Good

Our defensive front seven has continued to be a force. There is a lot of talent in this group. We had their run game bottled up and they were making life difficult for VA.

Major Williams, to me, was the only DB out there that played well enough. He's a rookie though, and in the CFL you are going to get beat every once in a while.

Our offensive line, I thought, had a solid night minus the last few drives when the game was pretty much out of reach (and one player that I'll get to). They were going against a very good Calgary defensive line. I'm sure some will bite my head off for this but I thought that Wallace even did a fairly good job at RT. I haven't watched the replays or watch every play after the fact. But the plays I watched him I thought he was holding his own.

Demski and Oliveira were the highlights for me. When they are put into situations to play to their strengths, they can be very good. I just don't think this happens enough.

It's hard to say that Dru Brown was good, but I think he's being put in a tough spot. As was brought up by @JuranBoldenRules in another thread, his options are all within 20 yards with DBs and linebackers all over the place within it. I think for the most part he's making the right reads. But he didn't have many open receivers to throw to.

The Bad

Offensive playcalling has to be number one for me. We have to put Brady in a position to make plays. We aren't. He is our workhorse. If anyone is going to thrive on a short week it is going to be him. But no, we continue to put him out wide for some reason. And we are running too many plays that are sending him east-west. That is not his game. Anytime we had him going up the middle tonight he was making something of it.

This will be Stanley Bryant's last year. He is a shadow of his former self. Missing his block left, right and center. When Brox is healthy I'd say we line him up at LT and move on with Bryant.

Defensive backs. A step slow tonight. Showed in their ability to tackle. Showed in their ability to adjust to the ball in the air. I get the feeling that Moxey is playing hurt. He refuses to do anything that requires making a play on the ball. It's pretty embarrassing. Nichols, for being a smaller guy, cannot be slow, and cannot be slow to react. I'm not counting him out completely but it isn't looking good. Holm had a terrible game and just didn't seem to be himself. The short week did a number on this group IMO.

I thought the receivers had a similar problem to the DBs. We rely so much on Pokey Wilson and Tim White to get separation. They couldn't last night, and I think that lead to many of the interceptions. They didn't have enough and made the Calgary DBs look very good. As has been brought up elsewhere, we need some different types of receivers that can make plays in different ways.

Special teams...half step too slow..was all of the difference. Also the 57 yard FG call when our defense was rolling and we could pin them deep. Hated that.

White essentially replaced Schoen..Neild replaced Sterns...Cobbcorcaran replaced wheatfall...that's a fail in all 3 spots...tho if we had a true #1 game breaker or a dominant physical guy...White would be even more productive

Regarding the Oline, There was a fair amount of shuffling after Broxton got hurt. Specifically Wallace moving from the left guard to right tackle. That's completely different foot-work. Going to be interesting to see what changes on the line take place this week.I think we cut an O lineman from the pr prior to the game.

41 minutes ago, Jesse said:

They replaced him with White, who's much better. Wheatfall is incredibly average. Had every opportunity to develop while here and never did. He does not look any better in Hamilton than he did here.

Dobson wasn't let go because we wanted to keep Kola either. Dobson played guard for us and Hamilton blew their load on him past our ability to keep up.

I would personally really like to still have Dobson and Ford in our line-up. Those are my two hindsight regrets, but you make those choices and it costs you on other parts of the roster. Who knows if it would have turned out better?

Dobson at Center right now would be a road grader. Right there is your answer for the OL. If the Cats moved him there then you know the Bombers knew he could have played in Kola's spot. We chose to pay the wrong guy & now the guy we kept is the guy who left's backup. Like I said, we replaced a guy with 700 yards for a Canadian who'll might get us 400. White maybe is playing Wheatfall's spot but he could have been moved to the Boundary wideout where I believe Cobb plays.

Dobson did work at center here in pe-season...practices...not like we didn't see the potential of him there...we just chose Kolo....Coulda dumped Kolo and his 165k..Could gave that to Dobson coming off his rookie dal...added a few more bucks to it and that be that....we chose the other route...no foresight...and just dumb in a roster perspective

And if we needed more cash...Dumped JT and his I am sure 120k+ money and put a rookie canadian of any position in his spot....We didnt need him for ratio...or rotation really....but nope....

10 hours ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

Then as Dobson did step up his play, the Cats didn't overpay. The key is it worked out for them. Combine that with us keeping Kola & who got the worst deal? If The Trinity didn't want Wheatfall, fine, then go out & either draft his replacement or sign another Canadian receiver in free agency, The Bombers didn't do that, Roster decisions like this have been going on for years. Our asset allocation in terms of roster money is dreadful. We let starters walk but don't replace them. I agree with letting Lawler walk. He's not doing much in terms of leadership or production. The amount of effort he gives on the field just isn't there for what they're paying him.

No, its still an over pay even with his step up. It's just less awful.

