The Calgary Stampeders found themselves in a perfect spot for their Week 9 contest against the Toronto Argonauts and they took full advantage, notching their first victory at home by a 20-7 margin.
Here’s what I saw from a patio suite just behind the west endzone.
Middle Management Maier
Stampeders’ QB Jake Maier has had a tough run of things lately, with the last two games each featuring a pick-six that could have been pointed to as the reason the team lost.
For the first time this season, Maier and the offence were able to go without a turnover and the pivot finished the day with just two incompletions on 24 attempts.
The flip side of that high completion rate was that Maier almost never went downfield with the ball, and finished with just 149 yards through the air. No receiver had a catch of more than 14 total yards.
Following the game, Maier said that was a big part of the game plan for this week especially.
“Every week is different in how you can approach it and how you can attack it. We’ve had days in this offence where we could push the ball down the field, and there are holes there, and we’ve had big numbers. But when you play a team that leads the league in interceptions, that’s a problem. I mean, that’s how they win football games. The mentality tonight was ‘take care of the football at all costs.'”
Earlier in the week Stampeders’ general manager and head coach Dave Dickenson said he was looking for his quarterback to avoid “catastrophic mistakes.” He felt Maier did exactly that on Friday.
“I would say a good game, and a tidy game. He moved with his feet, found the guys he needed to, no (time count violations), and used his cadence well. He did a lot of good things for a quarterback.”
Kelly limps off
I don’t often speak of the other team in my thoughts, as I leave it to the other writers on the site to offer their perspectives toward the teams they cover and know best.
However, writing the story of the game without mentioning the injury suffered by early M.O.P. candidate Chad Kelly would be a disservice to loyal fans of this space.
Kelly left the game in the second quarter with an apparent ankle injury and while the team maintained that he would be available to come in if needed, the first-year starter remained on the sidelines for the rest of the night.
Kelly would finish his night four-of-six passing for 94 yards, which included a 76-yard touchdown to Cam Phillips who was so open he resembled the sweeping plains of the American midwest.
Following the injury to Kelly, the Stampeders adjusted their game plan even further. Without the big play threat at quarterback, they could be much more conservative.
“We just changed our theory a little when the backup QB came in,” Dickenson said. “You do think ‘Let’s see if we can shorten this game’ (by running the ball more often) and we were able to do that.”
Moxey shakes it off
The saying in football that has come out of every coach’s mouth at one point or another is “Don’t worry about the last play, worry about the next one.”
While I can’t be sure anyone on the Stampeders said it to Jonathan Moxey immediately following his pass interference penalty in the second quarter, he showed it’s something he has heard before.
On the following drive, Moxey would lay out for an interception in the end zone, ending an Argo drive that had nearly entered the red zone.
Moxey wasn’t the only one who had a chance at a turnover either, as both Cameron Judge and Branden Dozier got their hands on throws from Argo backup QB Cameron Dukes. If Dozier had caught his, it would have been a touchdown given the speed with which he broke on the ball and the placement on the field. Instead, it fell harmlessly to the turf.
Just how they drew it up
I’ve dedicated a lot of space on this site extolling the virtues of Stampeders’ punter Cody Grace and special teams coordinator and associate coach Mark Kilam, but what a play call at the end of the first half.
Kilam took a chance at the end of the first half by calling the old “Kick it off the returner’s bicep so that it rolls into the endzone and we recover it for a touchdown” play and Grace executed it to perfection.
Or at least that’s what the analysis from TSN’s Glen Suitor suggested as he described the play as a “smart” call rather than a lucky break for the home squad.
Regardless, Michael Griffin II was able to fall on the ball in the endzone for a touchdown after it bounced off returner Javon Leake at the six-yard line and took a Stampeder-friendly bounce to put Calgary up 10 going into the break.
After weeks of bad bounces in close games, the Stampeders must have felt a huge weight lift off their shoulders when the football gods dropped one in their direction again.
Mills grinds them down
After last week’s loss, I wrote that Dederick Mills didn’t get the ball nearly often enough. I won’t take any credit for the game plan this week, but Mills got the ball a total of 31 times between his 27 rushing attempts and four catches for a total of 155 all-purpose yards, 137 of those on the ground.
It was a performance that set the Stampeders on the path to victory, as they were able to keep the ball for almost two-thirds of the game and ran 63 offensive plays compared to the Argos’ 37.
It was even more impressive considering the Argos were averaging the second-fewest rushing yards allowed in the league through eight weeks and the second-lowest average gain per carry as well.
For his part, Mills told reporters that he knew he would get the ball more often, but even he was surprised by how many times his number was called.
“I wasn’t expecting it, but I’m satisfied that we did what we did and came out on top today.”
I asked Mills if he would put a copy of the stats page in front of the coaches in meetings next week and he laughed before going back into his bag of cliches to speak about how glad he was that all parts of the offence were doing their jobs well this week. That said, there was a mischievous gleam in his eye as he did so.
Lewis still looks dangerous
Tommylee Lewis again looked like a game-breaker every time he returned a punt in this game.
Lewis managed 74 yards on his seven punt returns, including a sideline-dancing 10-yard return that really made something out of nothing and a 23-yard scamper where he got to the wide side of the field before being pushed out.
It is just a matter of time before Lewis makes a house call, but he did have a lost fumble near the three-minute warning that was specifically called out by the coach after the game.
“We tried to make my stress levels go up a little with the fumble with three minutes to go. Tommylee had his normal dynamic game, but we have to be clean on that,” Dickenson said. “That was basically the one that still kept the heart rate going.”
Ka’Deem Carey almost back on the field
With Lewis cementing himself in the punt return role, it raises some interesting possibilities in the run game once Ka’Deem Carey is healthy.
Carey was a participant in practice this week and looked nearly ready to return. With Carey and Mills as options in the backfield, the Stampeders may become even more of a run-reliant offence.
With Peyton Logan as the primary returner, the Stampeders would have to designate one of their two running back slots to him in order to keep him on the field.
With Lewis as a receiver, it would make a Carey/Mills backfield possible for the first time. That does stir the heart of this old-school fan, who likes to believe that running the ball is not a lost art.
Tough stretch continues
I’m not sure you can say enough about how big this win was for the Stampeders, who face B.C., Winnipeg, and Toronto again in the next three weeks before Labour Day.
Should the Stampeders pick up another win in that timeframe, they could really solidify themselves in the standings given what is happening around them.
This team has finished better than .500 every year since John Hufnagel came back to Calgary in 2008 and they will need a strong second half to do so again. But the threshold for a playoff spot may be lower than ever given the Roughriders’ and Tiger-Cats’ quarterback troubles and the state of the Elks as a franchise.
Six or seven wins may be enough to get into the dance, and the Stampeders just proved they can hang with the best team in the league.
