All in the Finish: Ferguson breaks down red zone efficiency

The ability to finish is arguably among the most important qualities in a winning football team.

Finishing at a macro level can mean finishing off an opponent when they’re on the ropes, no matter how early or late in the game that might be, or finishing a rival’s chances of making the playoffs. But it can mean much more at the micro level.

The ability to finish is a learned one. Finishing a drill properly, finishing a sprint by running right through the line, finishing a meeting as alert and aware as when you entered the room.

Whether you are looking big picture or small, the ability to finish is integral to success between the white lines. The best judge of a team’s game-to-game ability to finish is score zone production.

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I know everyone has a different orientation on the final piece of the field before the opponent’s end zone. As Rod Black always says on the CFL on TSN, “some call it the green zone, some the red zone.” To me, from the opponent’s 30-yard line to the goal line has been and will always be the score zone because your singular purpose when getting there is to score, to finish.

So far in 2017, the most successful team at getting points when entering the score zone is the BC Lions with a staggering 70 per cent success rate. The worst score zone teams in the CFL heading into Week 16 all reside in the East Division, with Hamilton (50%), Montreal (48%) and Toronto (44%) calling the score zone basement home.

If you said, “BC is out of the playoffs right now, so clearly score zone efficiency isn’t all that important,” you would be making a valid point. The Lions are on the outside looking in at a tough West division right now despite leading the league in this one statistical category.

My question then becomes how different would the Lions’ season be if they weren’t leading the CFL in score zone production? If Jeremiah Johnson were getting into the end zone on 45 per cent of his trips inside the 30 rather than his team’s league-leading rate, one would think the Lions would be in a much worse place.

RED ZONE EFFICIENCY: OFFENCE

Johnson is certainly amongst the reasons why BC claims hold to score zone success, but the Lions and Riders (second-ranked) both have another element integral to score zone production: The threat of a quarterback run.

Jonathon Jennings and Travis Lulay have both entered the end zone on foot this season and not just on short-yardage sneaks. In Saskatchewan, veteran Kevin Glenn has always been a threat to take off and Offensive Coordinator Stephen McAdoo has done a nice job of springing Glenn on foot out of the backfield when reaching the score zone. When Glenn isn’t fit for the situation, the Riders have utilized any combination of Brandon Bridge and Vernon Adams Jr. this season as athletic quarterbacks capable of keeping defences honest.

Perhaps the lack of a quarterback run threat in Toronto is to blame for the Argos’ league-low 44 per cent success rate. Ricky Ray has taken off a couple times this year, at times resembling your dad who is cutting the grass in the back yard and realizes he left the stove on, which is to say Ray will not win an award for elusiveness anytime soon. That’s a given though, and fans would be wrong to expect anything of the sort from the aging double blue leader.

The true problem for the Argos inside the score zone isn’t their lack of run, it is their predictably. Anyone who has watched Toronto near the goal line – or in short yardage on any part of the field – this season knows there are basically three types of play likely.

1 – Inside run by a back.
2 – play action to the back, throw to the opposite flat.
3 – Conventional pocket passing play.

In order to improve their success rate, the Argos will have to mix it up at some point, especially as we reach the point of 2017 when so much film exists for teams to study.

Can the emergence of a stronger running game help the Argos’ red zone production? (Johany Jutras/CFL.ca)

My gut feeling? Expect a change of pace or something that makes you say “wow, I haven’t seen that from them all season” when the Argos have a scoring opportunity soon.

As we sprint through the late teen weeks of the 2017 CFL season, barreling mercilessly towards colder weather and playoff showdowns, score zone production will only become increasingly important.

It’s one of the aspects of a team that players and coaches constantly strive for consistency in, hoping to make any trip deep into opponent territory an automatic scoring possession. The goal is to sear that scoring mentality and habitual touchdown scoring into a team’s DNA.

If coaches are able to achieve this habit forming behaviour it could make the difference between a Grey Cup appearance and an early playoff exit.