Free Agency Countdown

[Area 51]

Match Coverage takes time to implement. We had Wroten, Kuale, Cannon, and Smalls all starting in their first year running a complicated scheme. They also happen to be some of the most important positions in a match system. MLB, WLB, Nose Tackle and boundary corner. You just don't give up on what you believe because you face some adversity not to mention we finished with the #1 scoring defence in the league the prior season running the same system with most of the same people.

So if the personnel is struggling to understand the coverage, why not just make the switch to man coverage? It doesn't get more basic than that. Was it because you didn't have the speed or athleticisim to run man defence?

"Believed" in the system? It's ok to believe in the tooth fairy for a little while, but eventually you have to face reality. Surely the players & coaches must have looked at the film every week and seen the scheme was an epic failure. It was so simple to see opponents march up and down the field with short pass after short pass - - the coverage was 5 to 10 yards off the receiver every time. Why? You'd rather give up a 12 play 80yd drive than risk giving up an 80yd pass?

And then there was the missed tackles. How many times did three or four different would be tacklers completely whiff and end up lying on the turf? You could say the defence was too tired - - problem is the broken tackles happened from start to finish.

Bottom line, there's no point in reminiscing what went wrong last year. I'm hoping Jones & Milanovich will come in and blow up the garbage schemes we've seen on offence & defence, and more than anything bring some accountability to what turned into a country club atmosphere.

[KCargosfan]

Huh? Have you never heard the expression "defence wins championships"? You must have missed Baltimore win the Super Bowl with a stiff like Trent Dilfer running a pathetic offence. Last two years the Jets have had a terrible offence and the equivalent of a scarecrow at QB, but they rode their defence all the way to the conference championships.

Look at New Orleans and Green Bay this year. Two of the greatest offensive attacks in history, but both had a lousy defence. Both got knocked out by opponents with a much weaker offence but great defense.

The 2000 Ravens offense ranked 14th in points scored and 16th in yards. Hardly pathetic.

The 2010 New York Jets offense was 13th in points and 11th in yards. Mark Sanchez threw for 3,300 yards and 17 TDS, not great, but not scarecrow.

The 2009 New York Jets offense was 17th in points and 20th in yards... and finished 9-7.

Conversely, the 1995 and 1997 Kansas City Chiefs had 2 of the best defenses I've seen in person and did nothing in the playoffs because the offense had to settle for field goal attempts.

You have to have something on offense, and we certainly did not in 2011.

[JY26]

@Argofan87-i did leave out Willie Middlebrooks and i am sorry for that. We definitely missed his consistency and his physical presence.

@Area51-Im not a critic of the match system. I am a critic of the way that we didn't pick it up. It takes a lot of communication both pre snap and while the play is happening in order to run it effectively and we hadn't played together long enough in some spots to make it work. Playing aggressive man-to-man is definitely a more in your face style of defence but again the downside to it is that you are always vulnerable to the big play. Teams like Montreal and Sask's whole systems are designed to put heavy pressure on bump run defences. They have a whole trick bag of routes and combinations that put you in situation where you either have to trade men with the defender next to you or give up a step or 2 to your man and play him from trail technique. And just so you know Winnipeg, Edmonton, and the BC Lions who happen to be top 3 scoring defences in the league all ran forms of match coverage. I think if we would have had a whole training camp under Steinauer we would have a better understanding of how to play the defence. It was a lot to learn on the run.
If we were sitting in front of a television and we were watching game film it would be much easier to explain how easily a receiver can get wide open. All it really takes is for one defender to "match up" to the wrong receiver. There were 2 many times this year where we had 2 defenders on one man and another defender wide open.
Another issue we faced is that we got different game plans that other teams. They attacked us differently. So every week you have 4 first year starters different variations of plays for the first time. Its hard to get anything right the first time for most human beings. I'm not here making excuses. We didn't get it done. But what i would like you to understand that we aren't talking about a huge difference from one team to the next. We are talking about less than 7 points per game between the best scoring defence and the worst scoring defence. We are talking about finding a way to make about 5 more plays a game on offence and stopping 5 plays on defence.

[Area 51]

Im not a critic of the match system. I am a critic of the way that we didn't pick it up. It takes a lot of communication both pre snap and while the play is happening in order to run it effectively and we hadn't played together long enough in some spots to make it work. Playing aggressive man-to-man is definitely a more in your face style of defence but again the downside to it is that you are always vulnerable to the big play.

If the players, and presumably the coaches too, recognize that they don't understand the defensive scheme, why keep running the same thing week after week? Yes I acknowledge you're taking a chance in putting the CBs on an island and if they're too slow or too small you can get burned. But there's risks with every defence and if a scheme is clearly not working, why not dumb things down into a simple man coverage? It's the most basic defence you can run - - there's not going to be a huge learning curve with it.

