A week after becoming the first team to defeat the Toronto Argonauts, there was hope that the Stampeders were starting to round into form after a 3-5 start to the season. Perhaps they could even regain some of the success that fans in Calgary have become rather accustomed to over the last 17 years of playoff football.
Instead, the Stampeders played the part of Christians in the Roman Empire, getting devoured by the Lions of British Columbia to the tune of a 37-9 final score.
Here’s what I saw from the couch.
Nothing worked offensively
In a game where the Stampeders had 16 offensive drives, they went more than 20 yards on just four occasions. On three of those drives, they scored a field goal, accounting for all nine points they scored.
After the game, Stampeders head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson told reporters his team wasn’t good enough and shouldered the blame.
“I just didn’t have them ready to go like I needed to. I thought we had good energy coming in, I thought we had a good week of practice. We did not have good communication, we had a lot of mental breakdowns, (B.C.) outplayed us. They were the better team.”
This is now a stretch of three games where the Stampeders have scored just one touchdown and 11 field goals on offence. That of course has something to do with….
Putrid play calls
I’m not a professional football coach and I never played the game at a level beyond high school. However, I’ve seen more than enough football in my day to understand that continually throwing screen passes when you are in first-and-20 following a penalty is not a likely path to your next first down.
Despite that, the Stampeders went to this well on multiple occasions only to find it dried up and abandoned, leaving fans thirsty.
Over and over, the Stampeders have tried a swing pass-heavy offence, which has been so rarely successful that one wonders if the pages of the playbook somehow got stuck together.
Drive upon drive this season has died this particular death and I am baffled by the team’s insistence that it will work.
Maybe they are playing some crazy long con to save a deep ball offence for the playoffs and counting on winning enough low-scoring games to get there, but this is starting to get to the point of the dictionary definition of insanity.
This is even more distressing when you see pass after pass to wide-open receivers that the Lions continue to generate in offensive coordinator Jordan Maksymic’s schemes. Nearly every week you find yourself asking, “How did that guy get that wide open?”
Even more galling for a team that features Ka’Deem Carey, Dedrick Mills and Tommy Stevens was a third-and-two call in B.C. territory where the ball was thrown incomplete, creating a turnover in the third quarter.
That trio is not guaranteed two yards every time they touch the ball, but the averages will say that running the ball on short yardage with those players is going to work more often than not.
Hindsight may be 20/20 and given the game was 27-6, the decision to go for it was the right one, but to take it away from a double stack Mills/Carey formation and not just pound the ball seems odd.
Penalties kill
As good as the Lions were against the Stampeders in this game, Calgary all but handed B.C. the game on a yellow cloth platter. 11 penalties for 130 total yards saw the Stampeders lose any kind of momentum and marched backwards repeatedly.
For Dave Dickenson, it was just another sign that his team wasn’t dialled in.
“We had a ton of penalties early. To me, when you get a lot of penalties, mentally, you’re not in it, you’re just not playing fast. You’re not playing aggressive.”
Those early penalties included four in the game’s first few minutes for a total of 50 yards, leaving the team struggling to stay afloat.
Keeping it in the park
Last week, Jake Maier set a franchise record for accuracy in a game at 91.6 percent but threw for just 149 yards.
Once again this week, Maier kept everything underneath and rarely got the ball anywhere beyond first down yardage. No Calgary receiver had more than 36 total yards, and none had a catch of more than 15 yards. Unfortunately, he was nowhere near as accurate in the process, hitting on just 55 percent of his passes.
By comparison, the Lions had five receivers with a long of 16 or more yards. Keon Hatcher led the way by averaging almost 19 yards per catch, pulling in 170 yards on just nine receptions.
While I am not comparing the Calgary offence to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, the blue and gold went over the top frequently in their 50-point beatdown of B.C. just a week ago. Instead of modelling themselves after that, Calgary tried to win the same way they did against Toronto, with a methodical pace.
