Bombers vs Riders

Break down of the game.
Positives. Smith, no picks, and managed the game fairly well. Munroe looked good on the Dline in the middle. Connop should be benched or PR'd Bagg did make up for some mistakes but also made a few so that is a wash. Messam finally getting the rock and had a solid game all except the trick play muck up.

Negatives, Oline needs to be better at giving Smith more time. He is still a rookie and does take a bit more time to see things.
Dline on the whole was good on the run but not so much on the pass rush. They did take the run game away though and perhaps that was the prime objective,make the bombers beat you on the pass, which they couldn't do so will again say perhaps a wash. Interesting to see who qb's next week, if its Nichols the Dline must get more pressure on him or the results could be much different Still only 17 sacks up to the last couple of minutes and not one in the game until very late, that has to change for the better by a very big margin. Penalties against the offense again taking 2 td's off the board again. This has to stop now. Smith again is going to get hurt if he keeps running like he is. He needs to pick his spots more and be quicker at hitting the turf.

Conclusion:Not the prettiest of wins but lol at this time who cares?The elephant is off their back finally. Team looks to have more passion and intensity. Now to build on it and do it even better next week. A win in Winnipeg and against Ottawa the following week and yes thing could start to get interesting.

Can’t blame that one on Messam, the snap was well behind and over him.

Congrats, guys! From a fan of one struggling team to another. :slight_smile: I had a feeling SSK would get off the schneide today and they delivered. And boy did that D ever look better without Chamblin micro-managing it...

Thanks for that and yes the D was better by far. Still as I mentioned not a fan of having a big D lineman spying the qb even though it was very late and a big lead. It was a waste and I would rather have an extra db if your going to do that. Winnipeg moved easily down the field and scored. I did note on the next series that strategy was dumped. Never should have been tried though and hope to never see it ever again.

Now to only string a 9 game win streak together. All right lets try two in a row and go from there. :wink:

I knew we would win this one. With the coaching change, I knew it would come together. Brett is just getting better with every play, the o preformed good, the D was a huge improvement, Nice job coach Quick, guess we know where the d came before this game, D line needs to get more sacks, but had better pressure this game. Special teams did great as they have this season. Both 5’7" guys played great. Impressed with the new def guard. 2 Sacks kodoo’s to him!

Only thing that t’d me off was bad penalties at the wrong time, how many TD’s have we lost over this 5 or more as I remember.

Dyce needs to straiten this out, but far less penalties this game.
Thought Dyce made good calls all game.

I think a sleeping giant has awakened, Time will tell!

Agreed. It’s one of those strategies that DCs all over the league use with minimal success and I wonder why it’s so attractive. Just like that three-man prevent defense that is only useful if it’s literally the last play of the game and your sole job is to keep the other team out of your end zone.

You mean like the Bo pass to Rogers in the end zone with 4 defenders around him and Bo had a day and a half to launch the ball? Yeah that was really effective too. Forget that crap period. Unless your winning by 50 points and its the last play of the game maybe over look it but if it is used any other time fire the person responsible for calling it on the spot. That is how much I’m against that strategy. It looked ridiculous to see either George or Munroe standing there jumping up and down and flapping there arms like they were trying to fly only to have the qb have plenty of time to throw down field. Rush the s.o.b. and put him on the turf as quick as you can and then you don’t have to worry about what is going on down field as the play is over.

Heh, I meant more like if the other team is not in the red zone and you can afford to give up even a 30-yard pass as long as it doesn’t go for a major. Because the other side of that is being in cover zero on the game’s final play during which Milt Stegall rumbles down the field for the game-winning TD because someone fell down in coverage and there was no safety help. :wink:

Otherwise, I agree with you. Sometimes DCs are too smart for their own good, coming up with clever plays that look good on paper but are completely ineffective on the field. You don’t have to send crazy pressure but FFS send 4-5 guys at minimum so the QB eventually has to throw the ball or get sacked.

I cant remember how many times I’ve heard the phrase " games are won and lost in the trenches "
put pressure on the opposition QB and force him into making a mistake.
protect your QB at all costs and put the fear of god in theirs and you will win the majority of games that you play using this philosophy.
and this is not what were doing as our O-line and pass blocking is terrible as Smith has virtually no time,
our D-line is starting to get pressure on the QB but not enough to my liking, with Quick running the D, I can already see an improvement.
Got to love the full body bump Quick did with 2 players coming of the field .

I like what Munroe brought in the game. A big bull that looks like he is a handful in the middle which has to help with the run D. George and Connop have been all but invisible. Perhaps its time to move George. Not sold on Connop either but he is young.

Yes the D line still needs to turn it up a notch or two. As I mentioned they were held sackless almost to the end of the game and it was Munroe I think that got both. Still need to get more pressure on the qb as I also mentioned if Nichols plays next week which I expect he will, if he has as much time Brohm had then the results could be reversed.

As for the O line, yes they must, must, must, pick up the pass protection. It looked a bit better in the second half but still not great. Either O line have to pick it up or look at making changes to improve.

