Lions succumb to the darkness in blowout loss & 10 other thoughts on the regular-season finale

On a night marketed to fans for its halftime blackout, the B.C. Lions opted never to turn on a light in their regular-season finale and suffered a 41-16 blowout loss at the hands of the Calgary Stampeders.

Here are my thoughts on the game.

Exercise in Futility

Despite cries of protest from virtually every rational fan or pundit — and a few irrational ones to boot — the Lions insisted on trotting out Vernon Adams Jr. even after he reaggravated his injured knee last week. While they successfully avoided a true nightmare scenario, hindsight would suggest the wrong call was made.

Adams had arguably his worst performance of the year, squandering any M.O.P love he may have had left. He finished nine of 13 for 116 yards and an interception before being pulled at halftime — semi-respectable numbers that obscured thirty minutes of indecision, overthrows and poor reads.

From the jump, VA seemed to have difficulty establishing any rhythm against Stampeders defensive coordinator Brent Monson’s scheme. Calgary operated primarily out of a three-man front, providing twin problems for B.C.’s quarterback. When pressure was sent, his protection was too slow to pick it up but when his opponent dropped nine into coverage, he appeared stuck in traction and helpless. At least two of the three sacks Adams surrendered were as a result of his own failure to get rid of the ball and he made several indefensible throws, including his duck of an interception to Kobe Williams.

Neither Adams nor head coach Rick Campbell would admit to regretting the choice to have the 30-year-old start the game. Still, the explanation from the man in charge as to why he pulled his star signal caller appeared strangely similar to the argument that was made for why he shouldn’t have played in the first place.

“I didn’t want him to be a sitting duck back there. He was healthy, we had two good drives to finish the half that we should have scored on … I think he was feeling good,” Campbell said. “He was in a good place and I just didn’t want him in there. When we were down, I didn’t want him to try to be the hero today. I want him to be the hero in 15 days.”

I can understand Adams’ desire to play, especially given how tantalizingly close he was to the 5,000-yard plateau entering the game, and it certainly didn’t appear that it was his health holding him back on this occasion. I can also appreciate a desire to win this contest, though I find it to be maddeningly inconsistent as to why the victory suddenly became less important after the intermission, at a point when VA finally appeared to be turning a corner.

From the start, there was little to be gained here and plenty to be lost — both in terms of injury and lost mojo — as the Lions walked the tightrope between maintaining their slim hopes of a first-place finish and holding back schematically against a likely playoff opponent. If Dane Evans was good enough to try and win this game in the second half, logically he should have been good enough to start it.

Fortunately, the only bruises will be to Adams’ ego, though it was not that long ago that he had a reputation for letting those types of wounds fester. He hasn’t let that happen this year and he’ll be cautious to nip this particular spiral in the bud.

“I’m getting in my head,” he acknowledged. “It’s my energy; I gotta get my energy going for the team. Because we’re only gonna go as far as I go, so I’ve got to be ready to go from the jump.”

Choking Hazard

Entering the playoffs last year, much was made about how B.C.’s struggles to defend the run would be exploited by the Stampeders in the West Semi-Final. It turned out to be much ado about nothing, as Calgary abandoned its bread and butter of its own accord early in that game and lost as a result.

The Lions better hope they make the same mistake twice.

On Saturday night, the Stampeders rammed the ball so far down B.C.’s throat that they required the Heimlich manoeuvre. Ka’Deem Carey traded his usual lightning for thunder, amassing 88 yards on 15 carries while running over multiple defenders. Backup Peyton Logan took the opposite approach, daintily dancing past tacklers for 105 yards on eight carries. His 39-yard fourth-quarter touchdown run, which came on what seemed to be an unnecessarily risky third-and-two gamble, was an utter embarrassment, as both Quincy Mauger and Bo Lokombo completely failed to contain on the backside with the game still technically hanging in the balance.

“I think you saw on several plays, it looked like a team that was a little bit hungrier and playing for their playoff lives. And then once we got down, I saw some guys that were —I’m not questioning their effort but I’m questioning their urgency,” Campbell said of his defence. “I don’t think urgency will be a question mark in a playoff game, but who knows?”

