Penalties a problem in pre-season finale
Lions do enough to beat Winnipeg’s second stringers, but offence proves underwhelming
There were too many penalties and not enough offence, but the B.C. Lions still did enough to win their pre-season finale Friday night.
They’ll just have to do a lot more when the games start to count.
Against a makeshift Winnipeg Blue Bombers team that featured only four projected starters, the Lions parlayed two defensive touchdowns and a Bryan Burnham touchdown catch into a 34-21 CFL win before a sparse crowd of 15,237 at B.C. Place Stadium.
Offset against that production were 14 penalties for 171 yards and an underwhelming performance by quarterback Jonathon Jennings, who went 17 of 24 for 182 yards and one touchdown while operating the first-team offence over most of three quarters.
“It felt like pre-season and it looked like pre-season” said Lions head coach Wally Buono.
“The best part of all that was the defence continued with the turnovers and the special teams, other than a few penalties, were way better on their returns.
“Offensively, I still think we’re a little of sync.”
And that was the game in a nutshell.
The Lions opened scoring on the second play from scrimmage when defensive end Odell Willis scooped up a fumble forced by Davon Coleman and returned it 20 yards for a touchdown. Their next major came midway through the third quarter when Jennings finally got the offence going, directing a sixplay, 55-yard drive punctuated by Burnham’s touchdown catch.
Two plays later, Otha Foster stepped in front of a Chris Streveler pass and returned it 62 yards for a touchdown.
Streveler was the third of the Bombers’ three quarterbacks. The other two were former Lions third-stringer Alex Ross and Bryan Bennett. The visitors’ offence featured just one starter, receiver Drew Wolitarsky.
Just saying.
“I thought we did some good things and there were some things we have to clean up,” said Jennings. “That’s what pre-season is for. We have to work out some of the kinks and get into football mode.
“We missed a couple of things earlier in the game but we have time to figure things out.”
Not too much time. The Lions open the regular season on Saturday against the visiting Montreal Alouettes.
Newcomer Ricky Lloyd, fresh off a three-touchdown pass outing in the Lions’ win over Calgary last week, came on and directed a 56-yard touchdown drive in the fourth quarter, highlighted by a 38-yard catch and run by Burnham. Lloyd capped the drive with a one-yard quarterback sneak.
He finished the game 7 of 11 for 80 yards.
The penalties were a problem all night for the Lions but they were especially prevalent in the first half when they took 11 for 115 yards while wiping out a 63-yard punt return for a touchdown by Chris Rainey and another 73-yard return by Rainey.
“Penalties are something I’m going to address harshly,” said Buono. “You’re not going to beat a good football team with the amount of penalties we took.”
It felt like pre-season and it looked like pre-season.” B.C. Lions head coach Wally Buono