This season went down the toilet when...

[HBomb]

Re: This season went down the toilet when...

Again, why does RR and the offence, with 1 GODDAMNED ROOKIE IN THE UNIT, put it on the defence with 3 ROOKS and 4 NEW BODIES, week after week after week. JUST SHOW UP AND EXECUTE!

Give your defence a chance to make a mistake and not have it blow up in their face for a change!

I'm tired of the offence putting it all at the defence's feet again and again and again, WHEN THEY DON'T PLAY 60MIN THEMSELVES!

I am frustrated by the defense's inability to make a stop when we absolutely need it.

I'm equally frustrated by the inability of the offense to take care of business and put teams away early, thus forcing the defense into needing said critical stops far, far too often.

The lack of killer instinct (there's those two words again) is apparent on BOTH sides of the ball.

[stamphater]

Re: This season went down the toilet when...

Again, why does RR and the offence, with 1 GODDAMNED ROOKIE IN THE UNIT, put it on the defence with 3 ROOKS and 4 NEW BODIES, week after week after week. JUST SHOW UP AND EXECUTE!

Give your defence a chance to make a mistake and not have it blow up in their face for a change!

I'm tired of the offence putting it all at the defence's feet again and again and again, WHEN THEY DON'T PLAY 60MIN THEMSELVES!

Bingo!

I'm far more pissed off at what occurred in the first 20+ minutes then I am about what occurred in the final minute.

[earl2]

Re: This season went down the toilet when...

Bingo!

I'm far more pissed off at what occurred in the first 20+ minutes then I am about what occurred in the final minute.

Me too.

There's more than enough blame to go around on both offence and defence (and don't forget ST which has at times really hurt the Esks as well: Riders fake punts, Bombers returning missed FG's for TD's...).

Bottom line is it's a team game. And this team hasn't had all it's cylinders firing at the same time in any single game. And you just can't win consistently in any league like that.

[acura]

Re: This season went down the toilet when...

The D was on the field for almost the complete first half of the game.
The score could have actually been worse.
They barely got in a breather with all the 2 and outs.
The O has absolutely stunk the last few games, this is on their heads.

[cmbuk]

Re: This season went down the toilet when...

This is why if they really wanted strasser in, the should have waited till the offseason..

Our offence is looking like a week 2 offence where as every one else now has their pedal to the metal...

By the time we feel comfortable it will be to late!

[EsksTMac]

Re: This season went down the toilet when...

Again, why does RR and the offence, with 1 GODDAMNED ROOKIE IN THE UNIT, put it on the defence with 3 ROOKS and 4 NEW BODIES, week after week after week. JUST SHOW UP AND EXECUTE!

Give your defence a chance to make a mistake and not have it blow up in their face for a change!

I'm tired of the offence putting it all at the defence's feet again and again and again, WHEN THEY DON'T PLAY 60MIN THEMSELVES!

Come on Dies, this is a stupid argument.

What do you want him to do with 1:19 left against Calgary and :59 against BC? At home? When they have to go the distance?

The fact is.. do we have a good defense that could grow with each other and become great? I think so. Byron Parker, Drew, Hill, Lloyd and Gordon can all grow with each other as the foundation of this defense. But even with their early stages of being together, you just HAVE TO make a play and get them off the field when it counts. A defense should pride themselves on getting the crucial stops when they need it.

Does Ricky deserve blame? Hell yeah, of course he does. Not showing up until the second quarter when you're given opportunities by the defense and special teams is pathetic. Absolute garbage. But at the end of the day, we had a chance to win this game and we didn't. Why? Because we had a 62 yard TD scored on us with 12 seconds left. PERIOD.

[Nanookster]

Re: This season went down the toilet when...

I blame RR totally for the worst quarter in Eskimo history. OK maybe not but I am angry that they never want to play a complete 60 minutes. The Simon TD rates with he Stegall as one of the worst in Eskimo history.

That first quarter was all about coaching and I am surprised many of you do not understand that. The Eskimos were expecting zone coverage and BC was in man coverage. Until the coaches switched play calling Ray was not having success with the planned plays.

Ricky Ray is set to go over 2,500 completions and 30,000 yards this year and is one of the best QBs of all-time in the CFL.

[Nanookster]

Re: This season went down the toilet when...

This is why if they really wanted strasser in, the should have waited till the offseason..

Our offence is looking like a week 2 offence where as every one else now has their pedal to the metal...

By the time we feel comfortable it will be to late!

Bingo.

Record under Worman 5-2.

Record under Strasser 1-6.

We didn't change QBs people, we change offensive co-ordinators!

The QB is the easiest person to place the blame on, but Strasser is calling the plays, including the lateral ones.

Thanks Danny for all the changes!

[moontoscott]

Re: This season went down the toilet when...

I don't think that there will be any quick fix for the Eskimos.

As much as I would like to see DM run out of here he is super tight with Lelacheur and in turn Lelacheur is super tight with the Board of Governors. He has convinced them that DM is the poster boy of success, having gone from selling peanuts at the game to being "GM for life." Maybe CBC can turn it into a miniseries but I would say that we are stuck with the pair of them for the foreseeable future. As one of our most charming and delightful posters bragged "they will retire on their own terms when they want." Unfortunately this may be the truth.

On the field, things are a mess. The player turnover, especially on defence has been brutal. The best thing to do is to try and sign some of the better talent to long term deals and allow them to play together for a few years. Right now, there is virtually no continuity. A rash of injuries for the last few years hasn't helped.

