Not impressed with Buck. He has to do much better if we are going to win. Crowton's play selection was spotty & inconsistent. In the second half he basically was afraid to lose & he called the game that way, so naturally we lost. Our D got no pressure on AC in the second half. Our DBs suddenly couldn't cover. Etienne emerged tonite as a legit CFL receiver. And yeah, throw mud at me as I was one of the biggest Jade Haters here... 

Disappointing we lost & I'm not gonna look for a silver lining because quite frankly, I'm tired of watching this **** every game. Nothing ever changes. We had this game & let it slip away. 

Muamba was good on special teams but we need him to be better on defence. He missed a couple tackles in the box that he really should have made.

 

I can forgive a couple whiffs for being really the only guy keeping our ST together...

I can forgive a couple whiffs for being really the only guy keeping our ST together...

Thought Harris was good on ST too, but you're right the whole unit needs to be better.

But as our starting MLB, good special teams play just isn't enough from Henoc. He needs to be an impact player on defence as well... The team needs him to be.

Thought Harris was good on ST too, but you're right the whole unit needs to be better.

But as our starting MLB, good special teams play just isn't enough from Henoc. He needs to be an impact player on defence as well... The team needs him to be.

 

Agree.  Speaking of ST, if any guy improved from an offseason training regimen, its Pontbriand.  He surprised me...  Labbe should be cut - I dont notice him anymore - thats good if youre DB not so good on ST, everyone else pretty much meh.

 

I guess he was a locker room issue, but man this would be a killer D with Hefney... but whatever.  Both Muambas need a bit more experience or mentoring...  And well, right now I wouldnt be surprised if JJ gets replaced by Markett... so I guess its up to Suber.

Quarterback will be the issue with this team... It's not getting fixed. The problem remains. The only choice was replacing secondary players at that position. This is a hill Burke & Mack are gonna die on. 

1) Has Simpson lost a step? He didn't seem to have the giddy-up he had last year in the running game.

 

2) Disappointed that you can access the pre-upgrade posts on the other site because there are some people who need to have their Jade Etienne posts featured in a retrospective.

 

3) I really like having just one postgame thread here.

Quarterback will be the issue with this team... It's not getting fixed. The problem remains. The only choice was replacing secondary players at that position. This is a hill Burke & Mack are gonna die on. 

 

This, in a salted nutshell. 

 

That MTL team is no big deal and rookie head coach Gary Busey trotted out a very sloppy crew, especially by MTL standards. 

 

But when you got AC, even a 40-year-old AC, you're always in the mix. 

 

6 win season in Bomberville. 

Cavillo already looked shy.

On the Buck -AC comparison the difference was the type of pressure. Someone mentioned AC stepping up in the pocket. When there is no inside pressure and pressure from only the outside the pocket does not collapse and you can step up. Montreal had inside pressure as well and therefore collapsing the pocket. Buck was forced to the outside and had to throw on the run. Bombers had no inside pressure AC could step up.

1) Has Simpson lost a step? He didn't seem to have the giddy-up he had last year in the running game.

 

I saw this too.  There were a couple times a hole opened up and he wasn't able to hit it fast enough.  We definitely did not get enough out of our running game.

The whole D-line stepped up tonight. Kenny Mainor was consistently in the backfield, Turner and Gilmore dominated the middle... I love having Lucas in the middle for depth as well... He plugged things up just fine in there. Hall also did fairly good but remember he was up against Bourke all night.

 

LBers looked like a solid Unit. I knew Parker was going to be good for us, wasn't sure about Dunn but he really impressed. If he can continue to build off that, Id love to have Sears replace Jovon at Corner. Jovon appears to have officially lost a step, even on returns.

 

I've been saying for a while now that Buck isnt any good anymore, not even when he's healthy. Imagine this team with Kevin Glenn under center lol.... just sayin!

 

Jade Etienne looked like a real threat out there. Very happy with him. Crow never tasted so good!

