QB’s trust in new blood pays off vs. B.C.
Stampeders quarterback showed trust in Matthews, Grant against B.C. and it paid off
It took some time for Chris Matthews to catch on.
Same thing for Bakari Grant. Not that it wasn’t expected by the Calgary Stampeders.
New blood always needs a few weeks to get up to speed, especially for receivers as they need to find kinship with the quarterback on top of learning the intricacies of a new playbook.
“Yeah, it does,” Matthews said. “But the organization knew what they were doing when they put my locker right next to (QB) Bo (Levi Mitchell), so we could hurry up and move that (chemistry) process along a lot faster. Me and Bo, we talked and try to stay on the same page every time, and so do the rest of the receivers.
“The original starters are hurt right now, so you’re investing in a whole new group. So we’re all just taking it stride by stride.”
While those strides seemed small through a mid- October losing skid, they appeared to get bigger some time after that, as Matthews has evolved into the pass-catching threat expected of him when he signed on with the Stamps early last month.
Over the last two games, Matthews has eight catches for 180 yards, including a few of the clutch and stellar variety.
His starry catch last Saturday in a win over the host B.C. Lions came between defenders down at the goal-line, hauling in a money 44-yarder from Mitchell that set up Don Jackson’s one-yard TD plunge.
“That’s just me being me,” said Matthews with a slick grin. “Just timing. It’s nothing really else about it. Once you get the timing down, then it’s second nature to everybody.
“We’re just making the plays we need to make,” Matthews continued. “We were making some tough catches. Lemar (Durant) was making some tough catches. Bakari was making some tough catches. We were all out there doing what we were supposed to do.”
In Grant’s case, the chemistry with Mitchell has come a tad quicker.
Last Saturday’s date at B.C. Place was Grant’s first CFL appearance since tearing it up with the Saskatchewan Roughriders last season during a 1,033-yard campaign.
“It wasn’t so much nerves,” said Grant of climbing back into the CFL saddle. “When you have your first game, you have to catch back up to the speed of the game. It’s a second faster out there than in your head. So we had to get into that a little bit, but we made it happen.”
Did they ever.
Grant was another big target — literally, too, at 6-foot-5 — for Mitchell, as they connected on three strikes for 47 yards.
“I like Bo,” said Grant, who played 10 games for the Stampeders in 2016. “We play well together. We stayed in contact when I wasn’t here, and we’ve got good chemistry. And I’m open to communicating with Bo, so I like that.
“It’s just going out and throwing the ball and catching the ball,” Grant continued. “You just can’t bump heads — if you do that, you won’t have success. If you can listen to each other and work with each other, that’s when you have success.”
That’s called trust — something that’s paramount between quarterback and receiver.
“Yeah … chemistry is something that takes time and you’ve got to build it,” said Mitchell, who finished Saturday’s victory 20 of 32 for 278 passing yards, including 257 yards in a dominant first half. “But it’s trust also — trusting that guys are going to be there. I trusted those guys (Saturday). They ran hard, and they ran fast, they stuck to the details of the game plan, and they balled out.
“Everybody’s been talking about those guys the last four weeks and they responded. I thought they were the players of the game. You build trust by continuing to have reps together. We’ve now had four weeks of reps together and I think we’re starting to see that trust.”
The original starters are hurt right now, so you’re investing in a whole new group. So we’re all just taking it stride by stride.