After the game, Maier said the circumstances changed given the scoreboard.
“You get a lead like that, multiple scores, those linebackers are getting tons of depth and those DBs were staying over the top,” he explained. “There were opportunities maybe that I might have missed, I’ll go back and watch the film and see if that was the case. There were plenty of times where we tried, either it wasn’t the look we wanted or maybe it wasn’t as open as I thought from my perspective, and that was that.”
Since scoring a total of 74 points in two games against Saskatchewan and Ottawa, the passing game has gone stone-cold.
Special teams gaffe
More than once this season, the Stampeders have given up a return touchdown and so I’ve held my breath every kick waiting to see a tackle get made. Cody Grace is one of the best punters in the league and in this game, the Stampeders cover teams did a good job of hemming in Lions’ returner Terry Williams.
However, late in the second quarter the Stampeders generated a turnover in the red zone and moved the ball upfield 32 yards before needing to punt.
A high snap later and Lions’ defensive lineman Mathieu Betts took the ball directly out of Cody Grace’s hands, forcing a fumble rather than blocking the kick. B.C. recovered on the Calgary 12-yard line, securing a touchdown two plays later to put the game completely out of reach.
Keeping us in Awe
There were not many Stampeders performances that you’d consider a passing grade this week, but setting the curve would have been middle linebacker Micah Awe.
With five tackles, a pass knockdown, and a red zone interception, Awe was everywhere for the Stampeders and was absolutely the team’s best player.
In a game where the opposing team scored 37 points, you rarely look to the defensive side for a game ball. Awe earned it and more as he extended his league lead in tackles and continues to anchor the Calgary defence.
A rough start
After Jake Maier was pulled with the game mostly out of reach, the team turned to third-stringer Chris Reynolds, who unwisely threw his first official CFL pass in the direction of Garry Peters.
The Lions’ defensive back made no mistake in collecting the interception and souring the debut for the 24-year-old pivot out of UNC Charlotte.
Reynolds is one of two rookie QBs on the Stamps’ roster this season, as Logan Bonner is also in the locker room as well. He would go on to complete his only other pass attempt, a five-yard throw to Marken Michel, to round out his day.
The road ahead
As bad as things have been for the Stampeders up to the halfway point of the season, there is some light at the end of this particular tunnel.
They remain just a single game back of Saskatchewan in the standings and with a game against the Riders still to come in Week 19, they could secure the season series with a win. That would go a long way in chasing down the final Western playoff spot.
Dave Dickenson remains positive his club can turn it around.
“We’re going to regroup. We’re going to find a way to play better football and we’re at what I consider the third quarter of the season. So at halftime, you should come in and you should do some things to make your team better,” he said. “Scheme, players, coaching; we’ve got to do better. Can I see the top of the mountain? Sure, but it’s a little cloudy up there.”
Hearing Dickenson break it down, it sounds easier than it has been proven to be.
“We’ve got to make sure that we start consistently putting good performances together. We haven’t won back-to-back games yet. We haven’t won enough games. So long road here, but hopefully the guys see there’s a path to get there and work towards that.”
In the snail’s race to that third and final playoff spot, both the Stamps and Riders have the Bombers twice, the Ticats and Argos once each, and each other left to play.
The Stamps have the Lions one more time, while the Riders have to play them twice. The flipside of that equation sees the Stamps battle Edmonton twice, while Saskatchewan only has one game remaining against the winless Elks.
Rounding out the schedules are a game against Montreal for Calgary and a trip to Ottawa for the Riders.
If they match the Riders’ record and win the head-to-head game, Calgary would once again be playoff bound unless a team crosses over from the East Division for the first time.
Fail to do so and Calgary will be on the outside looking in during November for the first time in a generation, ending the longest current playoff streak in North American sports.
Ryan Ballantine is a lifelong Stamps fan and host of the Go Stamps Go Show Podcast. He has been covering the team since 2008.