1 hour ago, Booch said:

The cats obviously saw the potential and trajectory of Dobson and made choice to pay a bit early for it...the smart choice...stuff like that doesn't happen here..we will gladly pay after the fact big money on guys tho for previous work at an age where in a lot of instances you should be paying less..take it or leave it kinda stuff...moving on totally..or grooming the heir apparent

OL is the position to overpay at, especially for young Canadians. Desjarlais is the guy we should've paid. The fact we squandered Gray and let both Dobson and Desjarlais walk is a big problem. We kept having NI OL walk for so long; we thought we would always have the next guy. And we just didn't. We had some bad OL classes, and the NFL started vacuuming up our top prospects.

My understanding is that Desjarlais wasn't coming back here for any money. He wanted to be out east and that was that.

On 2026-07-25 at 3:04 PM, BBlink said:

I don't create threads very often but I was kind of missing a good ol' post-game thread.

The title of the thread sums up my take on last night's game. Going from a Sunday game that went about as far into overtime that you can get to a Friday match against a high powered Calgary offense. This wasn't going to be easy. I'm not going to say that we win this game otherwise, but a lot of what I saw can be attributed to this.

Everyone, to a man, was a half step behind. First few drives looked like we were trying to conserve energy. That was embarrassing, particularly our first defensive effort. At a point though, they all realized they have to give more if this game was going to stay close.

That said, they were not able to overcome their physical limitations..and that really exposed that we are not a great team. Great teams have enough talent that they will find a way.

The Good

Our defensive front seven has continued to be a force. There is a lot of talent in this group. We had their run game bottled up and they were making life difficult for VA.

Major Williams, to me, was the only DB out there that played well enough. He's a rookie though, and in the CFL you are going to get beat every once in a while.

Our offensive line, I thought, had a solid night minus the last few drives when the game was pretty much out of reach (and one player that I'll get to). They were going against a very good Calgary defensive line. I'm sure some will bite my head off for this but I thought that Wallace even did a fairly good job at RT. I haven't watched the replays or watch every play after the fact. But the plays I watched him I thought he was holding his own.

Demski and Oliveira were the highlights for me. When they are put into situations to play to their strengths, they can be very good. I just don't think this happens enough.

It's hard to say that Dru Brown was good, but I think he's being put in a tough spot. As was brought up by @JuranBoldenRules in another thread, his options are all within 20 yards with DBs and linebackers all over the place within it. I think for the most part he's making the right reads. But he didn't have many open receivers to throw to.

The Bad

Offensive playcalling has to be number one for me. We have to put Brady in a position to make plays. We aren't. He is our workhorse. If anyone is going to thrive on a short week it is going to be him. But no, we continue to put him out wide for some reason. And we are running too many plays that are sending him east-west. That is not his game. Anytime we had him going up the middle tonight he was making something of it.

This will be Stanley Bryant's last year. He is a shadow of his former self. Missing his block left, right and center. When Brox is healthy I'd say we line him up at LT and move on with Bryant.

Defensive backs. A step slow tonight. Showed in their ability to tackle. Showed in their ability to adjust to the ball in the air. I get the feeling that Moxey is playing hurt. He refuses to do anything that requires making a play on the ball. It's pretty embarrassing. Nichols, for being a smaller guy, cannot be slow, and cannot be slow to react. I'm not counting him out completely but it isn't looking good. Holm had a terrible game and just didn't seem to be himself. The short week did a number on this group IMO.

I thought the receivers had a similar problem to the DBs. We rely so much on Pokey Wilson and Tim White to get separation. They couldn't last night, and I think that lead to many of the interceptions. They didn't have enough and made the Calgary DBs look very good. As has been brought up elsewhere, we need some different types of receivers that can make plays in different ways.

Special teams...half step too slow..was all of the difference. Also the 57 yard FG call when our defense was rolling and we could pin them deep. Hated that.

Thanks for the breakdown, and you chose to stay optimistic, despite what we all saw...

Completely agree on Big Stan... I don't think he has many supporters left, other than the HC, OC, and OL coach... so I guess he's running out the stretch at LT... better or worse... if Pontius comes in a looks good at RT... the smart move would be to continue playing him there, put Broxton at LT and scratch Stan... but we all know that's not happening...

As for Nichols... if this was a 1 game issue, I wouldn't be concerned... but to my eyes, it's been a 7 game issue... either he's injured, or he's cooked... either way, he needs to be sat... exactly the same thing applies to Moxey too... why can't we have good a DL and good DBs in the same season?!

Just now, Noeller said:

My understanding is that Desjarlais wasn't coming back here for any money. He wanted to be out east and that was that.

If that were the case, he wouldn't have been made the then-highest-paid OL in the league.

In general, people overestimate athletes' desire to play close to "home". Adults make the move for work all the time and very often settle in new communities. Belle River (where he grew up) is also a hell of a long way away from Ottawa. It's to the very southwest of London, on the other side of the GTA.

2 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

If that were the case, he wouldn't have been made the then-highest-paid OL in the league.

In general, people overestimate athletes' desire to play close to "home". Adults make the move for work all the time and very often settle in new communities. Belle River (where he grew up) is also a hell of a long way away from Ottawa. It's to the very southwest of London, on the other side of the GTA.

if we ponied up...he'd have been here..

24 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

If that were the case, he wouldn't have been made the then-highest-paid OL in the league.

