STAMPEDERS AT SASKATCHEWAN’S MERCY
Many small, ‘self-inflicted’ wounds put Riders in the driver’s seat in West
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers beat the Calgary Stampeders.
Give the Bombers their credit. They were the better team.
But this is a column about the Stampeders, so let’s move on and consider whether, maybe, the Stampeders beat themselves on Friday night. The Bombers can beat the Stamps, and the Stamps can beat themselves. Both things can be true at the same time.
And it’s an easy argument to make.
The Stamps made a couple key errors in big moments and it cost them.
Rene Paredes missed a difficult field goal that can hardly be held against him, but also a convert that Bombers returner Janarion Grant returned for two points — Grant is basically kryptonite for the Stampeders and it’s weird and wild and really difficult to wrap your head around.
Considering that the Stamps lost by one point, it’s easy to say that three-point swing was the difference.
It wasn’t, though. Just because something is easy to say doesn’t mean it’s correct.
What happens if Wynton Mcmanis held onto the potential interception that landed in his hands in the fourth quarter?
What if Reggie Begelton comes down with the late fourth-quarter pass that he dropped on the Stampeders’ final offensive drive?
What if the Stampeders opt to take a knee in the end zone early in the third quarter instead of punting — and subsequently take a penalty that set the Bombers up for a touchdown on their next play.
Conversely, it took a gargantuan effort from Mike Rose to haul down Grant after Paredes’ field goal miss.
That would have swung the game in the Bombers’ favour, for sure. This is football and you can pinpoint a million different moments where the result of a game might be decided.
But it’s hard to shake the feeling that when the Stampeders lose, they have a tendency to cause themselves more trouble than they need to.
“It’s been that way all year, too,” said Stamps receiver Eric Rogers. “Just taking turns. All these games we lose, the close ones have always been a lot of self-inflicted wounds. It’s not just one person or one phase.
“It’ll be offence, defence, special teams ... It could be receivers. I had a couple tough games myself. We’re just taking turns and we’ve just got to play one good game as a collective group, but we’re putting ourselves in dogfights.”
Acknowledging that they’re making mistakes isn’t really the point. Every team makes mistakes. The best teams fix them.
That’s the challenge for this Stampeders team now. They’re no longer in the driver’s seat to finish in first place in the West Division.
Friday’s loss, combined with the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ win over the Edmonton Eskimos on Saturday, means that as long as the Riders win their rematch with the Eskies next weekend in Regina, the Stamps aren’t getting a bye in the first week of the playoffs.
The job looks like it’s gotten tougher. Maybe the mistakes the Stamps made Friday night are the reason or maybe that’s just football.
One way or another, here are some observations in the wake of Friday’s game:
1. OUT OF THEIR HANDS
Here’s the most relevant point from this weekend’s slate of CFL games: If the Riders win their final game, it doesn’t matter what the Stamps do. The West Division final will be hosted in Regina.
That’s a tough, tough place to play a game of that magnitude. There’s only so much analysis that is necessary here. Ultimately, it’s a lot easier to get to the Grey Cup when you finish first in the regular season standings and it’s looking very unlikely that the Stamps will be able to pull that off.
They still need a win when they take on the B.C. Lions in Vancouver, though. A loss would drop the Stamps to third place and force them to travel to Winnipeg for the West semifinal.
We learned Friday night that’s not a fun proposition.
The Stamps have lost twice this year at IG Field and the Stampeders absolutely need to beat the Lions and avoid having to go on the road twice in the playoffs.
2.
TOUGH GAME
The Stampeders’ special teams unit seems to really struggle with Bombers returner Grant.
He scored two touchdowns back when the Bombers beat the Stamps in August and ran back a missed convert on Friday night. That play made for a three-point swing and while it wasn’t the reason the Stampeders lost — there were a lot of other mistakes Friday — it was the latest big return against the Stamps.
It should also be noted that Grant came very close to running back Paredes’ earlier missed field goal and it took a brilliant effort from Rose to prevent him from getting another return touchdown.
The Stamps did just fine on kickoff and punt-team coverage, but looked vulnerable on Paredes’ two missed kicks.
Special teams coverage has been a persistent problem all year and preventing big returns is going to be a major worry going into the playoffs.
No team in the CFL has allowed more big-play returns on kicks this year than the Stampeders and it just doesn’t feel like this is a problem that is going away.
3. WHERE’S JACKSON?
The Stampeders haven’t rushed for 100 yards in a game since the Labour Day Classic and only gained 45 yards on the ground against the Bombers.
