Younger's defense

[Blueforlife]

Yeah our tackling and physicality needs to improve, many have talked about that for a bit.  Edm was more hungry in this regard.  We were able to calm that down a bit at times.

[3rdand1.5]

We are 17% through the season, next week we will will essentially be 22% or a quarter of the way through, factoring in we already had one bye we can essentially say after next weeks game we will be 25% through this season.

I think most on here will agree that after next week we will have seen enough of the season to fairly judge this years version of our defence.

All we can say is as of today using any metric we want the 2026 defence is not good.

[BLUEBOMBER]

Younger's defences are lame to say it nicely.. we need someone with more teeth in here.

[bomb squad]

Anybody heard what O'Shea has to say about the defence? He must have been asked by someone in the media. If they haven't, they're not doing their job. People are talking about it a lot. Not just here, but out and about too. I haven't heard or read anything. I'd like to know what he has to say about it.

[Tecno]

I think our current scheme was built (under Hall) to force teams to dink & dunk, under the assumption they can't dink & dunk 8-13 plays straight to get a TD.  It's the Stubler (and Thorpe-ish) philosophy.

And I think at one time this worked.  All the years Hall had success are proof.  Why?  Because teams didn't really dink & dunk (well, except us under Lapo!).  OC's and QB's get impatient and greedy.  Most aren't prepared to proffer an O as horrifically boring as SSK 2025.

But then teams found out WPG has no defence (pun intended) against a short game.  And then they mastered it.  And it was made worse by the fact that whilst Hall would stiffen the bend near the GL... Younger doesn't.

Look at this season so far.  HAM, while capable of the deep game, pretty much beat us on the ground and with quick, controlled passes.  EDM was nothing except dink & dunk -- they are emulating the '25 SSK O in their bid to win the W (smart move!).  But... CGY was playing a normal O, targeting all over the place and VAJ liking to take the deep shots.  And lo and behold we beat that.  Because I think we are built to beat that.

As such I think our D will do (relatively) well against BC, CGY, TOR, MTL.  And we'll do poorly against SSK, EDM, HAM -- and maybe OTT!  If we could just solve the short-pass dilemma while keeping our fancy coverage scheme, THEN we could be great against even SSK.  But then, solving that short-pass SSK game is what every team is trying to do right now.

[Sway]

I think our current scheme was built (under Hall) to force teams to dink & dunk, under the assumption they can't dink & dunk 8-13 plays straight to get a TD.  It's the Stubler (and Thorpe-ish) philosophy.

And I think at one time this worked.  All the years Hall had success are proof.  Why?  Because teams didn't really dink & dunk (well, except us under Lapo!).  OC's and QB's get impatient and greedy.  Most aren't prepared to proffer an O as horrifically boring as SSK 2025.

But then teams found out WPG has no defence (pun intended) against a short game.  And then they mastered it.  And it was made worse by the fact that whilst Hall would stiffen the bend near the GL... Younger doesn't.

Look at this season so far.  HAM, while capable of the deep game, pretty much beat us on the ground and with quick, controlled passes.  EDM was nothing except dink & dunk -- they are emulating the '25 SSK O in their bid to win the W (smart move!).  But... CGY was playing a normal O, targeting all over the place and VAJ liking to take the deep shots.  And lo and behold we beat that.  Because I think we are built to beat that.

As such I think our D will do (relatively) well against BC, CGY, TOR, MTL.  And we'll do poorly against SSK, EDM, HAM -- and maybe OTT!  If we could just solve the short-pass dilemma while keeping our fancy coverage scheme, THEN we could be great against even SSK.  But then, solving that short-pass SSK game is what every team is trying to do right now.

Agree. Against the scrambler qb's we have a chance, bur the quick hitter qbs have figured it out, and its easy.

Bomber D philosophy is let the other team make an error instead of actively causing chaos to make errors.

"Theres no way they will dink and dunk 15 plays 100 yards"..... uhhh yes there is apparently.

Im no defensive mastermind,  but to shore up the quick hit passes maybe line up less than 10 yards off your receiver is a good start.

[Sir Blue and Gold]

Anybody heard what O'Shea has to say about the defence? He must have been asked by someone in the media. If they haven't, they're not doing their job. People are talking about it a lot. Not just here, but out and about too. I haven't heard or read anything. I'd like to know what he has to say about it.

