Last week, Wally Buono said that in his final season, he might be open to taking more risks than he has historically.
“It’s about letting go a little bit — not being dumb, I don’t believe that, but being more aggressive, maybe, be more courageous, maybe be more willing to take risks,” he said.
I’m here today to say I want to see a team (teams, really, but I’d settle for one) not just let go a little bit. Let go completely. Be hyper-aggressive. Embrace risk. Take “conventional wisdom” as coaches know it, put a clipboard in its hands and run it out onto the field exclusively for short yardage and trick plays.
Is there anything more frustrating than watching a team lay the foundation for a great drive and get stuck around the opposition’s 45-yard line? Out of range for a field goal, the punter and his crew run out, belt the ball downfield and all of the momentum that was there a few minutes ago is gone.
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Wally Buono sparked an interesting debate when talking about being more aggressive (Johany Jutras/CFL.ca)
What if an offence made a rule that said if they were past the mid-field mark but out of field goal range, they just went for it on third down? If you convert, the drive lives on and you’re at least in field goal range. What if you treated turnovers you created as free possessions, where you went for broke to get to the end zone and eschewed the single point after for the two-point convert?
Ultimately, this type of plan would be about trust. Trusting that your defence could hold up more often under a shorter field than it’s traditionally used to. Trusting that your offence, more often than not, could produce in tight situations and put points on the board if you open the door for more scoring.
Of course this wouldn’t be a steadfast, black-and-white rule. There would be times in the game that call for a punt and giving your defence a long field, or making the safer, simpler play of the single point after a touchdown.
Still, perhaps not surprisingly, a couple of quarterbacks at Mark’s CFL Week were on board with the idea.
“Just in general I feel like you’re giving yourself another opportunity,” said Ottawa REDBLACKS pivot Trevor Harris.
“Most of the time we’re going to convert on second and medium. I think we could convert on third and medium. I think that if you don’t have that confidence as a quarterback you’re doing your team a disservice.”
In the right situations, Harris is correct. While teams converted 47.9 per cent of their overall second down attempts last year (that’s still up from 42.2 per cent in 2014 and roughly on par with 2015 and 2016 totals), they made 71.9 per cent of their second-down attempts from 1-3 yards, 54.8 per cent of 4-6 yard attempts and 35.9 per cent of seven-plus yard attempts.
Teams made 90.2 per cent of their third-and-short attempts (1-2 yards) in 2017, completing 202 of 224 attempts.
Teams across the league made 57 per cent of their two-point convert attempts last season (61-107). Ottawa led the charge on two-point attempts last year, with a league-high 25 (they made 15).
Saskatchewan Roughriders’ QB Zach Collaros liked the idea of riskier football, but wondered how practical an idea it is.
“I think that’d be tough to stop, but I don’t know that many coaches would buy into it,” he said.
“If it didn’t work out a couple of times they’d probably be on the chopping block pretty quick.”
That brings us back to Buono, who tongue-in-cheek said that if his riskiness didn’t work out, the Lions would fire him, sending him into an even earlier retirement. Buono likely won’t throw the kitchen sink at his opponents this year, but if he’s feeling free enough to take non-conventional risks, it could make for a fun season with an unpredictable team.
