Two games in and I am fed up with Richie Hall's defensive schermes. We likely to miss the playoffs unless the powers that be wakeup and realize what a castatrophic mistake they made by bringing back Richie as DC. I was totally against that decision when it was announced and now am confirmed in my apprehension. We must react quickly and it is not an overreaction - Richie must go - NOW!
I remember being a bit concerned myself when the announcement came, but who are we going to find to fill the roll quickly now? If we go down this path, it'll take at least a few weeks (aka 3 more losses) to get on our feet defence-wise, and that's a best case! 
Does Etch have a job?
I'm not as up on Hall's defensive philosophy as I probably should be, but is it similar to Greg Marshall's? The bend-but-don't-break system is one of my least favourites.
it is 2 games. Hall had a great D historically. give it a couple games. In all honesty, if his line can't get any pressure his hands are kinda tied...zone don't work without pressure on the QB.
+1
No DC is going to look good if his defensive line can’t pressure the quarterback.
We will not win games when we are being devastated on defence. They are practicing out there.
Over 80 points given up in two games, that's bad.
I don't claim to know enough to support the Fire Richie Hall movement, but I would support our guys tackling, instead of trying to lay hits. I will support more blitzing. I will support something better than leaving the middle wide open every single drive.
Its a combination of scheme and players. Riders don't have the players to play the scheme. 4-3 Zone without a pass rush? this scheme would work if their ends were good. The Riders have good linebackers. Its not like the cover guys are terrible. If the linebackers get pressure the hot route is wide open, If they don't, its seams all day. I think unless they can get a premier pass rusher immediately, they switch to the 3-4. Other than that, the only games the Riders will win will be shoot outs, and thats not likely to happen any time soon with all the new recievers and offensive linemen still needing more time to gel. The offense will come along, not too concerned about it. DD looks good. These losses are not on him at all. Yes, the play calling sometimes is suspect, but for the most part the offense is not the problem. Lets go DEFENSE!!
I agree 100%. I said it a week ago…if a 4 man front can’t push the odd pocket back, why are you using a 4 man line? you would be better with a 3 man line and adding a 1 man off-blitz and keep moving that around so the QB always feels like someone might be on his backside. The problem right now is that it is unlikely that we will pick up a new end until at least late in the season.
Hall can only do so much with the D and the players within it. I am sure he is scared of a 3-4 D because you will give up a pile of yards on the ground.
Richie Hall has been a coach for a long time and has had success. The guy knows his football and he will make changes to help this team. Like many others have already stated, there is not a lot he can do about the fact the Riders don't have a DE who can get to the QB.
What's with Nick Graham trash talking and getting in guys faces when his team was beaten all day long. I hope Marshall gets on his guys about the after the whistle crap.
In my opinion it’s not that the scheme is bad, but that they don’t quite have the personnel to run the scheme. It is my philosophy to ALWAYS tailor your scheme to the skills that best suit your players. It is up to management to give you players with a wide range of skills to allow you to be flexible in scheme.
Hall is on record saying that his strategy this year is to bring back what he did when he was here before which is a pressure/blitz front and sit back and overtop secondary coverage with closing speed. He doesn’t have Omarr Morgan or Eddie Davis to do that anymore. Although he might be able to get away with that if he didn’t have the league’s worst front 4 pass rush.
The reason that Etch’s D last year was so important was that the exotic formations allowed all kinds of crazy disguised blitzes which got a bit of pressure on the QB and made the reads complicated which helped out big time for the secondary. It was quite brilliant that Etch was able to have the league’s 6th ranked defense and get to the Grey Cup with less than 10 sacks from his front 4. With the personnel he had he should have had easily the 8th ranked defense.
The front 4 problem was not addressed at all in the off season. There’s nothing “wrong” with Hall’s scheme except that he’s got no pressure on the QB and he’s not fooling anybody.
Now if they had John Chick, say back at rush end and had picked up Tisdale instead of Eubanks from Hamilton the scheme would probably work just fine.
Yeah, I was surprised that they went after Eubanks instead of Tisdale. I am hoping they sit Remond Willis or something and try out Ryan Lucas. Beyond that I would consider packaging Obed Cetoute, Eubanks, and Boulay for a DE. You have a decent DB (who I feel we can replace with Eddie Russ), and a couple decent NI players. get a DE in, because who knows it Hawkins can come back and stay healthy. We need something on that line. The loss of the 2 allstars on the line a couple years back has never been recovered from. Heck, at this point I would be willing to trade Simpson…McCullough can stand in that role. Don’t get me wrong, I like Simpson, but I feel you could get a great DE for him, and we do have other capable LB…even a small step down there is worth it if we get a rush going.
My problem with Richie is that his philosophy has not evolved with the offenses in this league. Experienced QB's like AC and Ricky Ray have no problem dissecting our D given it's the same old Richie Hall schemes they seen since they came into this league. As to the ability of our the players -we need a creative approve much like Etch brought to the table to maximize the talents of the players you have at your disposal. I think we took one big step backward bringing Richie back as DC.
remember that our last GC victory was with the man. He has a superb track record as a DC. if your defensive line is this weak and your DBs can not stay within 5 yards of the receivers there ain’t much he can do. Look at the talent that has left this team in the passed 3 years. They said it at the beginning of the season…the Riders have lost I think it was 11 players to the NFL in 3 years…nobody else in the league touches that. On top of that Davis is gone. Don’t get me wrong, our D can improve, but that is going to take time unless some big personnel changes happen. Zone defense takes more than 2 games to gel. Anyone who has ever played understands that. The secondary is generally the last thing on a team to come together, especially when playing zone, and having a weak rush does not help. We don’t necessarily have good enough DBs at this time to play man, and zone = quick hitters, and without rushing the QB within 3-4 seconds it means your zone seems get crossed and you get burned deep. zone + no presence of defensive front = failure…clearly there is no confidence on man on man coverage.