They were averaging the fewest rushing yards per game (75.1) of any playoff team this season and have the second-worst average in the entire CFL.
And yet Don Jackson was stuck mostly on the sidelines on Friday.
That was largely due to ratio issues and it makes total sense that the Stamps wanted to go with their best group of five on the offensive line against a Bombers D-line that can dominate teams.
That lineup happens to include three Americans, which means the Stamps had to go with Canadian Ante Milanovic-litre at running back.
But Jackson had only one carry and one reception in the entire game.
Jackson’s second season in the CFL hasn’t gone the way many were expecting, but this is a guy who played a pivotal part in the Stampeders’ Grey Cup run last year.
It’s always said that the running game gets more and more important as the temperatures drop and it seems inevitable that the Stampeders are going to need to find a way to get Jackson more involved.
4. NOT STRESSING
The Stampeders aren’t going to be losing any sleep over Paredes’ misses.
You want to hit them all, obviously, but his field goal miss was on a 47-yarder and the wind was a significant factor. He was also perfect on converts until Friday night.
The returns on both misses made them feel especially bad and it’s true that Paredes has missed field goals in three of the Stamps’ last four games — although you can’t pin all of them on him.
Ultimately, the Stamps know what they’ve got with Paredes. He’s reliable and this just shouldn’t be an area of concern for the Stampeders at this point. If history tells us anything, Paredes is going to bounce back.
5. HOPEFULLY OK
When Royce Metchie got hurt on Friday night, it looked serious.
The Stamps safety stayed down on the field and was not moving for several minutes and needed help standing up.
He did walk off the field on his own, but that didn’t make it any less scary.
On Saturday, Dickenson told reporters that Metchie had made it to the plane in time to fly back to Calgary with the team and the Stampeders are hopeful that the injury isn’t too serious.
In purely human terms, that’s obviously great news.
From a football perspective, the Stamps could definitely use Metchie in the playoffs. He’s been an absolute revelation for the Stampeders in his first year as a starter and has been getting better and better with each passing game.
One way or another, his health will be something to keep a close eye on over the next couple weeks.
6. ON THE BRIGHT SIDE
If Hergy Mayala had caught fire a week or two earlier, he might be in contention for the CFL’S most outstanding rookie award this season.
As it is, the Stampeders’ 2019 first-round pick in the CFL Draft is having himself an unbelievable second half.
Mayala caught seven passes for 83 yards and two touchdowns against the Bombers and his season totals now sit at 459 receiving yards and four touchdowns.
That’s more yards than any of the Stamps’ big-name rookie receivers have had in their debut seasons this decade and that’s a list that includes Lemar Durant, Juwan Brescacin and Anthony Parker.
Mayala’s emergence in the latter part of the season — as well as that of Josh Huff — has made the Stampeders’ pass attack significantly more varied.
You’d love to get the run game going at the same time, obviously, but when Mayala and Eric Rogers are both catching two touchdowns in a game, something is definitely going right with the offence.
7. DOING IT
My vote for the Stampeders’ most outstanding rookie award went to Raheem Wilson, who has played in all 17 games for the Stampeders and has moved between three positions in the defensive backfield.
Voters get two picks, though, and my runner-up was Nate Holley.
I could easily have been convinced to flip them.
Holley did, however, get my vote for most outstanding special teams player on the Stampeders, and he hasn’t looked at all out of place since taking over as the team’s weakside linebacker.
Holley had another great game against the Blue Bombers, finishing with four defensive tackles, one special teams tackle and the first interception of his CFL career.
He did take a 15-yard penalty on the third-quarter Rob Maver punt that allowed the
Blue Bombers to score a 25-yard touchdown on their very next play, but otherwise Holley was rock solid.
8. ABOUT THAT
Hindsight is 20-20 and head coach Dave Dickenson rightfully pointed out that the Stampeders did punt from deep in their own territory in the first half and it worked out just fine — Holley got his interception on the next play.
But it’s easy to wonder how different things might have gone if the Stamps had opted to take a knee and give up a point instead of punting at the end of their first drive of the third quarter.
Because of Holley’s penalty, the Bombers started their drive on the 25-yard line and it took a grand total of one play for Zach Collaros to find Kenny Lawler in the end zone.
Nobody would be talking about it if a million other things hadn’t worked out in the Bombers’ favour, but it’s one of those decisions that you can’t help but wonder about.