On offence when Jason Tucker was lost to catastrophic injury it was a very deep blow from which we have struggled to recover. We lost one of our true long term stars when he went down. His circus catches brought great inspiration to the team. When we look at the team today there is no receiver on the roster that even approaches Tucker's ability. If Hervey and Tucker were to step back onto the Commonwealth grass today I believe that they would still be the two best Eskimo receivers on the field.

The search for character combined with great talent (as in the case of Tucker) is a very difficult one. Those types of players are very hard to find and Edmonton is not the coveted place to play that it once was. We aren't much different now than Toronto-Hamilton. Great stars who will come and play here for a decade won't be easy to find.

Coaching is also suspect. The jury is still out on Hall but why do I get the feeling that he isn't really in charge? Is it my imagination? Maybe.

The D-coordinator was hired because he is a buddy of DM's so I suppose that he is "D-coordinator for life" or something like that. He should have been fired long before Worman. I believe that the whole Worman/Strasser fiasco is a black eye that has seriously damaged the Eskimo's credibility around the league. All the other bush league moves in the last few years haven't helped either. I mean, just bloody ridiculous to even the casual observer.

Oh my, can this be the Edmonton Eskimos that I grew up with

[Diesel]

Re: This season went down the toilet when...

Come on Dies, this is a stupid argument.

What do you want him to do with 1:19 left against Calgary and :59 against BC? At home? When they have to go the distance?

The fact is.. do we have a good defense that could grow with each other and become great? I think so. Byron Parker, Drew, Hill, Lloyd and Gordon can all grow with each other as the foundation of this defense. But even with their early stages of being together, you just HAVE TO make a play and get them off the field when it counts. A defense should pride themselves on getting the crucial stops when they need it.

Does Ricky deserve blame? Hell yeah, of course he does. Not showing up until the second quarter when you're given opportunities by the defense and special teams is pathetic. Absolute garbage. But at the end of the day, we had a chance to win this game and we didn't. Why? Because we had a 62 yard TD scored on us with 12 seconds left. PERIOD.

How is expecting an experienced offensive unit to show up for more than 35 min a game a stupid argument???

[Diesel]

Re: This season went down the toilet when...

Bingo.

Record under Worman 5-2.

Record under Strasser 1-6.

We didn't change QBs people, we change offensive co-ordinators!

The QB is the easiest person to place the blame on, but Strasser is calling the plays, including the lateral ones.

Thanks Danny for all the changes!

If you look at Strasser's plays there are guys open all over the place. Prime example was the two idiotic throws 5 yards out of bounds in the endzone to the same spot two plays in a row. Fred Stamps on that second down could have laid out a picnic basket in the endzone because he had no one near him for 35 ft in any direction.

What RR is struggling with BADLY is the right reads and recognition.

[cmbuk]

Re: This season went down the toilet when...

said it before, RR is struggling to get to grips with this offence.......

he will get accustomed to it, but by then we could be at home watching the playoffs..

[Diesel]

Re: This season went down the toilet when...

He was firing on most cylinders with it for the first half in Sask, then his receivers fell off the rails and he's struggled with confidence and reads pretty much since that half. He's back to holding on too long to the ball and being completely indecisive. When you're double clutching a pass to the flat, that body language screams out no confidence, and it's crippling the overal performance of this team

[Angelus]

Re: This season went down the toilet when...

Bingo.

Record under Worman 5-2.

Record under Strasser 1-6.

We didn't change QBs people, we change offensive co-ordinators!

The QB is the easiest person to place the blame on, but Strasser is calling the plays, including the lateral ones.

Thanks Danny for all the changes!

You're wrong again.

Under Worman we were 5-4. Under Strasser we are 1-4.

[MEEZY]

Re: This season went down the toilet when...

I haven't posted in here on ages, but after last night, I really want to say something.

First, I will start with the obvious. There is seriously something wrong with all facets of this team and unfortunately, the fix for it isn't as simple as constantly trading or interchanging players. Throughout the past several years, players have been in and out of the revolving door with no real consistency and I think this is part of what has really hurt the team. Look at this year, for instance; all of the changes on the defense and the OC being replaced in the middle of the season. You can't expect to make changes of that magnitude and still have success, or rather, achieve the success that you have been sorely lacking, since, arguably, 2003, or even 2005. Diesel made an outstanding point when he mentioned that the players of the current regime have no concept of what it means to wear the green and gold, no sense of tradition. I would like to underscore this point by saying that what is wrong with the team is not physical but rather mental. The receivers are physically capable of catching balls and the defence is physically capable of making tackles. What this team is lacking is an intangible: whether you call it confidence, or pride, or the desire to win; they are lacking it all.

With that in mind, I don't think that you can pin the loss, or any of these losses, on any one particular player or any one unit. I am seeing a lot of people in here putting the blame on Ray and that is wrong. He is not "the one" to blame nor is he entirely excusable. He is not a God, we all know this by now, in fact, we knew it the year that he came back from the NFL and arguably, hasn't been the same since. I don't think that anybody still thinks of him as a God. But to pin the blame entirely on him is absolutely ridiculous. If the running back and receivers have hands of butter and the O-line can't block a 90-year old woman, is that his fault? No. But things like hanging on to the ball too long, missing open targets, etc, yes, you can blame him for. Since football is a team sport, then everybody is to blame; as I said earlier, I think the players are suffering from some kind of malaise or apathy that has sucked the heart and soul out of them. Who is to blame for this? Is it the coaching staff? Is it the management? Maybe Maciocia is still responsible, maybe he isn't; I have no idea. What I do know is that this entire organization is barely shades of its former self and that it needs a full-scale psychological makeover before we see the type of team that infested this organization and its fans with pride in the early 2000s.