Given the weakness of the rest of the West Division, the Lions have felt like locks to participate in the West Final all season. What Calgary exposed in the finale is the one way in which they can blow that inevitability: a stagnant offence forcing them to defend the run against a team willing to commit to it. This is a gut-check moment for this defence and it will take all 12 men buying in to have any hope of a correction.

Hocking a Loogie

Undisciplined penalties cost the Lions dearly in this game, with 10 flags resulting in more than 117 free yards for their opponents. At no point was this more on display than at the end of the second quarter, when defensive end Sione Teuhema erased any benefit from a sack deep in Calgary’s own end with a bone-headed post-whistle scuffle.

The second-year pro was initially flagged for popping left tackle D’Antne Demery with his shoulder after the play, but the ensuing fracas generated another flag on review. Teuhema clearly delivered an uppercut to the offensive lineman on the video, earning an ejection and a hearty chewing out from his usually mild-mannered head coach.

“I have a problem with repeat offenders. I’m not doing justice to the team if I don’t do anything about repeat offenders,” Campbell said of the incident, noting that those types of mistakes don’t define Teuhema’s character. “I don’t want to lose a playoff game because of stuff like that.”

The incident caused some controversy on the Lions’ sideline, as multiple players stated post-game that they were told Demery had spit on Teuhema to instigate the altercation. The left tackle was assessed his own 15-yard penalty by the eye in the sky but was not ejected, as is the protocol if a player is proven to have spat on an opponent.

“I can’t speak to that, it would be just me speculating,” Campbell said, admitting he too had heard the allegations. “In the moment, that’s what supposedly happened, which is pretty gross when you think about it  — if it did happen.”

Teuhema was not available for comment for obvious reasons but had unanimous support from his defensive teammates in the locker room, despite none having witnessed the oral projectile in flight. Only strong-side linebacker Emmanuel Rugamba testified to having seen the aftermath left on the defensive end’s helmet, describing it as “nasty.”

Coincidentally, that is also how I’d describe the 109-yard touchdown drive that Calgary generated as a result — the longest by any team this season.

Dissenting Verdict

The Lion’s best drive of the first half nearly ended on a dangerous throw from Adams to Alexander Hollins in blanket coverage, but a Rick Campbell challenge kept it alive thanks to a pass interference call against Cameron Judge. It was the first and last time the Canadian linebacker did anything kind for his opponent, redeeming himself later in the drive.

With the Lions pressed up against the goal line, it was Judge who came over the top of the pile to punch the ball out and generate a 14-point swing for the Stampeders. Predictably, he also led his team with six tackles and picked off Dane Evans in the fourth quarter to set up a chip shot field goal.

Judge is still a persona non grata in B.C. for his sucker punch of Lions’ receiver Lucky Whitehead last year, which resulted in a heated post-game altercation in the McMahon Stadium parking lot. I doubt he made any more friends this week.

How’d He Get There?

There is an old joke that compares inept politicians to a turtle on a fence post. That is to say, they are useless, have no idea what they are doing there, and have been mistakenly placed there by someone else.

That just about sums up my feelings about Dominique Davis this season.

Once again, the Lions suffered a devastating loss that hinged around their failure to execute a short-yardage sneak with Davis under centre — a play that should be automatic in the CFL. It is the one thing that the 34-year-old is supposed to bring to the table, as his value as a spot starter is negligible at this stage and his presence on the roster is actively taking up a spot that could be used to develop a young quarterback. If he can’t perform even the most basic of duties, I question what he is still doing here.

The offensive line is far from blameless in this failure but Davis isn’t maximizing his time on the field. This is an urgent issue facing the Lions entering the playoffs and Campbell knows it.

“We want to make sure we have the right guys doing the right things and we need to help scheme-wise,” he said. “I would say we’re losing the short-yardage battle right now and that’s number one on my whiteboard for the bye week is short yardage and we’ve actually been talking about it already. We need to make sure we have the right people and it’s a lot of coaching too, making sure we’re putting people in the best spots.”

