Newbies observations

[theaardvark]

Bonds did well in his first CFL game.

Cole and Ford are not rookies so much, but they did well also.

Adams seemed to get some penetration, Haba as well.

Of the new draftees, Wallace seemd to hold his own on Jumbos, Chris-Ike actually got a target, but dropped it, and Clercius came in for Lawler and looked good.  Didn't see them on teams, have to rewatch that part.

I think the loss comes down to the vets not performing at a level they needed to.  I don't think that is a long term problem, but rather the issue with a short TC and 2 PS games only.  Time to start the training part of season 2 weeks earlier and give them more time, and at least one more game, to get ready.

[blue_gold_84]

Woods and Adams were both solid on the DL last night. Two good finds, IMO.

I don't know that Mitchell is the answer on returns.

[kkc60]

Bonds and Adams were both solid on the DL last night. Two good finds, IMO.

I don't know that Mitchell is the answer on returns.

Bonds is a corner, Woods and Adams were on the DL

[Throw Long Bannatyne]

Bonds did well in his first CFL game.

Cole and Ford are not rookies so much, but they did well also.

Adams seemed to get some penetration, Haba as well.

Of the new draftees, Wallace seemd to hold his own on Jumbos, Chris-Ike actually got a target, but dropped it, and Clercius came in for Lawler and looked good.  Didn't see them on teams, have to rewatch that part.

I think the loss comes down to the vets not performing at a level they needed to.  I don't think that is a long term problem, but rather the issue with a short TC and 2 PS games only.  Time to start the training part of season 2 weeks earlier and give them more time, and at least one more game, to get ready.

Don't agree Ford played all that well when he was the target of 2 huge plays, I give him 2 more games to get his reads and reactions right, before giving someone else a shot.  Richie Hall hated coverage busts, hope Younger does too, they had one in last year's GC and two more tonight, hope they're just hiccups.

[LXTSN]

Bonds and Ford both played well. Bonds beat Rambo on that one endzone route that should've been a pick.

I thought Adams and Woods also made a strong impact in holding down the MTL run game.

Ontaria Wilson was a no-show, but Clercius made a catch or two. There wasn't much out there for them to catch. Collaros just wasn't on his game.

Mitchell was BAD. First game in the CFL so I get it that you're nervous, but he has to play like he has nothing to lose! Go out and be aggressive! After the fumble he was so scared to catch the ball in the air. He would let the ball bounce 3 times before picking it up, and by then the coverage is all set up. We kind of know already from last year that replacing Grant is going to be no easy task! I don't think we have anyone else on the roster that could do better, so let's give him a little time to get comfortable before we go looking for alternatives...

[LXTSN]

Don't agree Ford played all that well when he was the target of 2 huge plays, I give him 2 more games to get his reads and reactions right, before giving someone else a shot.  Richie Hall hated coverage busts, hope Younger does too, they had one in last year's GC and two more tonight, hope they're just hiccups.

I think the first one was a zone where it was Holm's job to get over. Ford caught up to him and made the tackle.
Was the flea flicker the the second one you're talking about (as soon as I saw he was wide open I shut the TV off in frustration)? I would've bit on that too. Excellent play calling from MTL!

[Pigskin]

Don't agree Ford played all that well when he was the target of 2 huge plays, I give him 2 more games to get his reads and reactions right, before giving someone else a shot.  Richie Hall hated coverage busts, hope Younger does too, they had one in last year's GC and two more tonight, hope they're just hiccups.

Agree, Ford needs to improve.

[Throw Long Bannatyne]

I think the first one was a zone where it was Holm's job to get over. Ford caught up to him and made the tackle.
Was the flea flicker the the second one you're talking about (as soon as I saw he was wide open I shut the TV off in frustration)? I would've bit on that too. Excellent play calling from MTL!

Yes, definitely.

[dd]

I thought Haba had a decent game on the edge

[Jesse]

Defence played good enough. I'm not worried about them over the long term.

Man oh man, we better hope that Zach was just feeling rusty though.

[TecnoGenius]

I think the first one was a zone where it was Holm's job to get over. Ford caught up to him and made the tackle.
Was the flea flicker the the second one you're talking about (as soon as I saw he was wide open I shut the TV off in frustration)? I would've bit on that too. Excellent play calling from MTL!

Ford is to blame for 2 or 3 of the big busts.  He had a horrible night and looked really really bad.  This dude was in the NFL??  Heck, he looked better than that in his few starts for WPG a couple of years ago.  Did he lose all his football IQ riding the pine down south??

When I looked at the chart pre-game I thought for sure Cody was going to test that weak side all night, but instead he was going the other way and picking on Ford.  I think they identified weakness there on the early busts and then adjusted to capitalize.

Ford is better than that.  He needs to rapidly up his game.

We also had a really bad tendency to leave the flat wide open, like no defender within 20 yards, a lot of the night.  That bit us a number of times, including the Cody run.  Where the heck was SAM?

It was 2014 all over again: our receivers were blanketed, and the opponent receivers were often wide open with miles of space.

In hindsight, I didn't really spot any difference in the Younger D scheme compared to the Hall scheme.  All the same problems.  However, we did stuff 2 or so hitch screens, so there was a slight improvement over the GC (at the cost of horrifically bad explosions though).

[TecnoGenius]

I agree with OP that many of the "new guys" named did better than we were probably expecting, and showed promise for the future.

However, they didn't work well as units.  DBs were giving up explosions with bad coordination/communication.  LBs leaving vast swathes of flat wide open and losing guys therein.  DL for the most part getting no pass pressure (but great against the run).

OL was getting sieve-y on many snaps.  Zach taking "hope he's not concussed" hits.

Clearly no unit had any "gel" in week 1, because they never got to work together in PS!

[dd]

Defence played good enough. I'm not worried about them over the long term.

Man oh man, we better hope that Zach was just feeling rusty though.

He was also 'rusty' in last years grey cup.