12 Audibles: Lions wake up to provide Week One's sole home victory
Heading into this CFL season, the Calgary Stampeders looked like the West's top team and a Grey Cup favourite, while the B.C. Lions looked like a team in for a tough year. Through two and a half quarters of Saturday night's game between the teams, that seemed accurate; Calgary picked up a 17-6 lead while B.C. stumbled, including allowing three punt blocks. While the Stampeders didn't score as many points as they could have thanks to poor offensive execution, including one series after a punt block that saw Calgary stopped four times (including a penalty against the Lions) from the one-yard line, their lead looked pretty safe.
But this is a league where we're constantly reminded that no lead is safe, and that proved to actually be the case Saturday night. B.C. came back for a 20-18 win, and that was partly thanks to...
1. Jon Jennings. One of the biggest question marks in the CFL this season is just how well the 23-year-old Jennings will play in his first full season as a starter. Jennings showed some promise after taking over for the Lions partway through last year, completing 142 of 215 regular-season pass attempts (66.0 per cent) for 2,004 yards and 15 touchdowns with 10 interceptions, but he also had some struggles, especially in their playoff loss to the Stampeders. That story was somewhat true again Saturday, with Jennings struggling early but then starting to turn things around. His final line of 24 completions on 42 attempts (57.1 per cent) for 248 yards wasn't awe-inspiring, but his play late suggested there's potential here (although it will be interesting to see how he does in a road game against a tough Hamilton defence this week), and he played a role in B.C.'s comeback. However, an even bigger role was played by...
2. Chris Rainey. Alongside the defence,Rainey was the real star of Saturday's game for the Lions, scoring on a one-yard touchdown run in the third quarter and then giving them the lead with a 72-yard punt return:
The 28-year old Rainey has plenty of speed to burn, as we saw throughout his college career at Florida. He finished the game with four punt returns for 108 yards and a touchdown, two kick returns for 43 yards, one catch for five yards, and one carry for one yard and a touchdown. It will be interesting to see how the Lions use him this year; he's obviously good on returns, but will he feature on offence more now that Andrew Harris has moved on to Winnipeg? And speaking of...
3. Winnipeg's offence: The Bombers came into this season with high hopes after big free-agent acquisitions like Harris, Weston Dressler and Ryan Smith, but those hopes fell flat Friday in a 22-14 loss to Montreal that could have been even more of a blowout. Dressler left early after taking a hit, and while Harris had a pretty good night overall (80 rushing yards on 13 carries, 40 receiving yards on six catches), the Winnipeg offence as a whole did not. One of the biggest issues was the play of...
4. Drew Willy. There were high expectations for Willy this season, especially given the weapons the Bombers provided him. In Friday's game, he didn't live up to them at all. Willy finished with an acceptable 25 completions on 34 attempts (73.5 per cent) for 303 yards and a touchdown with an interception, but that doesn't tell the whole story; tons of those yards came late in the game when the Alouettes seemed to lighten the defensive pressure, as Willy only crossed the 100-yard mark in the fourth quarter. Yes, there were some nice throws late, including a deep TD pass to Darwin Adams, but Willy will need to be much better. On Friday, he was outshone by...
5. Kevin Glenn. The man of many teams was under pressure for his starting job heading into the year, but he delivered a great performance against the Bombers, completing 30 of 42 passes (71.4 per cent) for 332 yards and a touchdown with an interception. An issue with Glenn has sometimes been his accuracy, but he was looking very good Friday in an accuracy-focused scheme designed by...
6. Anthony Calvillo. The legendary CFL quarterback is in his first year as a coordinator, but he seems to be settling in well. While it's only been one game, the Alouettes' offence looked more organized and efficient under him than it had in almost any game since he retired as a player. If he and Glenn can keep working well together, Montreal might be better than expected. Another offensive coordinator - quarterback pairing that looked better than expected in Week One was in Hamilton, where...
7. Stefan Ptaszek and Jeremiah Masoli teamed up for big points in the Tiger-Cats' 42-20 win over the Toronto Argonauts Thursday. Neither was the team's first choice, with Ptaszek hired away from the McMaster Marauders late in the offseason when long-time OC Tommy Condell suddenly resigned, and Masoli named the starter thanks to Zach Collaros still recovering from ACL surgery, but both looked great Thursday night, with Masoli completing 27 of 37 passes (73.0 per cent) for 318 yards and three touchdowns. Of course, they had help from...
8. Simoni Lawrence. The Tiger-Cats' linebacker delivered one of the most impressive defensive performances you'll ever see in the CFL Thursday, flying around the field and recording seven tackles, two sacks, an interception return for a touchdown and a fumble recovery. He earned top spot in the league's Shaw Top Perfomers and was a big part of spoiling...
9. The Argonauts' home opener. Of course, it was only spoiled on the field, where Ricky Ray and company came up very short. That may turn around, though, and there were some promising signs late in the game. What's even more promising is the off-field performance, though; by all accounts, the pre-game tailgate was terrific, and the team drew an impressive number of fans, suggesting that their marketing campaign is making headway. There's still work to be done, and everything isn't instantly fixed in Toronto: Thursday's game wasn't a sellout despite the hype and despite many tickets being available cheaply. Still, this was major progress from where the Argos have been. Speaking of progress, the...
10. Ottawa Redblacks have definitely made it. This team's come a long way from their 2-16 expansion campaign in 2014, making a Grey Cup appearance last year, and their 45-37 overtime road win Saturday in a Grey Cup rematch against Edmonton suggests last year was no fluke. Perhaps the most impressive part was how their offence kept clicking smoothly even after reigning Most Outstanding Player Henry Burris left with a finger injury; offseason acquisition Trevor Harris stepped in and delivered even a better performance than Burris had, with the two quarterbacks combining for 543 passing yards. Of course, some of that was about...
11. The Eskimos' secondary. There were questions about the reigning champs' defence heading into this year given the departure of head coach and defensive coordinator Chris Jones for Regina (where he and the rebuilt Roughriders will kick off their season Thursday against Toronto), and those were particularly true in the secondary given the substantial attrition there. That attrition got even worse before the season with the news that league all-star John Ojo was out for the year, and Edmonton's defence looked very vulnerable through the air Saturday. Further injuries to Deon Lacey and Pat Watkins were part of the problem, and also part of...
12. A rough week for home teams. Edmonton, Winnipeg and Toronto all lost at home, the latter two by large margins, and B.C. might have joined them if the Stampeders had capitalized on their blocked punts and field goals. There were plenty of exciting games to kick off the season, especially in the close games in B.C. and Edmonton, but apart from Lions' fans, home fans haven't seen a win yet. Two 1-0 teams (Montreal and Hamilton) have chances to change that this week, as do the Riders and the Stampeders. We'll see if home-field advantage works out better in Week 2.
