GREY CUP SLIPS AWAY
Calgary’s Kamar Jorden loses a crucial fumble that led to a late Toronto Argonauts touchdown in Sunday’s Grey Cup in Ottawa. For the second straight year, the favoured Stampeders watched the CFL title ripped from their grasp late in the game.
Somehow, this one hurts more.
The 2016 Grey Cup hurt because the Calgary Stampeders didn’t play like themselves until the second half.
But for most of Sunday, the Stampeders looked like champions. And somehow, that didn’t matter. At the end of the night, they weren’t.
The Toronto Argonauts came up big on two plays, and that’s all it took.
So the Argonauts are 2017 Grey Cup Champions and, for the second year in a row, the Stampeders are ending their season in the most gut-wrenching way imaginable. Yeah, that feels worse. A 100-yard touchdown pass from Ricky Ray to DeVier Posey in the first half was bad. Tommie Campbell looked like he went for the interception and missed, leaving Posey an open pass to the end zone from deep in Argos territory.
But the Stampeders recovered and took control.
They dominated. They had the Grey Cup on their fingertips. They were up eight points and deep in Argos territory with just over five minutes left.
At that point, only an unthinkable disaster could keep the Stampeders from returning to Calgary with the Grey Cup on their plane. Disaster struck. Stamps quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell found Kamar Jorden on the three-yard line. For some reason, Jorden went for the end zone despite being surrounded by defenders.
The ball slipped out of his hands. The Argos’ Cassius Vaughn recovered and started running. A full 110 yards later, he was in the end zone and the game was tied when the Argos got a two-point conversion.
The game wasn’t over, but when the pressure was highest it was Argos QB Ricky Ray who delivered, leading his offence downfield and securing the game-winning field goal.
There was one last chance for immortality for Bo Levi Mitchell — who was excellent for the Stamps and finished by completing 33 of 44 passes for 373 yards and two touchdowns — but instead, he threw his only interception of the game when he was picked off by Matt Black in the end zone.
It was game over. The Argos were Grey Cup champions after a 27-24 win.
“I don’t know, just couldn’t finish,” said a dejected Stampeders head coach Dave Dickenson. “Couldn’t finish the deal. It’s heartbreaking, it really is. There’s nothing I can do at this point. “It’s heartbreaking.” It would be impossible to exaggerate how brutal a loss this was for the Stampeders.
For the past two years, the Stamps have been the best team in the CFL and they have zero Grey Cups to show for it.
In 2016, there were injuries to deal with and they started off slow. They recovered, but just didn’t have enough.
In 2017, they were the better team from the opening whistle and came up with nothing.
And to be clear, the Stampeders were the better team on Sunday night.
Maybe the final result didn’t rest entirely on two mistakes, but it was close.
The Stamps limited Ray to 297 yards on 19-for-32 completions. That’s a decent stat line, but a lot less impressive when you consider 100 of those 297 yards came on one pass.
And it’s not as if the Argos were lighting the world on fire with their running game, either. James Wilder Jr. was limited to just 13 yards on nine carries, and the Argos picked up only 16 yards on the ground in total.
By any objective measure, the Stampeders should have won the Grey Cup.
But they didn’t. They lost, and after a year in which the Stamps openly spoke about chasing redemption for last year’s defeat to the Redblacks, this one is going to be hard to get over.
“It’s a tough one, it’s going to hurt,” Dickenson said.
“The problem is you can’t change what’s happened. You can’t change the past.”
The Stamps can’t change the pass. Jorden can’t go back and make sure he squeezes the ball tighter and Campbell can’t go back and stop himself from jumping for the interception.
They might just need to let this one hurt for a little while.
“It’s tough,” said Stampeders receiver DaVaris Daniels, who promised he didn’t blame Jorden for the loss.
“At this point I just feel like I always fall short and you always think you can make more plays than you did. It sucks, it just sucks.”
Couldn’t finish the deal. It’s heartbreaking, it really is. There’s nothing I can do at this point. It’s heartbreaking.