Lions defence to the rescue
Key interception by Peters paves way for touchdown that sealed the deal against Als
Drew Willy was on the run — again — late in Saturday night’s game with the B.C. Lions, Davon Coleman in his face, a double-teamed Gabe Knapton nipping at his ankles. Spotting an open Eugene Lewis, the Montreal Alouettes quarterback floated him a pass in first-down territory, but halfback Garry Peters materialized from nowhere to intercept the pass at the Als’ 40-yard line.
Five plays later, the Leos were celebrating a Cory Watson touchdown catch. Game over.
There was no way back for the Als, who hadn’t scored a point since the final minute in the first quarter, and it stayed that way for the rest of the way in a 22-10 B.C. victory.
It was the second pick of the game for Peters, though the first one was nullified after a penalty.
“Odell (Willis) hurt me today,” joked the ebullient Atlanta native, who’s only been in the city for a week after joining the team in Kamloops for training camp.
“My first interception, I guess he was dropping into coverage and (got called) for illegal contact. The whole game I was stressing; ‘I got to get another one.’ ”
He did, and his first career interception was a pivotal point in a game where the Lions hadn’t gained much more offensive traction than the Als. No one would have described it as pretty football in the middle quarters — the sum total of the scoring was a field goal and two singles off the foot of Lions kicker Ty Long. But that was when the Lions’ defence rounded into form after a disjointed start to the game.
The first quarter saw Montreal throw B.C. off-balance with an unexpectedly potent deep passing attack. The Als looked to have gone in front off a 52-yard touchdown caught by B.J. Cunningham, but a holding penalty called it back. After a holding penalty on Montreal pushed them into a second-and-22, Willy hooked up with former Lion Chris Williams, who fumbled into the end zone, where it was recovered by the Als for a 57-yard touchdown play. Another 54-yard bomb to Ernest Jackson, whose double-move put Lions defender Marcell Young on skates, capped off a rough start for the secondary.
“We were rusty, man,” said Peters, who signed in B.C. after two years with the Edmonton Eskimos, where he had 59 tackles in 19 games.
“I felt as a team, the last couple games we’ve been starting slow. As a defence, there’s a lot of moving parts. Our coaches never really got to see how we actually play in a real actual game; how we move, how we tackle, how we fit different gaps, so I felt like that first quarter we were just feeling each other out as a defence.
“We just calmed down and played our game. We called the same exact plays, we fixed the little errors that we had, and just locked in on our assignments. It’s about our keys, our fundamentals, our communication, our tackling — we get all that in line, then we’ll be fine.”
The symbiotic relationship between the defensive line and secondary began to pay off. B.C. started getting to Willy — they had five sacks on the day, some coming from blitzes, others from blanketing coverage.
“We complement each other so well,” said the sixfoot, 190-pound Peters. “They make it easy for me to cover back there. It makes my confidence grow as the game goes on, to see that the quarterback can’t go through his reads, and only has two seconds to throw.
“What we have as a defence — our D-line is probably the best I’ve seen, the linebackers with Solly (Elimimian) in the middle, checking everything, calling all the plays — it makes me relaxed as in the secondary.”
The Als only had 142 yards passing before going down 22-10 with 6:33 left in the game on Watson’s 16-yard catch from Jonathon Jennings. They abandoned the run game and racked up another 124 yards in the air, but couldn’t punch through the defence to score.
“We had high expectations from Mr. Peters, and I think he lived up to them. All the guys did,” said Lions coach Wally
Buono. “I know Marcel got beat on a double move, but they’re only giving you double moves because they know you’re an aggressive football player. I thought Anthony Orange did an excellent job, as did Winston Rose did when he had to step in.
“I thought the secondary, after a mistake or two, settled and made some plays.”
There are seven new starters on defence, and 33 new faces overall on the Lions this season, but Peters said developing chemistry with his new teammates has been easy — and he already had some with Young, another free agent from Edmonton.
“It wasn’t hard at all,” he said. “We’ve got leaders at every level. We’ve got T.J. Lee, Solomon, Odell … we have a lot of veteran guys and we all have a common goal: we want to win a championship.
“And when people have a common goal, it’s easy to get along.”
BYE, BYE, BYE
The Lions are off for a week before returning to action on the road against the Eskimos on June 29. While some coaches would have preferred to build off the momentum of an opening-night win, Buono specifically requested the Week 2 break, one of three byes this season.
“I was looking forward to the bye, because it gives us three days to work on things that we can improve, and things we might want to add or change,” he said. “You get three byes, so the best time to get it is after your first game. Play your first game, get all your soreness out, let guys find a place to live, get comfortable and settled in the city. I wanted the bye at this time of year. When you look at all the things you can get settled, it’s good for your football club.”