I'm certainly not happy with the way the defense has looked but it's WAY premature to be calling for a guys head after you start against 2 of the best QB's in the league on a defense that's been banged up. I don't believe that any scheme in the CFL will be successful without at least a bit of a pass rush and thus far we haven't had one. To me it looked like we were playing a type of zone defense and when you let the QB sit back there and not be harassed he's going to find the gaps.
I was a big proponent of the FJD campaign last year (Fire Jim Daley) but that was because the special teams started bad, and got worse. Give Richie some time to make the adjustments and fix the defense before we fire the man.
My point exactly - we didn’t take action last year and look what happened on special teams - zippo - same old dissappointing returns game after game. I am worried we are going to wait on see on a RH defence until it is too late to do something or even more disasterous and can players as we did with our returners last year only to find they were not the problem - Daley was the problem. I’m saying RH’s philosphies and schemes have past their expriry date and do not have a place in the modern CFL era. Shouldn’t our defence be able to play against 2 of the best QB’s in the league if we want to challenge for the GC - we didn’t seem to have too much of a problem with RR last year. O yeah who was Edmonton’s coach and DC last year - and look where that got them. Thanks for everything Richie but we should have never brought you back.
Holy smokes. Fire a guy after two games. Give your head a shake please.
- Coaches already made one tough personell choice. They sat down Mullinder for Willis. Luc is much more suited interior lineman versus the end spot. Luc is just not quick enough to play the end and get the pressure that we need. The coaches have already shown they are ready to make changes when they think they have a better option available.
- Montez won't have many games left if he keeps up this level of play. He also lacks quickness and his best asset are his super long arms. But oddly enough he doesn't lift them up to obstruct a QB's passing lanes? If he can't get a pass rush going then he better figure out to get his arms up? I think Luc Mullinder is equualy effective as Montez...........perhaps Montez goes and Luc gets back on the field helping out ratio.
- Interior line. Not convinved Shologan can be the guy. Same with Romero. But I seldom watch these interior battles. Both of these guys also have to get their arms up and knock some passes down. Maybe Luc plays inside?
- Our blitzes were picked up like candy by Montreal. Not effective and I could see them coming and we always seemed a second or two off, its all timing and right now it is off.
- You can't say too much about the DB's because we need a serious push to pressure a QB. We have a compounding problem right now.
- The offense cannot allow the D to play 36 - 37 minutes in a game. Time of possession was ridiculous. If Eddie Johnson did not punt awesome into the wind...........add another 10 points to montreal's score!!!!!!!! Eddie should have gotten player of game.
Kudos to that rookie safety for sticking his head into anything he could. He rocked a few guys. Pretty good for a rookie.
Montreal looked so good. Please watch the game again if you have to. Truly, they look heads and shoulders above everyone else right now. Remember they never blast teams by 20+ point difference.............but they always have the lead and they never play catchup. There two interior receivers Jamala and SJ are maybe the best two in the league. SJ had NFL offers but chose to stay with Al's. Their O-line is better than other years. They manhandled everything we threw at them.
So please look at the team we played against. Maybe if our receivers catch all their passes like Montreal receivers did, we sustain some drives and tire their D instead of tiring ours. Maybe a few more stops on D and that makes a difference. The positive is we hung in there and played these guys pretty well. Lots of areas we need improvement but the squad in not a complete bust.
Stay positive...........or stay thirsty my friends.
Grubber, I agree except with leaving the D on the field for 37 minutes...last season that was all on the O. While the offense was not spectacular they did move the ball. The defense let up full field drives ALL game, and that is what kept them on the field. AC passed underneath and the Riders continually missed tackles.
I don't think Shologan is enough inside, never have. Romero will do, but he looks bad when nobody else gets a push. It will improve when/if Hawkins comes back, but will that happen, and is he enough? They need to get out there and sign a guy from the states for a 1 year deal or make a package trade.
people i would be willing to package up for a trade...
Brandon West - I like him, but we are deep at RB
Nunn - has a good names right now, serious potential, we could get something for him and can get by without.
Krausnick-Groh - NI lineman, young, would get some interest, we actually have backups this year so consider moving someone
Simpson - This is ONLY if we get some amazing return on him. He is one of the finer LB around, but we could use McCullough in his place. McCullough always looks really really good when he sits in for Simpson.
Mullinder - NI DE who would probably play better inside....as a NI he would be an asset to many teams. As a DL, that is what we are trading for, so we could sacrifice.
Shologan - Similar to above.
Tearrius George - I think this guy could be a solid player, and I think others would see that to.
Cetout - NI receiver, somebody may be interested in his potential, may be harder to move because of his history with injuries
Fairooz - I don't think you can keep both him and Wheelwright, so why not try getting something for one of them.
Eubanks - though he had a lackluster debut, he still has a good name. He is now on the PR...move him. I have a PILE of faith in Eddie Russ, who is also on the PR, and I feel should be starting.
At any rate, package a few players up and get someone...my opinion anyways.
I don't agree that all these guys are expendable but even if they were nobody is going to trade a good DE for any of them. Simpson is a great MLB but MLB aren't that difficult to find.
oh, I am not saying all of them or anything silly like that, but we could take say 3 of them and package them off for the right trade. Simpson is spectacular, which is why you would get a lot of interest in a trade. We are rather fortunate to have a solid LB core though, and while I would not like to see him go, for the right trade I would totally understand. Basically I am saying I would move Simpson, and you know there would be interest. Either that or dig at the US ranks/