In general, people overestimate athletes' desire to play close to "home". Adults make the move for work all the time and very often settle in new communities. Belle River (where he grew up) is also a hell of a long way away from Ottawa. It's to the very southwest of London, on the other side of the GTA.

If I remember right, it has to do with his girlfriend/wife wanting to be there... But either way, what I remember from that time is that he was not coming back here... Wasn't a money issue.

1 hour ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

Dobson at Center right now would be a road grader. Right there is your answer for the OL. If the Cats moved him there then you know the Bombers knew he could have played in Kola's spot. We chose to pay the wrong guy & now the guy we kept is the guy who left's backup. Like I said, we replaced a guy with 700 yards for a Canadian who'll might get us 400. White maybe is playing Wheatfall's spot but he could have been moved to the Boundary wideout where I believe Cobb plays.

Neild is on pace for 740 yards and Wheatfall never crossed 700.

11 minutes ago, Noeller said:

If I remember right, it has to do with his girlfriend/wife wanting to be there... But either way, what I remember from that time is that he was not coming back here... Wasn't a money issue.

It's always a money issue. But if you can't convince one to stay, you convince the other. Or you keep having OL in the system, which we stopped doing.

No matter how you look at it, we've definitely let the OL slip. I'll make excuses for a lot of things, but drafting Canadian OL was what Walters said over and over in the beginning and he's gotten away from it and it's cost us.

my question for this week...with the issues we have had...some the injuries we may have to deal with....basically the suckage with scheme...and play of many on the field...game on Thursday....Why the hell we taking today off??...like really?...So we get 1 practice tomorrow...walkthrough Wed and then game....so to expect any significant shift/change/improvement is laughable...A real HC with some sense and a finger on the pulse of his squad would not be taking 3 days off on a short week after being embarrassed at home....I sure Sat and Sunday was ample time to take off...I'd have had them back on sunday trying to figure things out...Not Osh...Watched some film At and prob fixed it all...so taker er easy boys...see ya tues

Just now, Booch said:

my question for this week...with the issues we have had...some the injuries we may have to deal with....basically the suckage with scheme...and play of many on the field...game on Thursday....Why the hell we taking today off??...like really?...So we get 1 practice tomorrow...walkthrough Wed and then game....so to expect any significant shift/change/improvement is laughable...A real HC with some sense and a finger on the pulse of his squad would not be taking 3 days off on a short week after being embarrassed at home....I sure Sat and Sunday was ample time to take off...I'd have had them back on sunday trying to figure things out...Not Osh...Watched some film At and prob fixed it all...so taker er easy boys...see ya tues

They're practicing today.

5 minutes ago, Jesse said:

Neild is on pace for 740 yards and Wheatfall never crossed 700.

I think for some reason we are talking about Wheatfall replacing Cobb... So either Nield or him being the 5th WR? And then one of them putting up 700 yards somehow.

4 minutes ago, Jesse said:

Neild is on pace for 740 yards and Wheatfall never crossed 700.

It's always a money issue. But if you can't convince one to stay, you convince the other. Or you keep having OL in the system, which we stopped doing.

No matter how you look at it, we've definitely let the OL slip. I'll make excuses for a lot of things, but drafting Canadian OL was what Walters said over and over in the beginning and he's gotten away from it and it's cost us.

well Tommy Nield has never broke 550...in 5 yrs...Wheatfall was 655 in 16 games last yr...so there is that...he also has a better ypc avg in his 3 partial seasons than Neild...so there is that aspect too....and that cherry picking stats doesn't necessarily mean a lot sometimes as too much factors into things...same with projecting numbers to give a tru indication of things....4-7 yrs though of 16-18 games layed does give a better true isea of what a player is ...or isnt

The argument being made is that Wheatfall would have had more value...and created more room for our top 3 guys, than going with what we are there...and wouldnt have cost much either

coming into this yr after 5 seasons Neild was a guy who averaged 320 yards a season...1.4 TD's...not earth shattering by any means or a reason for us to figure we were "good" especially with the foolish idea to run 3 nationals

5 minutes ago, ShyGuy said:

I think for some reason we are talking about Wheatfall replacing Cobb... So either Nield or him being the 5th WR? And then one of them putting up 700 yards somehow.

yeah....its the 5th WR spot...but as per my previous post...Neild wasnt putting up elite numbers either for 5 yr...so the 3 national wr idea was flawed from day 1

2 minutes ago, Booch said:

well Tommy Nield has never broke 550...in 5 yrs...Wheatfall was 655 in 16 games last yr...so there is that...he also has a better ypc avg in his 3 partial seasons than Neild...so there is that aspect too....and that cherry picking stats doesn't necessarily mean a lot sometimes as too much factors into things...same with projecting numbers to give a tru indication of things....4-7 yrs though of 16-18 games layed does give a better true isea of what a player is ...or isnt

The argument being made is that Wheatfall would have had more value...and created more room for our top 3 guys, than going with what we are there...and wouldnt have cost much either

coming into this yr after 5 seasons Neild was a guy who averaged 320 yards a season...1.4 TD's...not earth shattering by any means or a reason for us to figure we were "good" especially with the foolish idea to run 3 nationals

Exactly. Wheatfall would have had to be accounted for by DC's moreso than Cobb. Guys can be shuffled into different positions as receivers if they're 4th or fifth guys. So, I really don't care if White took Wheatfall's place. It doesn';t matter as he could have been moved. The McMahon Stadium Hare would be more of a threat than Cobb.

