3- 1 CFL squad has yet to hit top stride
Despite so- so play, they find ways to win
Peaking too early is rarely a path to success. Take that guy in high school. Yes, THAT guy. Every classroom had one. The four- letter, deep- dish- dimpled jock with all the right friends, the Elvis charm and the hot girl.
The guy who seemed destined to float through life on a gossamer cloud.
“Hey, hey!’” teased Juwan Simpson in rebuttal. “That guy was ME.” A mischievous wink. “And I didn’t turn out so bad.”
OK, so there are exceptions to every rule.
Point being, it ain’t necessarily how you fast you explode out of the blocks, it’s what the timer reads when you break the tape.
The Calgary Stampeders are the first team to three wins this CFL season, yet by their own exacting standards, haven’t been near up to snuff. So far, nothing definitive.
Hints. Moments. Stretches. One facet. Then another.
“Each and every game we do some good things,” said head coach John Hufnagel, “just not consistently.
“Obviously with what’s occurred on the offensive side of it” — three lineman injured in the past two games — “we’re further behind than I would like to see.
“Our defence, I like what I see. Our special teams, for three out of the four games, I like what I see. We need to reduce our penalties on special teams. That’s the worst culprit on our football team right now.
“We’re going in the right direction, but there’s a long way to go.”
The Stamps are minus- 11 in points for/ against after three Ws decided by less than a touchdown, two of those by the sphinctertightening total of one slender point, offset by that bracing slapdown administered in Montreal by the Alouettes.
“You haven’t,” agreed quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell, “seen Stampeder football yet, where we come out and dominate all three phases, like we normally do.”
Still, the time- tested axiom applies here: Good teams do find a way.
“We’re … overcoming,” is how offensive co- ordinator Dave Dickenson put it following Monday’s late- afternoon practice in advance of Wednesday’s trip to Ottawa. “A lot of faith, a lot of hard work and guys seem to make plays when they have to.
“I really believe some teams, at key times, think: ‘ Ohhhh, what are we going to do to screw this up?’
“I believe our team thinks: ‘ OK, who’s going to make the play to win it?’ You look at the last couple years, and under Huff in general, and the amount of close games we’ve won is … phenomenal.
“You could argue we’ve had good fortune here and there, but is that necessarily good fortune or the other team not having the same confidence at the big moment as we do?
“They miss kicks, we make kicks.
“They take a dumb penalty at certain times, we sharpen up at certain times.
“But, I mean, there’s a lot of work left to be done. We’re nowhere close to where we want to be, where we’ll have to be.”
“When you’re the champions,” reasoned defensive back Jamar Wall, “you’re the standard. So if you don’t come out looking exactly like you did last year, if you’re not playing to your maximum level, for whatever reason, there are going to be critics. As long as we stay together as a family, as a team, as brothers, we’ll be fine.
“As long was stay composed and win games, that’s what matters. Ugly. Beautiful. A win’s a win, right?’”
So far, these Stamps are more about opportunity and stubbornness than ruthless efficiency. Accomplishing if not — yet, anyway — convincing.
“We haven’t,” conceded Simpson, “won any game they way we’d like to. The beginning of any season is tough. You watch all nine teams. Nobody’s playing great ball yet. Penalties. Turnovers. We’re pulling out these wins, and that’s great, but we’re far from a finished product.”
Against the Tiger- Cats in the season opener, after trailing the whole way, a gutty drive by a fitful offence allowed Rene Paredes to nail a 50- yard game- winning field goal for the W.
They overcame the debilitating loss of two starting O- linemen — Quinn Smith heroically moving from defence to offence — to shade the then- unbeaten Argos by five in Week 3, atoning for a decidedly slipshod performance in Montreal against the Alouettes 10 days earlier.
Saturday against Winnipeg, Paredes nails a 40- yarder and Simpson reaches up to snatch an interception to snuff out a Bomber threat in the dying embers for win No. 3. Near things. Much uncertainty. Followed by a familiar end result.
“We believe,” said Wall, “that someone’s going to step up when we need it most. Berg ( Adam Berger), the last game, is a perfect example. He caused a fumble, blocked a punt that gave us a touchdown. We have so many guys who have the mentality ‘ Hey, we gotta make this play. Let’s go do it.’
“Not even starters. First- year guys. Third- string guys. You name it. Even when we’re not at our best.
“We were down, what, 16- 0 the other day? Last year we were down 30 ( 26, actually) to Toronto and came back and won. We never panic.”
With the Redblacks up next, now balancing precariously, Philippe Petit- style, on a tightrope between sad old miseries and bold new horizons, the reigning Grey Cup champions invade the nation’s capital for Friday night football.
No one can accuse these Stampeders of peaking, like THAT guy in high school, too early. But it’s there, in them, the characteristics to take over, to dominate, to grind under heel.
“We’ve been good in spots, at certain times,’’ reasoned Wall. “The aim is to get better and better, so that by the time Week 18 rolls around, or Week 19 or Week 20, we’re rolling, we’re clicking on all cylinders.
“We maybe haven’t put it all together yet. We’re still working on that. “But one of these weeks we will. “And when we do ...”