Aug
Nurse Buono’s ready to up the Lions’ meds
Courtesy Vancouver Sun:
The kindest thing you can say about the Lions in 2009 is that they’re a sick patient.
Following a 48-10 defeat by the Calgary Stampeders 12 days ago, Lions coach Wally Buono turned Florence Nightingale when he talked about “spoon-feeding” his stricken team. “You nourish them until they get back to health,” was his prescription.
But there is an old-fashioned, hard-nosed side to Buono as well. He is equal part Nurse Ratched, the battle axe caregiver in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, ready to force the bitter pill down their throats. When veteran cornerback LaVar Glover made a couple of critical cover errors, Buono replaced him with rookie Trestin George. And when linebacker Javy Glatt fell down on his run-stopping ability last Friday in a 30-18 defeat to the Tiger-Cats, JoJuan Armour was airlifted in to start in his place Friday against the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
“I’m getting them [his players] out of their comfort zone,” Buono said Tuesday. “I understand my job, and I believe I do my job pretty well. Unfortunately, releasing a player has never been an issue that’s bothered me. At the end of the day, my obligation isn’t to the veteran who isn’t helping us to win. It’s to the organization.”
In football, cutting people slack gets you beaten. It’s why Buono wants his players to feel increasingly uncomfortable if they continue lose.
“I’m still nursing but, believe me, I don’t have an issue with releasing,” he says. “The two sides of anyone who does my job is the warm and fuzzy and the cold and calculating. It just depends on what side I have to be.”
Among his underachievers, based on a cash for catches ratio, is slotback Geroy Simon. He is handsomely rewarded as the top receiver in the CFL. And yet, Simon has just four catches for 59 yards in his past two starts. Those numbers, however, aren’t contributing to the team’s negative undertow, Buono says. In fact, the coach sees Simon as one among a handful of veterans trying to lead the team in the right direction.
“I would not put Geroy in that category [of disappointments] at all,” Buono says of Simon, who is averaging 3.6 catches for 56 yards after five games. But there’s a reason for it. With defences such as the Roughriders and Stampeders rushing just three linemen, dropping nine others to defend against the pass, Simon is facing unprecedented coverage this season.
“Defences are taking me away,” he acknowledges. “There’s no other receiver who sees as much coverage as I do in this league. Other guys [receivers] are having success. But they’re facing one guy. I’m consistently facing two guys, if not three. I can beat two, but there are times I can’t beat three. That’s just the beast I face. If I’m doubled, then somebody else has to make a play.”
“You know and I know if Geroy or Paris [Jackson] went one-on-one with most people in this league, they’re gonna win,” Buono says. “Let them play football with him, I’ll put my money on Geroy. But [for Geroy to thrive], we need to get teams out of their comfort zone.”
Indeed, if it gets worse before it gets better, more veteran Lions will be displaced from their happy place, too.
Wally is one cold SOB.