Wheatfall was very hit or miss here. He is not a guy to get your panties in a twist about. You should be able to find a half dozen guys like that for training camp every year.

Wheatfall had 655 last year compared to Neild's 535 and Wheatfall was supposed to be a much larger part of our offence. He just couldn't rise to the occasion. Health being equal, Neild will outperform him this year as the 4th option in our offence. I'm not sure why people are pretending Keric was something he wasn't, and isn't.

1 hour ago, Noeller said:

My understanding is that Desjarlais wasn't coming back here for any money. He wanted to be out east and that was that.

Money talks. I'm sure the chance for Couture to play on the worst team in the CFL the past decade was really something he wanted to do. Walters wouldn't pay up. Dobson left. Even the human pylon Sukh Chung walked out. There is a problem retaining Canadian OL. There's been for years. Draft & develop for other teams.

Edited July 27Jul 27 by SpeedFlex27

4 minutes ago, bearpants said:

Thanks for the breakdown, and you chose to stay optimistic, despite what we all saw...

Completely agree on Big Stan... I don't think he has many supporters left, other than the HC, OC, and OL coach... so I guess he's running out the stretch at LT... better or worse... if Pontius comes in a looks good at RT... the smart move would be to continue playing him there, put Broxton at LT and scratch Stan... but we all know that's not happening...

As for Nichols... if this was a 1 game issue, I wouldn't be concerned... but to my eyes, it's been a 7 game issue... either he's injured, or he's cooked... either way, he needs to be sat... exactly the same thing applies to Moxey too... why can't we have good a DL and good DBs in the same season?!

Nichols hasn't been nearly the biggest issue in the secondary. Both the field and boundary sides have been awful. No one should be married to the starting spots, but the one who has been all bad is Moxey.

Otherwise, the primary cause of our struggle has been the scheme. This has been for 2 primary reasons. 1, we are reinventing the wheel yet again, and 2, the complexity has all the DBs playing extremely tentatively, which leads to getting burned.

We used to take a LBer off for 1db, who would play between the half and the LBer. We would also, for that part of a year, take a DL off and run an extra deep cover DB. What we are doing now is taking a Lber off for a DB, but putting that DB in as a 2nd Safety. But then we are playing those safeties shallow to the box. We then rotate coverage to add a DB to the box in a blitz or to play a shallow zone. This is causing havoc with who is picking up the deepest targets. Normally in our system, either the corner carries his man to the Half then covers under that, or he carries his man deep if he's playing on an island on the wide side. Then the SAM or the dime sub db would wall off the lane/seam inside to pick up crossers. In Cover 3, the halfs and S would generally have deep 3rds and be the guy a WR is carried to. Sometimes that would be rotated over 1 spot with a SAM going up and a half playing short. Usually this would happen vs an unbalanced WR set to the wide side.

We've changed how many DBs we play, and some roles, but largely it's been the same scheme going back to Hall. The idea is that the DBs play in backpedal as much as possible, facing the QB and rallying to the ball to make plays. That's why we have long coveted big and athletic DBs. Hall tended to play more vanilla in coverage and played with a larger cushion. Generally dropping the seam and short zone to the first down marker. Which is why we saw so many catch and runs for first downs back in the day. (the Fire Hall thread era complaints) JY plays with less cushion; he likes to blitz more and use complicated rotations to change the gaps from blitzing. Whereas Hall counted on 4 DL to create disruption, with the LBER blitzing when the RB didn't vacate the backfield, but really just eating up an OL to keep the 4 dl in 1on1s. Hall would do more with the front to create pressure; the cheetah pack we used is an example, twists/stunts, and layering pass rush lanes so that we wouldn't get QBs in 2 seconds, but they wouldn't see 4+ second pockets.

Previously, Nichols was either playing a wall/seam on first down so he could be used in the run fits, or picking up a target pushing deep when he was in the intermediate range, knowing he had an S in the middle to anchor his leverage off of. So short zone player under and usually outside to leverage the WR up to him and a S to leverage the inside. He would then read the route and either take the outside away or go downfield stride for stride.

What we are doing now in coverage is running a lot of Cover 2, with far less consistency in who is the 2nd deep cover guy. When we do run Cover 3, we are often running it with a corner on a deep 3rd instead of inside DBs. The 2nd S is playing so shallow/blitzing so often that the deep cover guys are too far apart to be leveraged by anyone who isn't right under them. And the 2 guys taking deep zone assignments are so infrequently the same guys that no one is comfortable or able to leverage off deep cover.