Teams attacked you differently because you were the only defence in the league that consistently gave up a 10yd cushion to receivers every game. It was a no brainer! Why throw it downfield when you know the receiver is going to be wide open for an easy 6 or 7yd gain, with a good chance there's be a missed tackle to add on yards after the catch?

With all the apologists for last year's train wreck defence, nobody's given an answer yet as to why the defensive scheme wasn't changed. The best one I've heard so far is that you couldn't change the defence because the offence was so pathetic. Really? Guess what, the defence was just as bad. And I haven't heard Dalton Bell complaining that the offence couldn't get into a rythm and score any points because the defence couldn't get the ball back and get off the field. That's what I mean about the lack of accountability. Just give a straight up honest answer instead of looking for excuses and pointing fingers.

We didn't change the scheme even though our defence was getting dominated every week because:

A) We didn't have the athletes to run man coverage.
B) Our coaches didn't understand how to draw up man coverage.
C) The law of averages means the scheme should eventually be successful.
D) No matter how painfully obvious it is, never admit that your scheme is garbage.

[paulwoods13]

Thanks for the posts, JY. Really, really interesting insights. And you've been extremely courteous in responding to Area 51's relentless (and at this point totally unnecessary) attack on what happened last year.

Have to disagree with you on this point. Being #1 in points allowed but near the bottom of so many other defensive categories just doesn't add up. It's like when a baseball pitcher has a great ERA but gave up a ton of walks & hits. Not sustainable.

Area 51, despite your tendency to pile on over what happened in the past, you make a lot of interesting and valuable points. But you have completely lost me on this one. I don't know how you can describe a defence giving up the fewest points over 18 games as "not sustainable." Eighteen games is the entire season -- how much would it take to be considered sustainable? If you end the season with the fewest points allowed, then you were best at the most important stat a defence has. The objective is to win games, not surrender few first downs or few long bombs or anything else like that. You win games by outscoring the opposition -- to give yourself a chance to do that, you need to focus on not giving up points.

If a pitcher has a low ERA, he is doing his job and it doesn't matter how he gets there. He can give up three hits every inning, but if he then strikes out the side and allows no runs, he did what he was supposed to do.

[bluto]

... If you end the season with the fewest points allowed, then you were best at the most important stat a defence has...

[/thread hijack]
not saying that it wasn't at times an informative and instructive hijack though...

back to the impending free agency deadline discussion, then?

[Will]

Is the free agency deadline still February 16 or thereabouts?

[zontar]

Aside from where Fantuz ends up I'm interested in seeing the climate change in WPG if they lose some key free agents.
Me thinks some previously well-thought of players might suddenly transform into "selfish" jerks and the GM of the team that signs them as "idiots" for "overpaying" said player(s).
Because it couldnt possibly be Mack's fault

[bluto]

@argofan87: as far as i know, yup.

@Zontar: amazing how that goes on the prairie, ain't it? every 2 or 3 years into their "Unfinished Business" they get a new initial to substitute into their I_WT acronym. but yeah, they have several high priced free agents and one high profile retiree which gives them lots of SMS room being held by the guy with the tightest purse strings in the league. here we are on January 27 and all 3 of their QBs remain unsigned as well as their best WR and NI O-Lineman... throw in a promising young NI DT who i thought was looked at as Doug Brown's replacement (or at least as much as you can try to replace a guy like that... i mean, look what JY said losing Belli did to our D) and Mack has a lot on his plate. (but yes, you can be assured that anyone who would ever ​leave Winnipeg is a mercenary jerk lol)
read this for the lolz: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/spo...137812613.html

[JY26]

@Area51-We ran our system one way under Chip Garber. Once Steinauer took over we ran it differently. There is a learning curve. It doesn't happen over the course of a game or 2. It takes time to perfect the system. It takes time to get used to playing next to new people. Also don't let the bitter taste of losing mislead you into thinking that we never had success running match coverage. If we ran it 30 snaps a game at the beginning of the season we were good on 20 of those snaps. We were trying to find a way week in and week out to perfect the system and eliminate those 10 bad plays. The bottom line is we weren't good ENOUGH at it.
i am going to give you some relative examples. Take the Philadelphia Eagles. They put together one of the most talented defences the NFL has seen in a while yet they struggled this year because they couldn't pick up the system quickly enough. You can't tell me that Asante Samuel and nnamdi asomugha aren't 2 of the best CBs in the league. Despite their PROVEN ability they struggled and looked bad at times because they didn't understand the strengths and weaknesses of the system they ran.
Take the Indianapolis Colts this season. Peyton Manning goes down and what was deemed one of the most aggressive and opportunistic Cover 2 defences in the NFL turned into one of the worst defences overnight. They Colts knew their defensive system very well and were one of the more veteran defences in the NFL. Take away their franchise qb and replace him with subpar qbs and you see what happened. They go from a 12 win team with a top 10 defence to a 2 win team with a bottom 10 defence.