Sure…the D may have not been super aggressive and got the pressure they should have, but it did seem better over all. I must admit, Brohm showed mountains more than I thought he could, so kudos there for sure. As for the D…I believe I pointed it out before the game…Dyce said straight up that we would see a lot of the same on D…some stuff would be basically dropped (which was obviously the case for sure), and there would be flashes of new things brought in, which was also true…more football fundamentals this game and something to build from IMO. Like he went on to say…they couldn’t reinvent the D this quickly and he wished there was a camp here and now…I was pretty happy with the progress in only a few practices.

As for the OL…it is banged up…no way around that…they were not playing at 100%. We were saying late in the 1st half and at half that a lot would be said about Dyce as a coach on how/if he could adjust to provide protection in the 2nd half with such a dismal showing in the first half…and it was night and day…that was impressive to see…something not seen in a couple of years IMO

With the out of bounds touch turnover and the just horrific rainbow snap that the D had to try to defend I thought this team played pretty well. On that rainbow I fricken loved the play call…but Clark was just horrendous on that snap

This is all something really good o build on…monkey off their back is massive as well…no matter how they won

oh...also awesome to see DD on the sideline and being very active with discussions

solidarity.

Oh…and of course something that really effected the passing game…my gawd that wind. windy and very gusty…but the killer was that it was not a north-south wind…it was a west-east…blowing sideline to sideline, thus causing huge swirls…rare in Regina games. this had a huge impact on play calling and really limited the long ball. This really allowed teams to stack the box early. The wind died considerably later in the game…which was when we finally saw a few more longer tosses and the game open up some

We also FINALLY saw the team keep a RB in the backfield in short yardage…result…Messam busted one. They need to have someone back there more often. Oh…and kudos to Messam…he struggled hard early but pushed through it in a pretty big way

Oh don't get me wrong the defense was far better then under Chamblin's "aggressive style" and yes getting back to fundamentals is the foundation to build on. Rome wasn't built in a day and to turn things around on defense isn't going to happen in a week or two either. As long as they get better, stronger, more effective each game then you can't ask much more then that,

They D put a proper DT in the middle (instead of Connop) and just minded their gaps. Just an emphasis on basic fundamental defense that has been lacking all year.

Compared to the Ottawa game where Sask was COMPLETELY outfilmed in the first 7 minutes and Ottawa embarrassingly exposed their zones for 2 early scores. In that game the adjustment by the Riders was to back offf and drop 7 8 or even 9 dudes in coverage, which worked to stop the pass, but then Ottawa realized in the 2nd half that the Riders scheme was completely ignoring the run gaps to do so. It was just a fundamentally horrible scheme, the defense could not have been prepared worse.

This week, nuff that s**t. Take out the weak point (Connop has been victimized since Week 1) and just mind the gaps and play football. Who woulda thought?

Some things.

Demski. Just because he makes the occasional big play he can't let it go to his head. He's done some VERY dumb things this year, starting with the botched single he gave up on a kickoff in week 1. My words to Demski after the game would be, 'son, you keep that ball down until you cross that goal line, got me?' First off, he damn near threw it away before crossing. Terribly careless. 2nd, it makes our whole team look like cocky arrogant pricks. 3rd, it makes him an even bigger fool for dropping that punt in the second half. Demski needs some maturity, the sooner the better. Impressed with his skills, NOT impressed with his attitude.

Offense in general, despite the huge love in for Brett Smith (and don't get me wrong, I like the guy too) this team needs more from him. Passing numbers were not impressive especially against one of the weaker secondaries in the league. Happy feet. Too happy. A couple of those runs could have been roll outs keeping the eyes down field. This should come with experience. If he keeps running like that he'll eventually get taken out even if the hit is clean. Was not a fan of a couple of his late slides. Not sure if they were on purpose or not. I sure hope that he wasn't trying to purposely draw a penalty. Bad karma and not smart at all. Remember, the offense only score 23 points in this game and only 6 in the first half. Pathetic. It wasn't until the 2nd half when they started to score, and the reason for that was because they finally got the run game going, and one of their TD drives was aided by 3 or 4 gift Bomber penalties.

Riders in general were not ready to start the game. Going down 10-0 early and generally looking sloppy even before the f'd up snap on the trick play. Riders were the WORST 1st quarter team in the league thru the first 9 games. That did not change one bit on Sunday.

The defense. Miles better. Fundamentally sound scheme made all the difference. This is a great base to move forward and add in wrinkles of creativity week to week.

O-line is banged up. Without knowing that you would think that they weren't very good. Fulton in particular needs to be shut down for a week or 3. He has 2 separate injuries and is held together with duct tape right now. He's too valuable to be risked out there at 1-9.

Very happy that the Riders let Winnipeg take all the penalties (although 1 or 2 were not deserved - the Hurl OB hit comes to mind), especially in such a chippy game. If the Bombers want to play outside the whistles again next week, let them. refs are calling everything these days. Don't retaliate. Let the Bombers take all the penalties. This I chalk up to the head coach.