Watch the first Calgary passing highlight at 35 seconds. It looks like a traditional 4-2 alignment in the CFL pre-snap. But by the time the ball is snapped, Kelly the S is right up behind Jones the Mac. Pause when the ball is caught at 41 seconds. Williams the corner and Nichols are at the same depth. Holm was the only deep player, and the ball is thrown to the target under him. Moxey has been pushed deep by his WR. In the past, this would've been a pass off of the wideout to Holm, with Moxey coming up to the short pass with the Sam playing the wall. But Holm is the only deep man, so they both get pulled off. The Sam, Griffin, is pulled in by the play action and jet motion of 17 for Calgary, creating the immediate gap in coverage.

So the motion from 17 causes an overly complicated response from the D. Kelly moves up to the box, Griffin moves up for the PA and the motion, and Nichols switches to man, leaving Holm with the decision of being the only guy left in deep cover with 2 guys pushing deep, or coming up on a short to medium route. This looks bad for Holm, but he made the best decision possible. It's a no-win spot for him, though. No matter which decision he makes, we are giving up a completion for a first down. Then, of course, the tackling is poor because the pursuit angles are frantic and no one has good leverage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIRmxVOqF-k

In the past, instead of having 4 guys in the tackle box, the SAM would kick out further outside to pick up the motion from the wr and the S would stay deep.

If you watch the next play at 52 seconds, you again see us start in cover 3, with the deepest man only 10 yards off the line of scrimmage; then we move the S up to the box again into cover 2. Nichols and Holm are the only deep guys, which leaves us with open gaps in the run fits. That leaves us with 1 more gap than players to fill it, despite the crowded box. That also relies on DBs to close interior gaps.

1.44, we show cover 3 and drop into it, but this time we have Hallett and Kelly in the 2 S set both playing deep. They get it out quick to a WR for an easy first. If you pause before the ball comes out at 1.44, you see 5 Calgary WRs past the line with no DBs playing short. That pass could've got to any WR on a short route for an easy first down. VA just has to hit a guy quickly who is away from the LBs.

3.00 we get a sack on showing and dropping 3 deep in a more traditional 4-2 with the SAM wide and corners up. But if Va wasn't locked in on 4, who is open, he'd have seen 87 was open for a first right in front of him. Because he is running a drag route vs the Wil.

These aren't cases of the DBs just getting beaten. It's our scheme being beaten and giving Calgary what they want without taking away anything really. Normally, you aim to take away some of the looks the offence likes while trading off deep cover and run fit balance based on down and distance. Instead, we aren't really doing any of those. We are giving up the high-percentage throws to the wideouts; we aren't taking away the deep ball with sound deep cover, and we aren't running the run fits well.

The field is too wide for frequent Cover 2 use, and not having some consistency in who is the deep cover makes it very hard to hand guys off.

Nichols and Holm aren't being asked to do the same job they have been here, and are all over the map in what they are doing snap to snap. The Canadian contingent in deep cover this year is largely playing the role of scarecrows. But no one is afraid. Kelly has actually been the best of those 3, which is problematic in itself. Most teams these days play 1 Canadian back there doing this stuff. Nobody is playing 2, especially not with the frequency we are using cover 0-2.

28 minutes ago, Booch said:

my question for this week...with the issues we have had...some the injuries we may have to deal with....basically the suckage with scheme...and play of many on the field...game on Thursday....Why the hell we taking today off??...like really?...So we get 1 practice tomorrow...walkthrough Wed and then game....so to expect any significant shift/change/improvement is laughable...A real HC with some sense and a finger on the pulse of his squad would not be taking 3 days off on a short week after being embarrassed at home....I sure Sat and Sunday was ample time to take off...I'd have had them back on sunday trying to figure things out...Not Osh...Watched some film At and prob fixed it all...so taker er easy boys...see ya tues

'Cause it's not a locker room, it's a country club. They are an old team and still believe that if they are healthy late in the season, they will find a way. Despite all the massive doses of reality we've been getting.

The fact we aren't practicing tells me not only are we not making unforced changes for Thursday, but we also aren't planning them after that either.

We should take one of the extra practices this week. Pads can even be off. Run skelly and full group packs with extremely high tempo. Pre-called plays: you get 3 plays; each has to get 10 yards, and after that you sub and keep doing it over and over.

The D doesn't need to hit; they need to run and drill position and leverage. Use good pursuit angles, square up well. They can two-hand or go past. Speed and execution should be the focal point. They can do stuff like hit sleds for physicality.

10 minutes ago, Booch said:

well Tommy Nield has never broke 550...in 5 yrs...Wheatfall was 655 in 16 games last yr...so there is that...he also has a better ypc avg in his 3 partial seasons than Neild...so there is that aspect too....and that cherry picking stats doesn't necessarily mean a lot sometimes as too much factors into things..

Weird to mention cherry picking stats and point out Wheatfall has 655 in 16 games when Nield had 530 in 13, but he didn't record any stats in the first two games back from his injury so who knows if he even saw the field... Riderville mentions the Elks week 8 game as the first time he suited up despite showing up on the depth chart in week 7

Wheatfall was also misused as a defacto WR2 here until Wilson showed up and he just isn't gonna be that guy. He was 2nd on the team in targets (among WRs, Brady had 3 more).

