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Report: Lions expected to start quarterback Kaidon Salter...

According to a report from TSN's Farhan Lalji, the BC Lions are expected to start Kaidon Salter at quarterback on Thursday night.

Edited July 27Jul 27 by rebusrankin

7 minutes ago, Booch said:

you have 2 dbs on the PR...Vaval...not a impossible task for if anything to sit a few habitual suckers for a game...Slot Jackson or Vaval at a corner...Texada at a halfback spot...Heck with Woodbey back slot him at SAM and move Griffin to HB...as he prob our best db period...as well as SAM...And look how long it took Osh to figure that out...He didnt all of a sudden learn to play overnight

And people worried about "yeah but Vaval is our returner" well news flash guys can do it just fine...and worrying about injury is just playing trying not to lose...A returner is more likely to get hurt returning than playing WR or DB

That also just makes more sense to scrap the extra Cdn wideout for an Import who has return ability....Hello Singer....As well we could drop the last guy on roster for the Global import and see what he can do on ST and maybe the odd rep here and there where we used Hallet and Kelly to be abused...and if all the above changes dont pan out...or are exposed as not good...then bring in new blood till you find the right mix

People say there no options...but you cant say that until given a chance..and maybe a bit of rope to cut their teeth...lord knows we have given quite a few vets over the yrs more than enough rope...and still couldn't pull the trigger

Just going off the history of our roster changes when forced into it, it's not encouraging. For every keeper we found 10 flamed out. I do agree on the designated NAT usage. We need to start doing it. Absolutely agree that we need to keep acquiring talent throughout the season, something that hasn't really happened much in a few years now. No one is saying there aren't options, just that the options aren't great and that's the problem.

7 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

Yea, I'm not seeing a lot of pride on our team as well. Locker room leadership might be suspect right now.

This I wholeheartedly agree with.

5 minutes ago, Mike said:

This I wholeheartedly agree with.

I don't like conspiracy theories but when former FIFO guys like BO are openly disgruntled in the media, one has to wonder what is going on in the locker room. We may need to cut some cancer out.

5 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

I don't like conspiracy theories but when former FIFO guys like BO are openly disgruntled in the media, one has to wonder what is going on in the locker room. We may need to cut some cancer out.

The cancer could be O’Shea tho. He’s the guy who let it come to this. The leader in the room, the vets if you will?? They are the problem. O’Shea who should own that room is a bigger part cuz he’s allowed it to become this. Unless it’s possible TC was more Walters than O’Shea?? Doubt it tho. Brady being outspoken started last year tho so it’s been the festering and brewing. Zach also last year. It started last year and it’s grown this year.

You know early in the season Moxey made a play but he didn’t make the play. The receiver dropped the ball really. Moxey celebrated like we won the grey cup. At that point you can see that veteran leadership is just non existent and bullshit at this point.

Edited July 29Jul 29 by Goalie

8 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

I don't like conspiracy theories but when former FIFO guys like BO are openly disgruntled in the media, one has to wonder what is going on in the locker room. We may need to cut some cancer out.

Can you name a season without an example of Brady being openly disgruntled at some point? The guy is emotional and speaks his mind and never thinks he has enough carries.

2 minutes ago, Jesse said:

Can you name a season without an example of Brady being openly disgruntled at some point? The guy is emotional and speaks his mind and never thinks he has enough carries.

More so last season but yeah he’s kind of an outspoken guy after games normally if they interview him. Zach doing it last year stood out more cuz he doesn’t normally. Brady? Kinda does.

Edited July 29Jul 29 by Goalie

1 hour ago, Goalie said:

I’m a smoker of the cigarettes and green Others indulge in alcohol frequently. Everyone is told it’s bad for you. We all know it is but we do it anyways cuz who the **** really cares, it’s my life

That’s O’Shea with veterans.

Ppl were talking about our Os identity on the radio after the game. Strevy @DTonOB and Smug Brown.

What the hell is our Ds identity. Can’t stop the run. Can’t stop the pass.

Last week tho I think special teams cost us. 58 yd miss tho so that’s on O’Shea.

Here's the main thing I've learned about defense in my lifetime with football.

Great defenses take the ball away. They make plays that score points, put pressure on opposing offenses and support their offense to score points

If you're running a defense fixated on not giving up points, you lose. Any big plays against you are even more magnified. That's where we have been since Younger has taken over. You can't win like this. Like the Montreal Grey Cup. D didn't play bad, but couldn't make the plays to win the game. It's not in their nature. It's being coached out of them.

13 minutes ago, GCn20 said:

I don't like conspiracy theories but when former FIFO guys like BO are openly disgruntled in the media, one has to wonder what is going on in the locker room. We may need to cut some cancer out.