He definitely doesn't give much away but he said, very quickly, in the post game interview that they changed their defensive front calls in the second half (which did help). I read that to be, they got out of Younger's really bad collapse and contain style of front and let the guys go make plays. I believe this is the second time they've course corrected that strategy in three games. They also did so in game one at the half against Calgary.

[tlf]

He definitely doesn't give much away but he said, very quickly, in the post game interview that they changed their defensive front calls in the second half (which did help). I read that to be, they got out of Younger's really bad collapse and contain style of front and let the guys go make plays. I believe this is the second time they've course corrected that strategy in three games. They also did so in game one at the half against Calgary.

If they have film on the other team and know how they play (pocket vs scramble), wouldn't they plan for it ahead of time instead of bringing in their set system already? Don't just copy and paste your same defense, that seems illogical.. to me anyhow.  But hey, I'm just an observer and pay to watch, not get paid to do it.

Maybe it's time Hall and Younger BOTH go if that's the way they do it and don't want to plan accordingly.  Just my opinion at this moment.

[Throw Long Bannatyne]

I think our current scheme was built (under Hall) to force teams to dink & dunk, under the assumption they can't dink & dunk 8-13 plays straight to get a TD.  It's the Stubler (and Thorpe-ish) philosophy.

And I think at one time this worked.  All the years Hall had success are proof.  Why?  Because teams didn't really dink & dunk (well, except us under Lapo!).  OC's and QB's get impatient and greedy.  Most aren't prepared to proffer an O as horrifically boring as SSK 2025.

But then teams found out WPG has no defence (pun intended) against a short game.  And then they mastered it.  And it was made worse by the fact that whilst Hall would stiffen the bend near the GL... Younger doesn't.

Look at this season so far.  HAM, while capable of the deep game, pretty much beat us on the ground and with quick, controlled passes.  EDM was nothing except dink & dunk -- they are emulating the '25 SSK O in their bid to win the W (smart move!).  But... CGY was playing a normal O, targeting all over the place and VAJ liking to take the deep shots.  And lo and behold we beat that.  Because I think we are built to beat that.

As such I think our D will do (relatively) well against BC, CGY, TOR, MTL.  And we'll do poorly against SSK, EDM, HAM -- and maybe OTT!  If we could just solve the short-pass dilemma while keeping our fancy coverage scheme, THEN we could be great against even SSK.  But then, solving that short-pass SSK game is what every team is trying to do right now.

The goal of Richie Hall's defence was always to eliminate the big explosion plays, keep containment and slow down the scoring enough to allow the offence to eventually outscore the opponent, Younger has carried on with this plan. 

The difference is back when Hall was DC, only Wpg. took the running game super seriously, now every team in the West and a few in the East have developed strong running games to compliment their passing attacks. 

Sask. finally conquered their nemesis and showed the rest of the league how to integrate the run effectively with the dink and dunk offence of old (AH?), giving them an added layer of complexity that makes it hard for defences to focus primarily on pass coverage when a solo missile can be launched from a different base. No surprise RB's are doing much better now after years of struggling to gain even 4 yds. The most talented QB's are eating this up as they have defences stretched thin in every direction which allows holes to open up and more one on one situations to develop further down field. 

Looks like the switch has been flipped and we'll see offence dominate defence for the next few years until the next big alteration flips the switch back.

[Pete]

As a whole defenses around the league has deteriorated All qbs are looking like allstars as more teams have invested in olinemen,
 Its the ability to create turnovers that makes a big difference, something we need to get better at

[Blue In BC]

Interesting comments elsewhere about the defence. Suggesting it's not so much about points given up since we didn't give up excessive amount of points.

It's more about the how and when those points are given up. Ultimately points given up late that are the deciding factor is what counts.

[RebusRankin]

We don't create turnovers or generate pressure which are huge issues.

[Blue In BC]

We don't create turnovers or generate pressure which are huge issues.

Exactly. That's another measurement for a defence besides just points given up.

[Throw Long Bannatyne]

Exactly. That's another measurement for a defence besides just points given up.

They did a decent job of keeping the Elks out of the endzone, if they wouldn't have taken an offside penalty on the goal line they may have prevented another TD in Q2.

[Blueforlife]

The number of pts given up is a key metric for any defence in any league

Yes there are others but some are not giving that metric enough credit to try to show that our defense wasn't decent last year, which is was

I will evaluate this club between 1/4 and 1/2 way through

D has more issues than positives thus far but I have some hope

Agree the Os>Ds across the board at the moment

Some good debate here all

Tough match up this week

Agree gotta generate turnovers and protect the 🐖