Nield had similar game over game production in the role he is filling now which is that 4th receiver or someone who can step up a bit when the injury big hits... Although the Bombers are targetting him quite a bit more downfield than the Riders did last year

31 minutes ago, Jesse said:

Wheatfall had 655 last year compared to Neild's 535 and Wheatfall was supposed to be a much larger part of our offence. He just couldn't rise to the occasion. Health being equal, Neild will outperform him this year as the 4th option in our offence. I'm not sure why people are pretending Keric was something he wasn't, and isn't.

I wouldnt judge anyone over the work from last yrs offence....and as mentioned..Wheatfall would be the 4th 5th option...like he was last yr...and 655 yards in that garbage for a 5th option guy...with one game where we passed like what..8 times....more than good enough to be used where we are using Cobb/Corcorran...Thats the point ijn this...he wasnt to be "the guy" nor should we as a team expected him to be

28 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

Nichols hasn't been nearly the biggest issue in the secondary. Both the field and boundary sides have been awful. No one should be married to the starting spots, but the one who has been all bad is Moxey.

Otherwise, the primary cause of our struggle has been the scheme. This has been for 2 primary reasons. 1, we are reinventing the wheel yet again, and 2, the complexity has all the DBs playing extremely tentatively, which leads to getting burned.

We used to take a LBer off for 1db, who would play between the half and the LBer. We would also, for that part of a year, take a DL off and run an extra deep cover DB. What we are doing now is taking a Lber off for a DB, but putting that DB in as a 2nd Safety. But then we are playing those safeties shallow to the box. We then rotate coverage to add a DB to the box in a blitz or to play a shallow zone. This is causing havoc with who is picking up the deepest targets. Normally in our system, either the corner carries his man to the Half then covers under that, or he carries his man deep if he's playing on an island on the wide side. Then the SAM or the dime sub db would wall off the lane/seam inside to pick up crossers. In Cover 3, the halfs and S would generally have deep 3rds and be the guy a WR is carried to. Sometimes that would be rotated over 1 spot with a SAM going up and a half playing short. Usually this would happen vs an unbalanced WR set to the wide side.

We've changed how many DBs we play, and some roles, but largely it's been the same scheme going back to Hall. The idea is that the DBs play in backpedal as much as possible, facing the QB and rallying to the ball to make plays. That's why we have long coveted big and athletic DBs. Hall tended to play more vanilla in coverage and played with a larger cushion. Generally dropping the seam and short zone to the first down marker. Which is why we saw so many catch and runs for first downs back in the day. (the Fire Hall thread era complaints) JY plays with less cushion; he likes to blitz more and use complicated rotations to change the gaps from blitzing. Whereas Hall counted on 4 DL to create disruption, with the LBER blitzing when the RB didn't vacate the backfield, but really just eating up an OL to keep the 4 dl in 1on1s. Hall would do more with the front to create pressure; the cheetah pack we used is an example, twists/stunts, and layering pass rush lanes so that we wouldn't get QBs in 2 seconds, but they wouldn't see 4+ second pockets.

Previously, Nichols was either playing a wall/seam on first down so he could be used in the run fits, or picking up a target pushing deep when he was in the intermediate range, knowing he had an S in the middle to anchor his leverage off of. So short zone player under and usually outside to leverage the WR up to him and a S to leverage the inside. He would then read the route and either take the outside away or go downfield stride for stride.

What we are doing now in coverage is running a lot of Cover 2, with far less consistency in who is the 2nd deep cover guy. When we do run Cover 3, we are often running it with a corner on a deep 3rd instead of inside DBs. The 2nd S is playing so shallow/blitzing so often that the deep cover guys are too far apart to be leveraged by anyone who isn't right under them. And the 2 guys taking deep zone assignments are so infrequently the same guys that no one is comfortable or able to leverage off deep cover.

Watch the first Calgary passing highlight at 35 seconds. It looks like a traditional 4-2 alignment in the CFL pre-snap. But by the time the ball is snapped, Kelly the S is right up behind Jones the Mac. Pause when the ball is caught at 41 seconds. Williams the corner and Nichols are at the same depth. Holm was the only deep player, and the ball is thrown to the target under him. Moxey has been pushed deep by his WR. In the past, this would've been a pass off of the wideout to Holm, with Moxey coming up to the short pass with the Sam playing the wall. But Holm is the only deep man, so they both get pulled off. The Sam, Griffin, is pulled in by the play action and jet motion of 17 for Calgary, creating the immediate gap in coverage.

So the motion from 17 causes an overly complicated response from the D. Kelly moves up to the box, Griffin moves up for the PA and the motion, and Nichols switches to man, leaving Holm with the decision of being the only guy left in deep cover with 2 guys pushing deep, or coming up on a short to medium route. This looks bad for Holm, but he made the best decision possible. It's a no-win spot for him, though. No matter which decision he makes, we are giving up a completion for a first down. Then, of course, the tackling is poor because the pursuit angles are frantic and no one has good leverage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIRmxVOqF-k

In the past, instead of having 4 guys in the tackle box, the SAM would kick out further outside to pick up the motion from the wr and the S would stay deep.

