The B.C. Lions offensive machine is missing the big play gear

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The Canadian Football League’s West Division is one big traffic jam, a mass of contenders stuck together like the bumper cars at Playland. Lots of jostling, and only one team currently unstuck: the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

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The freewheeling, first-placed Blue and Gold (9-6) head to Hamilton on Friday for a date with the Ticats and a chance to secure the division crown for the fourth straight year, although it’s been seven years since they won at Tim Hortons Field.

Behind them, the rest of the West are bumping and bumbling, spinning their wheels as they try to figure out why they’re all .500 or worse this season.

That includes the B.C. Lions (7-8), who host the Calgary Stampeders (4-9-1) on Friday night.

“I’ve never seen it like this,” Lions receiver Keon Hatcher Sr. said of the late-season standings logjam.

“It’s baffling, almost. But that means an exciting October, so that’ll be fun for sure.”

Also baffling: what’s happened to the high-octane offence that gave the Lions a 5-1 nitrous boost to start the season. Those big-punch pass plays, the Haymaker Marys that were their calling card early on, have dissipated more completely than celebrities publicly embracing P. Diddy.

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To whit: B.C. quarterback Vernon Adams Jr. still leads the league in completions over 20 yards (34), despite having played just one half of football in seven games. His average depth of pass (14.2) also still tops in the CFL, and he has 16 passes over 30 yards.

Starter Nathan Rourke has 10 completions over 30 yards to his credit, though you can chalk one off that list — a short dump-off to William Stanback against Ottawa that he turned into a 31-yard gain. He’s hit each of Keon Hatcher, Jevon Cottoy, Ayden Eberhart and Justin McInnis twice for those big gainers, along with Alex Hollins, but just one of those was for a touchdown. He hasn’t thrown a passing score in the past two games — two losses, by the way — though he has run for three majors.

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“It’s just multi-layered, to be completely honest,” Lions offensive coordinator Jordan Maksymic said of his offence’s switch from rocket fuel to regular.

“Obviously the buck stops with me. I’ve got to do a better job of putting these guys in position where we can get in behind coverage and make those big plays, because we have certainly have the personnel capable of doing so.

“Obviously, with the injuries and the change of quarterback … there’s a rhythm that you need to get into — and we’re still searching for that, quite honestly. I think all those kind of little pieces contribute to the bigger issue of not being as explosive as we’d like to be.”

The lions’ share of big plays came during the early part of the season, and defences adjusted to what B.C. wanted to do scheme-wise. The book, which hasn’t changed since Calgary authored it in their 25-24 Week 7 win over B.C., is to get pressure with four or fewer rushers and drop into a deep coverage that forces B.C. to complete passes underneath.

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That’s where they’ve been weak, as both QBs have a shared problem this year: accuracy.

Rourke checks in at 62.3 per cent, Adams at 64.3, which is 17th and 16th among pass throwers with 10 or more attempts this season. Ironically, third-stringer Chase Brice is the league’s most accurate passerby those same metrics at 85.7 per cent (12/14).

“Defences know what’s coming. They adapt and they evolve, just like offences do. They’re having a very similar problem in the NFL,” said Rourke. “There’s less teams that want to go with the philosophy of playing underneath zones and taking away a short game. They want to do what Winnipeg does; play deep and force you to take the little stuff, and then maybe force the ball downfield, force an interception or something like that. A lot of teams are going to that kind of route, which is similar to what is going on down south.

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“I’d love to say there’s some kind of secret sauce that we haven’t pulled out yet, but we’re still figuring it out. We’ve had a lot of moving parts this year … a lot of guys in the starting lineup and lot of injuries. We know we can do it. Just matter about putting it together and I’m confident we will.”

Calgary defensive coordinator Brent Monson — whom the Stamps promoted from within when DeVone Claybrooks was hired away by B.C. to be their head coach — designed the scheme that toppled B.C. and Adams in Week 7. That loss was the first of five losses in a row for B.C., and while they bounced back with two straight over Ottawa and Montreal, they’ve since dropped two straight — including last week’s overtime stunner to Hamilton.

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B.C. heads into Friday’s game with a healthy respect for Monson’s defence.

“It’s a chess match, right? It’s ‘What are they going to do? What do they think that we know about them, that we’re going to do?’and vice versa,” said Rourke. “(Monson) is an experienced DC. He’s been in Calgary for a long time. He’s done a lot of different things. His philosophy is kind of changed depending on who he’s playing.

He’s very smart, and he’s coaching his players well, he’s gonna come with a game plan, and we’re gonna have to be able to figure it out and adjust in the fly and ultimately, just execute better than they do.

“I look at what Montreal did last year, you know, where they caught fire at the end of the year. I mean, they started slow, and they ended up figuring it out at the end of the year, and they ran that momentum all the way to the Grey Cup.”

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