In a perfect world i would love to play man to man every snap and be that aggressive but the rules in Canada are different from anywhere else. They give the receivers a head start on their way to the line of scrimmage. They make the defenders line up a yard off the ball. If 3 men bunch together and all disperse in different directions (a la Montreal, Sask, BC, Hamilton) and you are attempting to play man to man coverage it still turns into zone coverage because its not physically possible to chase them thru all of the traffic. There was not ONE good majority man-to-man defence in the league this year. You need to play some man-to-man defence in this league but you cant' live by it. You have to have some good zone schemes in order to change the look up for the QBs. AND you need an offence to balance out the flow of the game. Ask EVERY qb what style of defence they would prefer to play against and all of them will tell you man-to-man because the reads are the easiest. Ask any QB what defence they don't want to play against and they will say match coverage because it is so hard to read.
I completely understand why you are critical of how we played last season. I am even more critical of the way played. I am not trying to change your mind about how you viewed last season. I am trying to give you some insight into why we struggled. I am trying to get you to understand that we tried and we didn't get it done but its not because of physical ability. There were a lot of factors that contributed to us being unsuccessful. Your advice was to simplify what we were doing (dumb it down) but unfortunately if it is dumb to us it is also dumb to the team we are playing against.

[bluto]

so Free Agency's deadline just moved up 12 hours... not sure if i saw/heard a reason given, but it does seem to make more sense to have it happen at noon rather than midnight.

we still have some very important guys unsigned and not a peep out of our local journos who allegedly cover this beat... (in fact i'm going to fire off a complaint to the local sports section editors and would encourage you guys to do likewise... demanding the coverage and letting them know that it has an audience who is looking for it is the only way we'll get it)

Picard... Pottinger... Pile... Parker... i'd love to see a press conference very soon where the "4 P's" announce their new contracts...

Barks...?

[ArgoRavi]

I really believe that we have to be prepared to say goodbye to several of our free agents at this point. I still remember Byron Parker saying goodbye to us back in October so he must have known something that we will only find out about over the next week or two. Also, I think that at least one of Rob Murphy and Taylor Robertson will sign with Hamilton who have huge needs on their offensive line. The players who we have a better chance of re-signing IMO are Picard, Pottinger and Eiben (assuming that the coaching staff want either of the last two back) but fans should be prepared to say their goodbyes to several players including some very popular ones.

[ArgoGabe22]

The more BP tweets the more I think (hope not) he's leaving.

[Area 51]

WIth Stubler in as the new DC with the Lions and seeing how they jumped all over Shell, maybe BC will end up taking Pile & Parker...maybe even bringing back Pottinger to BC.

As for the idea of Murphy or Robertson signing in Hamilton, it's going to be interesting to see what happens with Jason Jiminez. I don't know about you, but I'd be happy to replace Murphy with Jiminez. I've always liked the toughness/agressiveness of Jiminez - - similar to what Belli used to bring to the team. Jiminez gets a bad rep as being a dirty player, but I think that's really been overblown.

[KCargosfan]

The more BP tweets the more I think (hope not) he's leaving.

Agreed. You might as well throw a Lions jersey on him right now.

[AngeloV]

WIth Stubler in as the new DC with the Lions and seeing how they jumped all over Shell, maybe BC will end up taking Pile & Parker...maybe even bringing back Pottinger to BC.

As for the idea of Murphy or Robertson signing in Hamilton, it's going to be interesting to see what happens with Jason Jiminez. I don't know about you, but I'd be happy to replace Murphy with Jiminez. I've always liked the toughness/agressiveness of Jiminez - - similar to what Belli used to bring to the team. Jiminez gets a bad rep as being a dirty player, but I think that's really been overblown.

No chance Jimenez comes here to replace Murphy. He has played RT his whole CFL career. I think he's highly overrated not to mention a dirty player. The last thing the Argos need is a cheap shot on Ricky Ray as retaliation of a cheap shot by their OT.

[argolio]

I'd want nothing to do with Jimenez. Even without his deserved rep as a cheap-shot artist, I think he's no better than average.

[bluto]

37 minutes to go...

[1argoholic]

Signing a backup qb will be very important. With Ray most likely playing infront of a whole new O line he may get killed.

[bluto]

i'd take Jarious at a good (read: low) price. i'm more concerned at this point about defence.

i think we have enough, quality bodies to have a good O-Line again. i think that Ray + Barnes, Mann and the rest will be good through the air and Boyd could be in for a career year under Milanovich.

it looks like the plan to get younger and cheaper is focusing on the defence... so those 10 free agent camps and Barker's tour of NFL camps hopefully will uncover the next influx of talent for us... because we are losing several mainstays here and need to reload.