Game 1, win 1

Ok, so game 1 is in the books. We met as a team Sunday morning to watch the film and as the saying goes “It’s never as good as you think, and it’s never as bad as you think.” Having not gotten much work in individually or as a complete line during the preseason games, game one was a bit of a feeling out process for the 5 guys up front. Wayne and I played a total of 20 minutes in opposite preseason games. Geno Mak played 3 series in game 1 and O’Day played for the 1^st time with real bullets on Saturday evening. I think this was a great decision by the coaching staff to keep the guys fresh, it’s a LONG season and as I said in earlier blogs, the preseason games hurt just as much as the real ones.

The downside to not playing much is that our timing was off. We are all veteran guys so we were able to pull out a victory, thanks to Wes Cates, MC, JJ and a great overall defensive performance. However personally and as an O-line we were far from meeting our high standards. Not to worry Rider faithful it’s game 1 and if we were at our best now there would only be one way to go. We will take this film and see what we are doing well, continue to improve in these areas as well as see where we are falling short and correct the errors.

On the field we may think, or feel, like we are doing something right but “the eye in the sky don’t lie” and the film always picks up the truth. For example, on Saturday I thought the linebackers weren’t reading the play they were just shooting gaps but the film says that I was just taking the wrong angle to get there. Angles is all we O-linemen have when facing quicker, faster guys- you take the wrong angle and you have no chance. The bad part is that I look like a fool, making the same mistake 2-3 times in the same game. The good news is that it won’t happen again. It’s easy to fix things when you know what’s wrong and knowing what’s wrong comes with playing time. Young players sometimes have a hard time picking out what’s wrong and therefore can’t fix it as quickly, or sometimes they have a hard time picking out one thing to work on because there is so much going on at once and the gameplay is so fast that they have a hard time catching up.

 So from the film we take a list of things we are doing well and things we need to work on. I usually pick one or two small things from each the run and the pass game to work on during the week of practice, this week I will be working on not opening my hips on the pass and I am still looking for a decent second step in the run game. What ever it is that the guys will be working on this week we will have to be better as we face the top D-line in the business next week. (Sorry Winnipeg, you can be the best D-line when we play you).  The efforts we put forth versus Edmonton will not do against the Lions front four and most importantly we can do better for ourselves….if you don’t know, now you know