Ferguson: The art of throwing to the sticks - CFL.ca

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Ferguson: The art of throwing to the sticks – CFL.ca

Published

4 years ago

June 15, 2020

Harry Miller

We’ve all heard it before, from a high school sideline to a mic’d up CFL coach chasing a player down the sideline.

“Get the first down!”

When you really think about it, that simple four-word sentence is the motive behind all that happens in offensive football with the exception of coach speak classics ‘score points’ or ‘play smart.’

When it comes to first down passing, the Canadian game is like no other. No wasted downs mean that a first down throw is equally rewarding as it is risky and second down becomes life or death to a drive, momentum and a chance to leave the field victorious.

While there is plenty to be appreciated about first-down passing, my favourite part of Canadian football is the second down passing game. It’s after a run for no gain or an incomplete pass on first down that the best quarterbacks immediately look to the sideline, refocus and prepare for the challenge ahead.

BC Lions receiver Bryan Burnham (Left) celebrates a touchdown with quarterback Mike Reilly. (The Canadian Press)

The defence knows you want to pass, you know you want to pass. It’s a tactical game that quickly becomes a tangible fire drill the second the snap comes up from centre and pass rushers pin their ears back, hunting for a sack to celebrate.

This week, I took an in-depth look at the art of 2nd-and-long in hopes of gaining an understanding which current CFL passers have room to grow, which should take more risks and which have mastered the CFL’s essential passing skill: 2nd-and-long.

Here is a look at all second-down throws from the 2019 CFL season from the fifteen quarterbacks meeting the requirement of at least 150 pass attempts last season.

As you can see, there’s a plethora of information to work from. My first focus was on quarterbacks’ willingness to challenge defences right into their teeth on second down. Be it from coaching, personal philosophy or other influencing factors, some quarterbacks are more likely to live a screen, draw and check down lifestyle on the CFL’s most important down.

While the approach is smart, safe and can win you games when surrounded by a top-notch defence and special teams units, the reality to the eye is that CFL football rewards this who are willing to press the football — wisely — into the heart of the defence driven by the reward available instead of ever-present risks.

First a look at all qualifying quarterbacks willingness to throw ‘to the sticks’ on 2nd-and-1, 2nd-and-2 and so on.

What I found here matched the eye-test in that as the distance-to-go attached to second down gets longer the willingness of CFL quarterbacks and their coaches to throw it to the sticks is lessened with 2nd-and-4. The most likely down and distance for passers to pass at or beyond the sticks and several long down and distances presenting too formidable a challenge to bother throwing into.

At the same time, I took a look at the production-grade of passers at those targeted stick throws.

The trend here displayed why coaches and quarterbacks lose enthusiasm for stick throws as the reward wears off the further downfield the first down marker is. The volatility of extreme 2nd-and-long (15+ yards) proves to be a feast or famine experience with no true consistency amongst any two quarterbacks in 2019.

If we can learn what depth of throw is most valuable as it relates to a down and distance above then why not look at the target depth that most rewards a quarterback’s efforts on the most common second down, 2nd-and-10.

On either side you see the screen/shovel game creating passes behind the line of scrimmage and offences taking deep shots with defenders taking away the first down creating a higher percentage of targets for each depth. The short and intermediate target depths are where the value remains on 2nd-and-10 though with the most valuable target depth resting at 14-yards.

Apply that to tangible x’s and o’s and you can imagine deep in-breaking routes with a quarterback firing in front of linebackers, skinny posts splitting safeties or perfectly thrown corner route bending receivers downhill to the sideline for a clutch first down conversion.

In 2019, 42.5% of all second-down pass plays result in a first down or touchdown, but which passers were most likely to take a shot to the sticks, and which quarterbacks were rewarded for their willingness to see through the defence and push the football vertically on 2nd-and-7 to 10.

There’s no secret as to why some of the CFL’s most exciting names are featured to the left with a high rate of passing at or past the sticks (red bars). Vernon Adams Jr, Mike Reilly and Bo Levi Mitchell have never been afraid to press the football downfield, but their production-grade (blue dot) rests below the aggression line created by their red bars.

On the contrary, Saskatchewan Roughriders Cody Fajardo produced above his aggressive efforts last year with a production-grade well above his ‘stick throw rate’. With Jason Maas in house, this shows me Fajardo is ready to take the next step in his second-down passing evolution, expect him to land somewhere in the top three of ‘stick throws’ this year while trying to maintain that production-grade.