FIFO actually started here in the Reily yrs...not sure who re-introduced it 2019 and kinda rebranded it...if it was a coach that was a player from that area...cant recall the staff at the time...but this "regime" didnt spawn it

At the time it was First in..First out but underlying and in the room between players it was at times referred to as the "fit in or F off monicker that the 2019 team adopted

Edited July 29Jul 29 by Booch

3 minutes ago, Booch said:

yrs...not sure who re-introduced it 2019 and kinda rebranded it...if it was a coach that was a player from that area...cant recall the staff at the time...but this "regime" didnt spawn it

Was something O'Shea brought from Toronto is my understanding

1 hour ago, GCn20 said:

I'm not disagreeing on the Moxey move but that wouldn't have won us the game last week. Problems are much deeper than that.

just because we can't change everything... doesn't mean we can't start with something

3 hours ago, Mike said:

Giving up 52 points and then making zero changes to the starting defense tells me everything I need to know.

What’s it gonna take to get us to bench someone from our piss poor secondary?

21 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

Was something O'Shea brought from Toronto is my understanding

They (Argo's) may have got it from the 80's Bomber teams or a coach or player who ended up there in Osh's time there...but I do know that it was used here tho in those yrs...100% certainty so he didnt create it...Poached it tho

I mean it's a pretty basic sentiment so I don't doubt it's been around forever.

48 minutes ago, JuranBoldenRules said:

Here's the main thing I've learned about defense in my lifetime with football.

Great defenses take the ball away. They make plays that score points, put pressure on opposing offenses and support their offense to score points

If you're running a defense fixated on not giving up points, you lose. Any big plays against you are even more magnified. That's where we have been since Younger has taken over. You can't win like this. Like the Montreal Grey Cup. D didn't play bad, but couldn't make the plays to win the game. It's not in their nature. It's being coached out of them.

This times a million.

Younger and Osh were aggressive defensive players in their day too, so I don't know what is going on here

I think Younger is trying to recreate the style of defense used by the early-mid 2000 Argos. The problem is we don’t have the talent or aggressiveness of those teams’ secondaries. Those long completions to the field wr we give up regularly were turned into pick sixes by Byron Parker.

5 hours ago, Booch said:

https://static.cfl.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/BC-at-WINNIPEG_JULY-30.pdf

as expected...Woodbey on is good...But basically status quo...only change dictated due to injury...what a shock...Guess they watched that film and figured it out this time...yup

If we go back to using Woodbey as the nickel sub and not a second Canadian S that will help a lot. Playing a greenhorn QB should also help, but the lack of larger changes is concerning.

Vanterpool suddenly being ready is a bit questionable too. If he's been game-ready for a week or two, they really should've sat Bryant. I know they don't want to do that, but he is just brutal.

If they put him back out there in a couple weeks I will lose the rest of the hope I have for the short term.

Vanterpool played soo well in limited reps at G last year, and is very well suited to RT.

2 minutes ago, wbbfan said:

If we go back to using Woodbey as the nickel sub and not a second Canadian S that will help a lot. Playing a greenhorn QB should also help, but the lack of larger changes is concerning.

Vanterpool suddenly being ready is a bit questionable too. If he's been game-ready for a week or two, they really should've sat Bryant. I know they don't want to do that, but he is just brutal.

If they put him back out there in a couple weeks I will lose the rest of the hope I have for the short term.

Vanterpool played soo well in limited reps at G last year, and is very well suited to RT.

weird eh that guys are magically game ready from injury when needed because of injury...but not poor play

6 minutes ago, sweep the leg said:

I think Younger is trying to recreate the style of defense used by the early-mid 2000 Argos. The problem is we don’t have the talent or aggressiveness of those teams’ secondaries. Those long completions to the field wr we give up regularly were turned into pick sixes by Byron Parker.

We are always in that soft match zone, bend but don't break philosophy. Be it with JY or Hall. And frankly, most of the league uses that as their base or primary sub pack. But what we have done extensively this year, with 2 Ss (ususally limited canadians) and running them shallow, is more similar to some of what Stubler used to run. Its kind of 46 bear like, but with soft zone and soft players all over.

1 minute ago, wbbfan said:

We are always in that soft match zone, bend but don't break philosophy. Be it with JY or Hall. And frankly, most of the league uses that as their base or primary sub pack. But what we have done extensively this year, with 2 Ss (ususally limited canadians) and running them shallow, is more similar to some of what Stubler used to run. Its kind of 46 bear like, but with soft zone and soft players all over.

if we had tackling machines would be different...but we dont....Griffin is good....Woodbey will help...Williams is getting there...the rest of secondary iffy at best

Just now, Booch said:

if we had tackling machines would be different...but we dont....Griffin is good....Woodbey will help...Williams is getting there...the rest of secondary iffy at best

Yep, you need to tackle well, gang tackle, and make guys pay a toll to catch the ball underneath the zone. If you don't do that, you are at best playing speed bump.

