Fate of rebuilt roster rests with Jonathon Jennings
Improvement by Lions’ offensive maestro will be pivotal to the team’s CFL success this season
We no longer have the Stanley Cup final or the NBA championship series to keep us entertained, but we’ll always have the Monday morning musings and meditations on the world of sports.
Here’s the book on the B.C. Lions as the 2018 CFL season opens.
The defence will be improved and has a big-play look about it. Special teams should be more productive. So should the offensive line. The receiving corps is solid. And there is depth at running back.
That just leaves one area to account for, but it’s also the position around which the entire enterprise revolves and, at this stage, it’s still unclear what the Lions have in Jonathon Jennings.
Friday night, in the final pre-season game against Winnipeg, Jennings had a chance to make a statement about himself and his command of Jarious Jackson’s offence. Playing against what amounted to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ second-stringers, Jennings completed 17 of 24 pass attempts for 182 yards and one touchdown, which was all right. But it did not send the appropriate message to Wally Buono and, just as importantly, Lions fans.
“Offensively, I think we’re still a little out of sync,” Buono said.
“(Jennings) has to execute the offence. We have to be way better in the first half (the Lions had one first down in the first quarter and six in the first half ) and we have to be a lot more consistent. As you start playing the best teams, they’re going to put a lot of pressure on you if you can’t get first downs.”
Buono has never been one to call out players publicly, but it sounded like he’s turning up the heat on Jennings. And for good reason.
This is his fourth year with the team. He turns 26 next month and the Lions can’t waste another year waiting for Jennings to develop. Quarterbacking is about 80 per cent of the Canadian game and no CFL team can win consistently with mediocre play at that position.
This has to be Jennings’ time. If it isn’t, it doesn’t really matter how much the Lions improved the rest of their lineup.
In 2005-06, Alexander Ovechkin broke into the NHL with the Washington Capitals. Two years later Nick Backstrom joined the Caps and the team suddenly morphed from a 70-point also-ran to a 94-point division winner.
Over the next 10 seasons, the Capitals averaged 101 points a year, won three Presidents’ trophies and seven more divisional crowns without once making it out of the second round of the playoffs until this season.
We are suckers for all kinds of sports stories. But few have the enduring appeal of the team that absorbs body blow after body blow before picking itself off the mat to deliver a championship moment.
Watching the Capitals this spring, watching them come from behind to win all four series, it’s hard to believe this franchise was synonymous with choking for over a decade. This time they were tough, they were resilient and they displayed a champion’s heart.
We all love winners, but we love them even more when we see them fight for their moment of triumph. Maybe that’s why the Caps’ story was so appealing to hockey fans this post-season.
If the Canucks were wondering how to build a winner, all they have to do is look at the Caps’ model. First, you draft a generational goalscorer in Ovechkin. Then you draft Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov as your top two centres and trade for Lars Eller as your No. 3. While you’re at it, you draft John Carlson, the leading point-getter among defencemen this season; Braden Holtby, a Vezina-calibre goalie; and Tom Wilson, a heavyweight-tough forward who hits everything that moves and has enough skill to play on your first line. There, see how easy it is?
At 17, Alphonso Davies is the most exciting soccer prospect Canada has produced. If you didn’t believe that before his stunning one-goal, three-assist performance against Orlando City on Saturday, you believe it now.
This year, he’s also emerged as the Whitecaps’ most important player. The problem, of course, is Davies is now attracting the interest of the larger soccer world and he’s basically pricing his way out of the Caps and MLS.
It’s a pity, really. Sure, he’ll likely attract a transfer fee in the $10-million neighbourhood. But this is a singular talent, someone who can change the face of the sport in this country and no amount of money seems like an equitable trade-off for what he brings to the Whitecaps.
“We’d prefer to have him around for the rest of the year,” said team president Bob Lenarduzzi. “But if he keeps on doing what he’s been doing, it’s more than likely he’ll end up somewhere else.
“We’ve had plenty of inquires, but nothing concrete. I’m assuming that’s going to come.”
And finally, if you never knew John Ashbridge, you just had to read the tributes that have poured in since his passing last week to understand the esteem in which he was held. They came from young people and old in our business. They came from the print sector, radio and TV. They came from presidents and interns and they all carried the same message.
This was a kind and decent man.
Ashbridge also provided the soundtrack for Canucks games and that made him a connecting point for our city and province. That voice, that magnificent, mellifluous voice, will always be a part of the Canucks’ story and part of our story.
We can all take some comfort in that.