 

Hopefully Gilmore isn't out too long, If he is Im sure Frazier will come back.. He can be the new Carroll lol. Unless we plug Anderson in there? Wouldnt mind seeing that either, the dude weighs just as much as Gilmore anyway. He's pretty man beastly as well.

was anyone hurt besides Gimore?

was anyone hurt besides Gimore?

 

There were reports Buck was limping a bit after the game .. aside from that .. just my liver.

Quick thoughts:

 

- Buck's still far too inconsistent.  He'll have his moments like he did early in the 2nd half which will lead everyone to believe he'll turn it around, but then his play drops again.  What bothers me most is that he's playing like a rookie.  Locking on to receivers, determining where to throw before the snap, not reading blitzing defenses properly...I'll reevaluate it again tomorrow when I watch it over but it looked like classic Buck to me.  He's not good enough.

Thank you on the locking onto receivers.  I was losing my **** in the stands the entire 3rd and 4th, after we took the lead... Watson/Etienne for the most part finished every play clapping their hands in frustration because they were wide open; often with open field ahead of them.  Buck was staring down his receivers that entire time, and by the time they got the ball, there were 2 MTL defenders closing. 

 

The phantom 40 yd PI call, and blown PI on the Bombers didn't help matters, but Buck GAVE that game away by locking into receivers and not reading coverage.

Thought Crowton called a decent game. Impossible to say though, considering he's not calling execution, he's calling formations and options. I didn't really have too many "wtf are we doing" moments compared to the amount of "why didn't we make that play" moments.

I really thought the offense Crowton called was very good for getting receivers open in space against MTL's zone... we took advantage of that when we were down, but if you ask me, our inability to move the chains after we took the lead was due solely to execution.  Our SB's were open over the middle all 2nd half.

There is WAY too much negativity in this thread from not having got the 2pts at the end of the night. I dunno, but from what I watched, considering it was the first time this team (as a whole) has played together, I felt really good about it. They're going to get better as they go, and win more games than they lose. Lotta talent, and I even felt pretty good about Buck. I've never been one of those who beats the drum for Pierce as The Man, but I'm more than comfortable with him going forward. They were shaking off some rust, no question, and if the reffing (which shouldn't ever be an excuse...) is a little more consistent, things look different at the end of the night. 

 

I choose to take a lot more positives outta the game last night. I thought all 3 phases took turns looking good and bad, but they'll get that cleaned up. They'll get more consistent as the season goes on and that's going to lead to wins.

I really thought the offense Crowton called was very good for getting receivers open in space against MTL's zone... we took advantage of that when we were down, but if you ask me, our inability to move the chains after we took the lead was due solely to execution.  Our SB's were open over the middle all 2nd half.

 

 

Look at the throw to Edwards that watson jumped and tried to take (and dropped)

 

Edwards catches that pass and it is off to the races

I think it's going to be a good year.

I agree, Fraser...

There were lots of positives to be had out there. The defense looked pretty good, yeah they made some mistakes and msised some plays (should have at least knocked down the ball on that Green td and probably should have come up with the pick) They had Calvillo rattled from the get go and that's very encouraging going forward. Dunn looked real good at sam, didn't notice parker a lot but that's probably ok at this point, the d-line I thought was very good, Secondary was pretty decent too. People like to rag on JJ for that PI, but even though he did get his hands on Bruce I think it's bullshit to single out the defender when there was that much fighting going on between the two. Bruce was interfering with Johnson as much as vice versa so while JJ did interfere I think in that situation you gotta let em fight or call the receiver for his interference as well. 

 

Offensively there were a lot of good things too, but the elephant in the room was Pierce. He flat out needs to be better. Noeller has been trying to tell me all morning that it's just rust it'll be fine, I just saw too much of what many of us were worried about leading up to the season... that being that Pierce is not the guy to be a consistent pocket passer. If he doesn't step up his game bigtime and become a dangerous passer I'm sadly going to be rooting for an injury to the guy so we can at least get someone with potential to get better in there because right now it's wasting a lot of talent. There were a lot of plays left on the field out there and the patented Pierce int on the sidelines showed up on the first throw! Pierce has been throwing too many of those balls to defenders the last couple seasons and it puts the team in a real bad spot.