2 hours ago, wbbfan said:

If we go back to using Woodbey as the nickel sub and not a second Canadian S that will help a lot. Playing a greenhorn QB should also help, but the lack of larger changes is concerning.

Vanterpool suddenly being ready is a bit questionable too. If he's been game-ready for a week or two, they really should've sat Bryant. I know they don't want to do that, but he is just brutal.

If they put him back out there in a couple weeks I will lose the rest of the hope I have for the short term.

Vanterpool played soo well in limited reps at G last year, and is very well suited to RT.

You can bet the farm that Bryant will be back at LT as soon as they can patch him up.

5 hours ago, GCn20 said:

Yea, I'm not seeing a lot of pride on our team as well. Locker room leadership might be suspect right now.

4 hours ago, sweep the leg said:

I think Younger is trying to recreate the style of defense used by the early-mid 2000 Argos. The problem is we don’t have the talent or aggressiveness of those teams’ secondaries. Those long completions to the field wr we give up regularly were turned into pick sixes by Byron Parker.

Interesting point. My question would be, can that style still work?

36 minutes ago, rebusrankin said:

Interesting point. My question would be, can that style still work?

If you look around at Ds throughout the rest of the league, none are great. But I don't know if I'd say any are even good. The Elk and the Riders have been the best in the league. But outside of a different outlier bad performer in each defensive standing league-wide, the rest are actually very close. Especially when you look at it per game played.

Our D gives up among the fewest yards per play on first, 2nd fewest passing yards again, one of the lowest completion %s, middle of the pack in YPC while one of the most run against Ds in the league, 2nd down conversion rate is in the few best, most sacks, most PKDs, 2nd most TFL, while opposing offences enjoy the best starting field position in the league.

Despite all that, our D is pretty bad.

The best Defence against CFL offences is the IR. That's the only thing slowing down scoring.

To actually answer the question, the drop-back heavy match zone that Toronto ran back then is the backbone of what teams run now. Fronts and pressure packages are far more modular than back then, when the Argos ran a pretty strict 3-4, and SAM hasn't been an actual Lber spot for ages. So yes, it still works.

Almost 2 years ago now, JY switched us to a mainly 30 front dime pack heavy D dropping every one back constantly. And that was our best D since then, and by far the most Argo like D the league has seen.

3 hours ago, Tracker said:

You can bet the farm that Bryant will be back at LT as soon as they can patch him up.

You know, they made him sit longer than he wanted when he fainted a couple of years ago. And they made Paddy sit when he was too injured to produce. I shouldn't take hope that it will happen again, especially since we cut/sat better Ts and played Stan so long. But it feels like maybe the worm is turning here.

Mos is taking the ball to start the last few games in a row instead of deferring could be a big deal.

If you want to better understand the modern coverages everyone is running, watch Lapolice's YouTube videos from a couple years ago.

There's basically 3 main coverage shells (2 high "Cover 2", 3 high "Cover 3," Quarters "Cover 4") plus man ("Cover 0," "Cover 1") and then variations within...."match coverage" is basically playing different shells/concepts to field and boundary really trying to disrupt routes and QB's first read. Lapo has videos on all of it plus a lot of different passing concepts.

Everyone runs all of those coverages. The variations are important and really the important part is the leverage they want DB's in at certain situations. That's what ends up giving more passive or aggressive looks.

Example that Philpot TD...Calgary has one guy wide to the field, in-line tight end....to the field we have Griffin man up on the tight end, Kelly in middle hook/curl (he'd take any short crosser from the boundary too) and spying VA since he's got a view to the ball, Moxey PASSIVE outside leverage on Philpot he's at 15 yards and dropping straight out even as Philpot cuts, Nichols in a deep middle zone/inside leverage. Moxey doesn't even cross the numbers until Philpot catches the ball, barely even reacts to his post route.

So we're in a Cover 4 shell that play (could be man to boundary because Calgary is running 2 verticals to boundary, we end up with all 4 of our DB's across the 45 yard line when Philpot catches the ball), passive, don't get beat deep....but we're 4 on 2 eligibles to the field, and the tight end blocks....so we've got 4 guys assigned to cover 1 guy running a route to the field. Kelly recognizes this and starts to hammer into the pocket on delayed blitz, Griffin stays with tight end. We have Moxey and Nichols just out there to guard Philpot and there's no recognition of that. Moxey should be able to read that and switch his leverage to get right onto Philpot's hip and go play the ball knowing he has deep help to the inside.

You would think as a DB you'd want to go get the ball. And when we routinely have 8-9 guys in coverage there shouldn't be so much space underneath intermediate routes. We're not making reads and playing as a unit.