The Bombers finish their first of five back-to-backs this season when they visit Montreal on Thursday night. Three things are rattling around in my brain in advance of the game:
1) Buck’s scrambling is not a big deal
On last week’s broadcast much was made of “Will Buck Pierce scramble less with his injury problems?”
Pierce went on to scramble once for four yards versus Montreal. A few times when running for a gain was a possibility, he turned to go parallel to the line of scrimmage and threw.
The thing with worrying about Pierce scrambling is … he doesn’t do it that often.
Looking at the tape from 2012, in 134 drop-backs, Pierce scrambled seven times. Seven times in his seven starts (five other times he carried on a designed run play). Now, those numbers are certainly affected by Pierce having to leave games early with injuries. But last year’s injuries weren’t caused by his scrambling.
Pierce left four games with injuries. In each case, the cause was a hit in the pocket — not him scrambling. There was a knee injury, an ankle, a shoulder and the bell-ringing illegal hit from the Argos’ Brandon Isaac. All the injury-causing blows came while he was in the process of passing.
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A better target for the blame for Pierce’s injuries in 2012 is the 14 times he was sacked. Pierce went down on a remarkably-high 10.4 per cent of plays where he dropped back. That stat shouldn’t be used as an indictment of the Bombers’ offensive line. After all, Joey Elliott and Alex Brink were sacked at a much lower rate behind the same front five. Linemen, backs, receivers, quarterback and scheme are all responsible for keeping the QB upright.
Of the Bombers QBs to throw more than 100 passes last season, Elliott was the most likely to scramble, a bit ahead of Pierce. Brink was a fair bit back.
2) Is Chris Matthews still injured? Or was it just one of those games?
Matthews was a question mark for the opening game after tweaking his ankle in practice. The late decision was made to put Matthews in the starting lineup.
In the gam,e the Bombers spread the ball around well to all five of their starting receivers. Buck Pierce threw at each of them at least four times. Jade Etienne led with 79 yards, and Matthews led with four catches. Despite leading the team in catches, the number of times Matthews was targeted is down.
Pierce threw at Matthews six times. Last year he averaged eight targets per game. And last week, the times Pierce threw to Matthews, they were closer to the line of scrimmage than we are used to seeing.
Four times Matthews was within six yards of the line. The others were 14 yards and a desperation heave 43 yards downfield. Both of those were incomplete.
Matthews certainly did not look tentative when he caught the ball. Of his 41 yards, he got more than half of them after contact. But is that ankle affecting the routes he runs and how well he runs them? Matthews did get an extra day off from practice this week. Curious to see if anything is different in Game 2.
Matthews’ stats last year versus Montreal (four games): 35 targets, 25 receptions, 368 yards, two touchdowns
3) Is cornerback Geoff Tisdale a target?
Were the Bombers picking on cornerback Geoff Tisdale in Week 1? The boundary side is the money side in Canadian football, meaning Tisdale is going to see the most throws his way. That said, the Bombers stepped it up for Week 1.
Nine times they targeted the receiver closest to the sideline on the short side of the field (the man Tisdale is generally responsible for). That was the most of any receiver position.
The Bombers threw to the boundary side 56 per cent of the time in Week 1. Last year in four games, that number was 45 per cent. Matthews (three times) and Clarence Denmark (five) were the big targets versus Tisdale.
Catch all the highlights and post-game from the Bombers on News Hour Final with Joe Pascucci.
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