From there we see Nick Arbuckle and Jeremiah Masoli both play effectively with a high ‘stick throw rate’ followed by a pair of Eskimo and Blue Bombers quarterbacks who produced on 2nd-and-7 to 10 above their aggressive tendencies.

When 2nd-and-long hits, the best Canadian quarterbacks’ eyes light up, you can see their energy change as a physical manifestation of stepping up to answer the moment. These are the little moments and mind games we miss so much right now.

All that much more to look for, enjoy and celebrate when the game comes home and the players hit the field in 2020.

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British government deems man’s art-filled apartment a historic site – The Washington Post

Published

2 hours ago

April 18, 2024

Harry Miller

When Claire Jones stepped into the apartment of her husband’s late uncle for the first time, she discovered what looked like the trappings of a carnival.

A giant concrete sculpture of a roaring lion’s head stood in the living room, enveloping the fireplace. Looming in the next room was a giant Minotaur head. Papier-mâché sculptures littered the hallways and colorful murals adorned every wall and ceiling, even in the bathroom.

Jones and her family had known Ron Gittins as an eccentric and solitary artist. But they hadn’t realized until shortly after he died in 2019 at age 79 that he had carved, sculpted and painted his passion onto the walls of his rented apartment in Birkenhead, a riverside town in northwestern England where he lived alone.

It couldn’t stay, Gittins’s landlord had said. But Jones knew she wanted to preserve the scene.

“I was just kind of like, ‘We can’t just let this go,’” she told The Washington Post.

For years, Gittins’s family worked to protect his whimsical life’s work, insisting that the apartment, “Ron’s Place,” was an irreplaceable art installation worthy of preservation. This month, the British government agreed. Historic England, a national body that designates historically significant sites in England, added Ron’s Place to its National Heritage List, the family announced in early April.

The designation, which forbids an owner from making changes to Ron’s Place without governmental consent, places Gittins’s apartment among the ranks of the medieval churches and Victorian villas that usually receive such recognition in the country, securing an unlikely legacy for Gittins’s creation. The apartment received a Grade II listing, which is given to “particularly important buildings of more than special interest,” according to Historic England.

“This was Ron, who led a very small, private life,” said Paul Kelly, a board member of the Wirral Arts and Culture Community Land Trust, an organization created to manage Ron’s Place. “Suddenly, he was being recognized as having done something of interest on that scale. … What an extraordinary thing.”

Gittins, a self-employed artist and theater performer, was an outcast of sorts among his family, his niece Jan Williams wrote to The Post. He showed up at reunions in flamboyant outfits and spoke in codes, joking that he was a secret agent. He was known in Birkenhead as the local eccentric who sometimes strutted around town dressed as a Roman centurion.

He was, Williams said, “colorful, larger than life, loud, opinionated, argumentative yet affectionate.”

Gittins kept his family at a distance. He let few people into his apartment, which his rental agreement had permitted him to decorate “to his own taste,” according to the Ron’s Place website.

Walking into Gittins’s home after his death felt like finally discovering the world he’d been inhabiting, Williams said. The lion’s head glistened with eyes made from shards of glass, and a frying pan sat in its mouth. Strewn around the apartment were smaller models, like an Egyptian sarcophagus that opened up to reveal a model mummy. While sorting through Gittins’s possessions, Williams found a postcard he had written addressed to her, saying that he couldn’t wait to show her his creations.

“Ron had created a fantasy world for his own pleasure,” Williams said. “A sort of stage set where he played the leading role.”

Williams, herself an artist and photographer, led the effort to save Gittins’s apartment. She first arranged to keep renting the apartment from his landlord, fundraising to cover the cost and forming a community organization to manage the space. Endorsements trickled in from singers, authors and sculptors who visited Ron’s Place at the family’s invitation. They landed a story in the Guardian and a video feature from the BBC.

In November 2022, the building that housed Ron’s Place was put up for auction. Buyers circled, and Williams scrambled to raise the hundreds of thousands of dollars they needed to win a bidding war. It ended in a “fairytale-style” miracle, Williams said: On March 1, 2023, the last day of the auction, a donor emailed with an offer to lend Williams’s organization most of the money it needed to purchase the building for about $400,000. The donor told Williams she had learned about Ron’s Place that morning, while reading the newspaper on her commute.

“It felt as if it was meant to be,” Williams said.

In a Hail Mary bid to delay the sale, Williams had also petitioned Historic England to list Ron’s Place as historically significant. It was a long shot — the designation is normally given to churches, inns and manors with centuries’ more history than Gittins’s apartment.