It may be too late in the season to make a major personnel change, but something has to give. Getting inches instead of yards has cost this team too many games already.

Tainted Prize

Mathieu Betts got home on Jake Maier late in the second quarter for his 18th sack of the season, setting a new single-season record by a Canadian. It should have been a joyous moment, but it was immediately overshadowed by Teuhema’s ejection and later undercut by his own lack of discipline.

The CFL’s sack leader was responsible for three of the Lions’ penalties in this game, jumping offside once and getting caught twice for roughing the passer. I thought the first of those two majors was a particularly soft call, with any contact made to Maier’s head being purely incidental in the midst of an otherwise clean hit. However, that’s the type of bang-bang play that consistently draws the laundry these days and there was no defending his second penalty, a blatant two-handed shove well after the ball was gone.

Betts was guilty of similarly undisciplined play last week and Campbell didn’t shy away from calling him out as one of the players who needs to “function better” going forward. To his credit, the edge rusher also owned his mistakes in the locker room.

“That is a disservice to our team and to our defence and the people on it. We put way too much effort in there for me to do that to my teammates, so I wanted to fix it this week,” Betts said. “It hasn’t been done but it’s do or die now. There’s no more excuses, no more tomorrow. I have to play better.”

Grasping at Air

For all of their failings against the run, the B.C. secondary managed to hold Jake Maier to less than 50 percent and 123 yards on the night, but they’ll still be haunted by two throws that got away.

The first came early in the game when Garry Peters read the play to perfection and jumped an outside route, with nothing but daylight in front of him. The ball drilled him in the chest for what should have been a surefire pick-six, but the all-star corner dropped it and squandered his chance to seize momentum.

The second came near the end of the Stampeders’ full-field touchdown drive. Maier had all sorts of time with the Lions dropping nine into coverage but still took a shot as he lofted the ball up to Reggie Begelton. Veteran halfback T.J. Lee had him blanketed, two other defenders were a manageable distance away underneath, and everybody in the stadium was thinking pick on the floating pass. Instead, Lee mistimed his jump and Begelton made a spectacular catch on the 50/50 ball, with the other defenders making little effort to collapse on the catch point. Calgary scored a back-breaker on the next play.

Scratch The Hatch

Shortly before kickoff, the Lions revealed that Keon Hatcher would not be available to start the game and would be replaced in the rotation by Canadian Justin McInnis. The CFL’s leading receiver was initially deemed questionable for this game due to a hamstring injury but was not listed as a game-time decision until he became one in warmups.

Hatcher remained available but never saw the field, leaving fantasy players everywhere in the lurch. McInnis, of course, stepped up admirably as always, leading the team with seven receptions for 108 yards.

It was the correct call for the Lions to be cautious with such an impactful player if he was anything less than 100 percent. Unfortunately, they didn’t apply that logic elsewhere.

Permission to Leave

I understand the desire of both teams to, as Rick Campbell put it, “get out of dodge” at the end of this game, but two CFL teams trading kneel-down series with nearly two minutes remaining made me nauseous on principle.

The beauty of the Canadian game is that there is never an excuse to leave early, no matter the score. If I wanted to watch teams take a knee all evening, I’d turn on the NFL. At least run a dive, dammit!

Obviously, my tongue is firmly in cheek given my well-established stance on protecting players in these types of games, but that ending still hurt my soul. It was a pitiful finish to an awful contest.

Thank You, Come Again

This result really could not have been worse for the Lions. Not only did they officially lose out on first place in the West Division, but they’ve also suffered two straight losses at home and if Saskatchewan loses on Saturday, will be forced to market a playoff game against the very same team that just blew them out. Talk about a tough sell!

While there was a strong crowd at BC Place on Friday, it feels like a lot of early-season momentum has slipped away from this franchise. I don’t envy their sales team over the next two weeks if the Stampeders ultimately seize third place, though the players insist they prefer that option.

“I hope we do see them,” Adams stated. “They’ve been playing really good football these last couple of weeks so if that’s the case, we just watch it and we get better from it.”