If you watch the next play at 52 seconds, you again see us start in cover 3, with the deepest man only 10 yards off the line of scrimmage; then we move the S up to the box again into cover 2. Nichols and Holm are the only deep guys, which leaves us with open gaps in the run fits. That leaves us with 1 more gap than players to fill it, despite the crowded box. That also relies on DBs to close interior gaps.

1.44, we show cover 3 and drop into it, but this time we have Hallett and Kelly in the 2 S set both playing deep. They get it out quick to a WR for an easy first. If you pause before the ball comes out at 1.44, you see 5 Calgary WRs past the line with no DBs playing short. That pass could've got to any WR on a short route for an easy first down. VA just has to hit a guy quickly who is away from the LBs.

3.00 we get a sack on showing and dropping 3 deep in a more traditional 4-2 with the SAM wide and corners up. But if Va wasn't locked in on 4, who is open, he'd have seen 87 was open for a first right in front of him. Because he is running a drag route vs the Wil.

These aren't cases of the DBs just getting beaten. It's our scheme being beaten and giving Calgary what they want without taking away anything really. Normally, you aim to take away some of the looks the offence likes while trading off deep cover and run fit balance based on down and distance. Instead, we aren't really doing any of those. We are giving up the high-percentage throws to the wideouts; we aren't taking away the deep ball with sound deep cover, and we aren't running the run fits well.

The field is too wide for frequent Cover 2 use, and not having some consistency in who is the deep cover makes it very hard to hand guys off.

Nichols and Holm aren't being asked to do the same job they have been here, and are all over the map in what they are doing snap to snap. The Canadian contingent in deep cover this year is largely playing the role of scarecrows. But no one is afraid. Kelly has actually been the best of those 3, which is problematic in itself. Most teams these days play 1 Canadian back there doing this stuff. Nobody is playing 2, especially not with the frequency we are using cover 0-2.

28 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

Nichols hasn't been nearly the biggest issue in the secondary. Both the field and boundary sides have been awful. No one should be married to the starting spots, but the one who has been all bad is Moxey.

Otherwise, the primary cause of our struggle has been the scheme. This has been for 2 primary reasons. 1, we are reinventing the wheel yet again, and 2, the complexity has all the DBs playing extremely tentatively, which leads to getting burned.

We used to take a LBer off for 1db, who would play between the half and the LBer. We would also, for that part of a year, take a DL off and run an extra deep cover DB. What we are doing now is taking a Lber off for a DB, but putting that DB in as a 2nd Safety. But then we are playing those safeties shallow to the box. We then rotate coverage to add a DB to the box in a blitz or to play a shallow zone. This is causing havoc with who is picking up the deepest targets. Normally in our system, either the corner carries his man to the Half then covers under that, or he carries his man deep if he's playing on an island on the wide side. Then the SAM or the dime sub db would wall off the lane/seam inside to pick up crossers. In Cover 3, the halfs and S would generally have deep 3rds and be the guy a WR is carried to. Sometimes that would be rotated over 1 spot with a SAM going up and a half playing short. Usually this would happen vs an unbalanced WR set to the wide side.

We've changed how many DBs we play, and some roles, but largely it's been the same scheme going back to Hall. The idea is that the DBs play in backpedal as much as possible, facing the QB and rallying to the ball to make plays. That's why we have long coveted big and athletic DBs. Hall tended to play more vanilla in coverage and played with a larger cushion. Generally dropping the seam and short zone to the first down marker. Which is why we saw so many catch and runs for first downs back in the day. (the Fire Hall thread era complaints) JY plays with less cushion; he likes to blitz more and use complicated rotations to change the gaps from blitzing. Whereas Hall counted on 4 DL to create disruption, with the LBER blitzing when the RB didn't vacate the backfield, but really just eating up an OL to keep the 4 dl in 1on1s. Hall would do more with the front to create pressure; the cheetah pack we used is an example, twists/stunts, and layering pass rush lanes so that we wouldn't get QBs in 2 seconds, but they wouldn't see 4+ second pockets.

Previously, Nichols was either playing a wall/seam on first down so he could be used in the run fits, or picking up a target pushing deep when he was in the intermediate range, knowing he had an S in the middle to anchor his leverage off of. So short zone player under and usually outside to leverage the WR up to him and a S to leverage the inside. He would then read the route and either take the outside away or go downfield stride for stride.

What we are doing now in coverage is running a lot of Cover 2, with far less consistency in who is the 2nd deep cover guy. When we do run Cover 3, we are often running it with a corner on a deep 3rd instead of inside DBs. The 2nd S is playing so shallow/blitzing so often that the deep cover guys are too far apart to be leveraged by anyone who isn't right under them. And the 2 guys taking deep zone assignments are so infrequently the same guys that no one is comfortable or able to leverage off deep cover.

Watch the first Calgary passing highlight at 35 seconds. It looks like a traditional 4-2 alignment in the CFL pre-snap. But by the time the ball is snapped, Kelly the S is right up behind Jones the Mac. Pause when the ball is caught at 41 seconds. Williams the corner and Nichols are at the same depth. Holm was the only deep player, and the ball is thrown to the target under him. Moxey has been pushed deep by his WR. In the past, this would've been a pass off of the wideout to Holm, with Moxey coming up to the short pass with the Sam playing the wall. But Holm is the only deep man, so they both get pulled off. The Sam, Griffin, is pulled in by the play action and jet motion of 17 for Calgary, creating the immediate gap in coverage.