There were lots of positives to be had out there. The defense looked pretty good, yeah they made some mistakes and msised some plays (should have at least knocked down the ball on that Green td and probably should have come up with the pick) They had Calvillo rattled from the get go and that's very encouraging going forward. Dunn looked real good at sam, didn't notice parker a lot but that's probably ok at this point, the d-line I thought was very good, Secondary was pretty decent too. People like to rag on JJ for that PI, but even though he did get his hands on Bruce I think it's bullshit to single out the defender when there was that much fighting going on between the two. Bruce was interfering with Johnson as much as vice versa so while JJ did interfere I think in that situation you gotta let em fight or call the receiver for his interference as well. 

 

Offensively there were a lot of good things too, but the elephant in the room was Pierce. He flat out needs to be better. Noeller has been trying to tell me all morning that it's just rust it'll be fine, I just saw too much of what many of us were worried about leading up to the season... that being that Pierce is not the guy to be a consistent pocket passer. If he doesn't step up his game bigtime and become a dangerous passer I'm sadly going to be rooting for an injury to the guy so we can at least get someone with potential to get better in there because right now it's wasting a lot of talent. There were a lot of plays left on the field out there and the patented Pierce int on the sidelines showed up on the first throw! Pierce has been throwing too many of those balls to defenders the last couple seasons and it puts the team in a real bad spot.

 

 

It seemed like as soon as Mtrl turned the heat up in the Third quarter Pierce couldn't make a pass -  with a couple exceptions (the pass to Edwards in the middle of the field that Watson made a grab at and missed would have been a huge play and the pass to Edwards where he didn't get the PI call was a great pass... the only way the defender had a chance at stopping was by mugging Edwards before the ball arrived)

 

Pierce threw the one ball that soared on him and afterwards it seemed like he was afraid to put much heat on it for the next bunch of throws... at least 3 good plays where he tossed the ball at a guys feet (The Pontbriand play specifically... it looked like Pontbriand would have had some space to get a head of steam if that had been on the money)

 

---

 

Also I was impressed with our endzone offense... we didn't get many chances in the red zone but we seemed to cash in when we did arrive

 

Also I was impressed with our endzone offense... we didn't get many chances in the red zone but we seemed to cash in when we did arrive

that was huge after all the trouble they've had in the redzone the last few seasons. 

Coming from someone with a Pierce jersey, he is holding us back. Over the last few years people have been so worried about whether or not Buck was healthy, they failed to notice he has done very little even when he is.

Lets just not talk about how this team could be awesome if Elliott had at least been given a chance at TC...  its really too much to take.

 

Buck is terrible, even the fanboys know this deep down.  Hall ends up as our only option... until then, its a lot of 3-7 point losses.  Maybe even after that too...

Elliot was given a chance at training camp... BC's. He's 3rd string for them.

Coming from someone with a Pierce jersey, he is holding us back. Over the last few years people have been so worried about whether or not Buck was healthy, they failed to notice he has done very little even when he is.

 

The truth.

 

People can point to the statistic that says we win games when Buck starts and finishes a game .. but that has more to do with continuity at the position rather than overall performance. 

We have a very good team and we will be competitive... our Defense will be back to its 2011 form, no doubt about it... our Offense will get there once they get consistency... and special teams recovered from a bad start, pretty sure Dickinson will not let it happen again...

 

That said, we still need to make decision who deserves to be as starters and who are not...

Elliot was given a chance at training camp... BC's. He's 3rd string for them.

hmm but is that because he's really the 3rd best or because Lulay is young and doesn't get hurt much so the Lions want a younger project taking 2nd string reps so they have a future plan for after Lulay? Where Elliott actually stands with the Lions will only be seen if something happens to Lulay this year. To me he's there as insurance in case their project guy isn't able to step in should they need to turn to #2