MITCHELL’S FUTURE FRONT AND CENTRE
Fans take advantage of Tuesday’s Grey Cup celebration to make plea for ‘one more year’
“One more year, one more year.”
The chants rang out at Tuesday’s Grey Cup celebration rally, and everyone knew what they meant.
After leading his team to four Grey Cup appearances in five years and winning two of them, the next couple of months are going to be about Bo Levi Mitchell.
The Calgary Stampeders quarterback knows it.
The team’s management knows it.
And the fans? They definitely know it.
At a party Tuesday afternoon in Calgary to celebrate Sunday’s Grey Cup championship victory, Stamps fans made their opinions known.
They want their superstar quarterback back.
So does management.
“I was looking for five more years out of Bo, minimum,” said Stamps head coach Dave Dickenson. “Certainly some indecision there, but I trust Bo. He’ll do what’s best and he’ll let us know.”
There’s really not any way to avoid the conversation. Mitchell is a free agent this year, has won the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player award in two of the last three years and has been nominated in three of the last four seasons as well.
He is 28 years old and his resume basically proves that he has been the best player in the CFL for the last half-decade.
It has been a long time since a CFL quarterback with his experience and undeniable resume has entered free agency.
There’s a sense he has made Calgary his home and probably isn’t interested in exploring free agency this season within the CFL and understands that taking a monster Canadian contract will only take away from his team’s ability to sign other key players.
If he’s returning to the CFL, he’s probably going to be back in Calgary.
The relationship he has with both his head coach and Stamps president/general manager John Hufnagel is solid and for a guy as invested in his own legacy as Mitchell, the Stamps’ recent history makes them the most likely team for him to win more Grey Cups with.
But the NFL is there.
It was his childhood dream and nobody is going to fault him for pursuing those options. He brought Calgary two Grey Cup championships. No other starting quarterback in the club’s history has accomplished that.
After winning Sunday’s Grey Cup, Mitchell was open about the fact he is going to explore his options south of the border.
“I’ve let my agent handle it,” Mitchell said. “Obviously I’m waiting to find out what happens with the CBA, until then I will explore my options and find out. I want to sit down and have a talk with Hufnagel, have a talk with Dickenson and see how they’re feeling about things and the future they see with this team.
“I love being here. I’m not a complacent guy, I’m not going to stay here just because I’m comfortable. I’ve put a lot of work in with this team and the legacy with this league, I want to continue to build that. For family and everything, if something else arises, it would be hard not to test it, but I think I have time with that based on the CBA.”
None of that means Mitchell is leaving for sure.
If he does, he wants a situation that allows him the opportunity to play.
If he stays, he has the opportunity to build on a legacy that could put him among the greatest quarterbacks to play in the CFL.
At this point, Mitchell’s not talking about his plans. He probably has a ton of different things to consider.
But make no mistake, the Stampeders fans who belted out “one more year” during Tuesday’s Grey Cup celebration rally understood one thing: what Mitchell decides is going to be hugely significant, not only to how the Stampeders do in 2019, but how the CFL looks like next year and beyond.