So the motion from 17 causes an overly complicated response from the D. Kelly moves up to the box, Griffin moves up for the PA and the motion, and Nichols switches to man, leaving Holm with the decision of being the only guy left in deep cover with 2 guys pushing deep, or coming up on a short to medium route. This looks bad for Holm, but he made the best decision possible. It's a no-win spot for him, though. No matter which decision he makes, we are giving up a completion for a first down. Then, of course, the tackling is poor because the pursuit angles are frantic and no one has good leverage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIRmxVOqF-k

In the past, instead of having 4 guys in the tackle box, the SAM would kick out further outside to pick up the motion from the wr and the S would stay deep.

If you watch the next play at 52 seconds, you again see us start in cover 3, with the deepest man only 10 yards off the line of scrimmage; then we move the S up to the box again into cover 2. Nichols and Holm are the only deep guys, which leaves us with open gaps in the run fits. That leaves us with 1 more gap than players to fill it, despite the crowded box. That also relies on DBs to close interior gaps.

1.44, we show cover 3 and drop into it, but this time we have Hallett and Kelly in the 2 S set both playing deep. They get it out quick to a WR for an easy first. If you pause before the ball comes out at 1.44, you see 5 Calgary WRs past the line with no DBs playing short. That pass could've got to any WR on a short route for an easy first down. VA just has to hit a guy quickly who is away from the LBs.

3.00 we get a sack on showing and dropping 3 deep in a more traditional 4-2 with the SAM wide and corners up. But if Va wasn't locked in on 4, who is open, he'd have seen 87 was open for a first right in front of him. Because he is running a drag route vs the Wil.

These aren't cases of the DBs just getting beaten. It's our scheme being beaten and giving Calgary what they want without taking away anything really. Normally, you aim to take away some of the looks the offence likes while trading off deep cover and run fit balance based on down and distance. Instead, we aren't really doing any of those. We are giving up the high-percentage throws to the wideouts; we aren't taking away the deep ball with sound deep cover, and we aren't running the run fits well.

The field is too wide for frequent Cover 2 use, and not having some consistency in who is the deep cover makes it very hard to hand guys off.

Nichols and Holm aren't being asked to do the same job they have been here, and are all over the map in what they are doing snap to snap. The Canadian contingent in deep cover this year is largely playing the role of scarecrows. But no one is afraid. Kelly has actually been the best of those 3, which is problematic in itself. Most teams these days play 1 Canadian back there doing this stuff. Nobody is playing 2, especially not with the frequency we are using cover 0-2.

nicely explained...we are getting schemed and film studied to death....easiest team to plan against and like you said..the passive approach...gets us eviscerated

and nice to see someone else here see's the ridiculousness of our practice and planning habits..I am sure there are many others but arent saying it ....it's really a joke

I expect zero changes of anykind...and we likely make the BC scrub QB look like the second coming of a star

Edited July 27Jul 27 by Booch

2 minutes ago, Booch said:

I wouldnt judge anyone over the work from last yrs offence....and as mentioned..Wheatfall would be the 4th 5th option...like he was last yr...and 655 yards in that garbage for a 5thyr guy...with one game wherw we assed like what..8 times....more than good enough to be used where we are using Cobb/Corcorran...Thats the point ijn this...he wasnt to be "ythe gy" nor should we as a tam expected him to be

nicely explained...we are getting schemed and film studied to death....easiest team to plan against and like you said..the passive approach...gets us eviscerated

and nice to see someone else here see's the ridiculousness of our practice and planning habits..I am sure there are many others but arent saying it ....it's really a joke

I expect zero changes of anykind...and we likely make the BC scrub QB look like the second coming of a star

Wheatfall was the #2 targeted receiver last year. We begged him to step up and be a difference maker. But Neild’s gonna pass his production as the #4 targeted receiver in this years offence.

17 minutes ago, ShyGuy said:

Weird to mention cherry picking stats and point out Wheatfall has 655 in 16 games when Nield had 530 in 13, but he didn't record any stats in the first two games back from his injury so who knows if he even saw the field... Riderville mentions the Elks week 8 game as the first time he suited up despite showing up on the depth chart in week 7

Wheatfall was also misused as a defacto WR2 here until Wilson showed up and he just isn't gonna be that guy. He was 2nd on the team in targets (among WRs, Brady had 3 more).

Nield had similar game over game production in the role he is filling now which is that 4th receiver or someone who can step up a bit when the injury big hits... Although the Bombers are targetting him quite a bit more downfield than the Riders did last year

i said that cherry picking doesnt tell the whole story if you actually read...so I showed an example...then i said u need 4..7 seasons to base a true indication of what a player is...or isnt based on "stats" and that too much can factor in in just a season...but the body of work over 5 or more yrs is pretty accurate...much like you alluded to about Neild...tho whatever tripe you get from Riderfans is likely a bunch of baluney lol