Historic England, however, heeded her request, even after Williams and the land trust secured ownership of Ron’s Place. When Sarah Charlesworth, an evaluator with Historic England, visited the apartment later that year, she immediately noticed the same floor-to-ceiling lion statue that had greeted Williams and Jones years earlier.

“I was actually thinking ‘This is a slam dunk’ as soon as I came in,” Charlesworth said.

Ron’s Place seemed to her like a striking example of “outsider art” — artwork created by people with no formal artistic training and without the intention of being exhibited or sold. It was, Charlesworth said, a facet of Britain’s history just as worthy of preservation as its churches and castles.

“Listing is not just about stately homes and chocolate box cottages,” she said. “It is about being representative and inclusive and making sure that we do represent all aspects of the nation’s history.”

The apartment is closed to visitors as it undergoes repairs. Williams and Kelly, the Wirral Arts and Culture Community Land Trust board member, said the organization has plans after acquiring the entire building that houses Ron’s Place, which also includes a garden and three upstairs apartments. They hope to preserve Gittins’s artwork on the ground floor as a museum and art space and renovate the other apartments into low-cost housing units for artists.

It’s an unlikely legacy for Gittins after devoting much of his life to the secret world in his apartment, Kelly said. But he thinks Gittins would be pleased to see others taking notice.

“Ron was a real outsider,” Kelly said. “But … this has been recognition for his work. He would be loving it.”

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PARIS RESTAURANT PLÉNITUDE IS REVEALED AS THE RECIPIENT OF THE ART OF HOSPITALITY AWARD 2024 … – Yahoo Canada Finance

Published

6 hours ago

April 18, 2024

Harry Miller

Announced in advance of the awards ceremony for the first time ever, this accolade seeks to help raise the profile of the art of hospitality

LONDON, April 18, 2024 /CNW/ — Paris restaurant Plénitude is revealed as the recipient of the Art of Hospitality Award 2024 from The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, ahead of the official ceremony taking place in Las Vegas in June.

The World’s 50 Best Restaurants announces Paris restaurant Plénitude as the recipient of the Art of Hospitality Award 2024

Located on the first floor of the French capital’s Cheval Blanc Paris, Chef Arnaud Donckele and Director Alexandre Larvoir have created in Plénitude an ode to the tradition of French fine dining, spending two years choosing the crockery, artisans, ceramicist and fabrics that help to create the restaurant’s intimate ambiance. With just 30 covers, every detail delivers an intimate experience for its diners, complete with the restaurant’s signature French elegance.

Normandy-born Chef Donckele, who also runs Cheval Blanc Saint-Tropez fine dining restaurant La Vague d’Or, has taken on the role of master perfumer in his creations to make sauces, known as the essence of French cuisine. In his hands, each is treated like a perfume or liquid painting, created such that the sauces are the main event, with meat and fish as their complements. Under the leadership of Larvoir, the restaurant’s impeccable service team knows Donckele’s creations intimately and conveys their essence to guests stepping through the door of Cheval Blanc Paris, which was placed at No.34 on The World’s 50 Best Hotels 2023.

William Drew, Director of Content for The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, says: “We are thrilled to announce Plénitude as the winner of this year’s Art of Hospitality Award. Despite its relative youth, this Paris restaurant has been making waves on the global gastronomy scene for its flawless and inventive approach, celebrating the art of service and showing the world that French hospitality remains at the top of its game.”

Chef Donckele says: “Give yourself the pleasure of giving pleasure.” Larvoir adds: “At Plénitude, service is a wonderful encounter at every table. We seek to welcome our guests as if they were at home, to discover and understand them, to captivate and move them thanks to Arnaud’s fabulous sauces, to make them laugh too, before leaving them with the sincere wish to see them again soon.”

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Logo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2361814/4610851/World_50_Best_2024_Logo.jpg

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Canada's art installation at Venice Biennale rooted in research, history, beauty – Hamilton Spectator

Published

8 hours ago

April 18, 2024

Harry Miller

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Hundreds of thousands of tiny glass beads will soon be twinkling in the sun across the entire Canadian pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Canada’s newly revealed entry in one of the world’s most prestigious art fairs.

But Kapwani Kiwanga, the Hamilton-born, Paris-based creator of the work, wants you to get past the cobalt blue glass glinting in the Venetian light. She wants you to think of each bead as a character.