INJURY-LIST STAMPEDERS THERE FOR TEAMMATES
Their season may be finished, but corps of receivers stays involved with drive to Cup
After Sunday’s victory in the West Division Final, the Calgary Stampeders dressing room was filled with familiar faces.
While the seasons of receivers Kamar Jorden, Marken Michel, DaVaris Daniels and Reggie Begelton all ended early due to devastating injuries, the three receivers were all in the dressing room dancing with their teammates.
They’ve never really left. As soon as each guy was able to get to McMahon Stadium, they were there on game days and throughout practice weeks, helping the guys who had replaced them in the starting lineup.
That’s not always the way things go when players see injuries end their seasons early, but it’s something everyone around the Stampeders dressing room believes is significant.
“Typically, guys get injured long-term and you don’t see them around the locker-room very often and that’s why I keep saying this team is different,” said Stamps QB Bo Levi Mitchell. “When I watch Marken, Reggie, KJ … all these guys continue to show up and help coach and continue to help.
“KJ is helping Markeith (Ambles) as much as he can and that’s a guy competing for his position, but he cares about the team more than he cares about himself.”
The receivers positions have largely dominated the conversation surrounding the Stampeders ever since they started getting hurt at a legitimately alarming rate in early- September.
Jorden was second in the league in receiving at the moment he went down. Begelton stepped up and was playing like an all-star when he got hurt, Michel has been a reliably gamechanging force at wide receiver ever since he joined the team as a rookie last year and Daniels would surely have been among the league’s leading receivers if he hadn’t gotten hurt.
Their absence has been felt, there’s no question about that, but so has their presence in the locker-room in the time since they got hurt.
“The guys that are hurt, they come and try to be around as much as possible and I feel like they’ve done a great job,” said Stamps receiver Juwan Brescacin.
“They haven’t really disappeared or forgotten about the season. When KJ was walking again, he came to practice and it was kind of like everybody was happy to see him again. Same thing with Reggie, same thing with DaVaris, everybody knows how much work they put in and we know how much injuries suck, especially season-ending injuries.
“Just having those guys around and just having your brothers by you is great. We’ve all been to the Grey Cup together and we’ve all lost together. It was something we wanted to accomplish as a group and we still can.”
Having the injured guys around the locker-room isn’t going to win the Grey Cup for the Stamps, necessarily, but it’s meant that the coaching staff can rely on them, as veterans and leaders in the locker-room, to give a player’s perspective on what their replacements are being asked to do.
It’s not the role any of the injured receivers saw for themselves at the beginning of the season, but it’s one they’ve embraced.
“It’s important, as leaders of the receivers group, we feel it’s our duty to be here even if we weren’t going to be on the field,” said Daniels, who could be back for Sunday’s Grey Cup.
“You have a duty to lead the receivers and lead this team and still be playmakers, maybe not on the field but for our guys.”
The Stamps coaches are definitely appreciative, too.
Before the West Division Final last week, receivers coach Pete Costanza even pulled Jorden aside and asked him to give a pre-game speech to get his teammates fired up.
The injured guys might not have been playing, but if the Stampeders win on Sunday they’ll have done more than enough to earn their Grey Cup rings.
“They honestly pull for each other, they help each other out and they coach each other,” Costanza said.
“To have those guys who were contributing and making plays be here and now still be here and be a part of what we’re trying to do, it’s a good thing. It shows you how strong the unit is.”