Game 7 post-game thread

You can cut the apathy around here with a knife...

- In Dane's last 3 games hes 60/85 for 281 ypg with 4TD and 1 INT. He leads the league in passing yards. It's clear he's shaken off some of the early season rust/whatever that was but it should be noted he's playing at a top level again.

- Im a fan of the 2 QB thing, however I'm not a fan of putting Shiltz in and leaving him in no matter the down and distance. If you want to switch it up with a package of misdirection plays I think it's awesome. The cheerleaders will tell you that Dane goes to the sidelines, reads an Ipad and talks to coaches in the booth. None of this happens as he stands right by the chalk and is the first player cheering on his offence. I think there's something here but i'm not sure it's being properly managed by Stein and co.

- If I'm Dane I also have to feel like I have the short end of the stick on running plays, when Shiltz comes in the running game has some misdirection to it with 2-3 options, guys running in the backfield, etc. When Dane is in its a straight handoff to Jackson with no imagination. Dane is very capable of running the same plays Shiltz is, especially if its not being kept by the QB, switch it up a bit.

- 2 times on the final drive Montreal jumped ahead of the snap and both times Stein was given a choice of backing MTL up 5 yards OR declining and the clock starts on the whistle vs at the snap. Both times he took the yards. I'm not sure whether it was right or wrong but I thought it was interesting. 5 yards isnt too important at that point. If you're gonna allow a 7 yard play - why not make it second down? By making it 1st and 15 in a prevent you're basically allowing them less than 2nd and 10.

- Howsare, Johnson and Wynn were all over the field last night. Off the top of my head they had 5 sacks between them. If the D line continues to play like this and sets up our secondary, we'll win alot of games against the East.

- I don't want to hear about the Offense being the reason the D let them back in the game. We owned the 3rd quarter and the TOP of the entire game was 32/28 for MTL. This means before the 4th quarter Hamilton would have been leading the time of possession, so the D wasn't tired, gassed, etc. There's something up with Stein and Washington's approach to having leads and it flat out doesn't work.

- The Trevor Harris hit wasnt a penalty, plain and simple. It was a shoulder to the back/neck area, he didnt slide, and was not down. It also felt like he shouldnt be pulled because on TV he seemed to be fine when I watched the game again. And of course Dominique Davis does Dominique Davis things. Vernon Adams might have worked there....

- You'll have a tough time getting me off the notion that the receivers arent the worst unit on this team. They flat out don't scare anybody. Dunbar has turned into a solid CFL receiver but when you look across the field, he's no Geno Lewis. Lewis makes catches multiple times a game where he's flat out not open. Again, Dunbar has shown shades of this... but disappears for stretches of the game. Addison has been under utilized in the passing game, Tim White has been a flat out disappointment, Papi White isn't a professional receiver and at many points we had Turnowski and Durant on the field together. That is not going to scare anyone. My seats have a good view from above - there's frankly not anybody open. When Evans moves around on the run guys tend to get open but that's true of any team - but when this team has to go shotgun and just throw (which they love to do 30 times a game) there flat out just arent guys getting separation.

- Domagala punted well. I don't know what to say other than I like him. He plays the game hard, you can tell he works hard, his punting has improved. He's slightly better average wise than Laryea, hes 7th in average but is within 1-2 yards of 1st so he's in the pack (a wind game here or there can impact that) and he can place kick if an emergency were to occur. If he continues like this i'm happy to put this discussion to bed and let him punt.

- Small hasn't been tested - but we aren't talking about missed kicks today.

- We won the toss, deferred to the 2nd half, kicked off and took the wind in the 4th. Only took 5 or 6 tries but they got it right.

- Realistically this team should be 4-3. I won't give them credit for "What if's" beyond the Calgary/Edmonton gag jobs. I firmly believe we'll be hosting a playoff game likely against Saskatchewan, and we'll be looking at another "Get hot at the right time and see what happens" situation in November. They're nowhere near as good as at least 4-5 teams in front of them, It's not good enough, it shouldn't be enough to not hold people accountable, but I don't think this will be a dumster fire in 6 weeks.

Agree with Crash on Evans/Schiltz.Play selection for one but not the other makes little sense. Also Schiltz is quite possibly the slightest physically built positional player on the team. Guaranteed he is going to get injured as a result of sneak / rush packages.

After the Dunbar fumble I still can't understand why Shiltz went in for the next series. I mean, the game is on the line here and you're using the back-up QB now? I have no problem with having Shiltz coming in with a designed play package especially for him, but not at that point in the game. On the final drive, when the 'Cats are up near centre field, they run the ball on first down and get about 3 yards. Second and 7 and they run again which gets stopped well short!!!! I understand trying to run some time off the clock, and you want to do that by running the ball, but when it's second and long you gotta have some faith in your offence to complete a short safe pass and keep possession of the ball. In my view that's playing not to lose and too scared to play for the win which Stein said he wanted to do this year.

I think Acklin became that 2nd down guy last year, foolish to let him go, (especially given the players White's problems this year, but who could have seen that coming)

Domagala seemed to get some decent hang time, it wasn't obviously terrible or anything, and he punted fairly well. I think he was instructed to punt straight downfield maybe due to punt team coverage except for the one punt where he was definitely aiming to pin the Als deep.

Anyone think we win this game if Harris wasn't pulled by the concussion spotter?

Nope. Me neither.