Mitchell uses extra time for recovery
If the COVID-19 pandemic hadn’t come along and disrupted the CFL season, Bo Levi Mitchell believes he would have been ready to start last weekend’s opener against the Montreal Alouettes.
With the season not starting until September, though, the Calgary Stampeders quarterback hasn’t rushed his rehab from December shoulder surgery.
Right now, that means he’s only throwing two days a week.
“We were probably pushing it a little bit, getting the surgery at the end of December and then trying to be ready, basically, for training camp,” Mitchell said Tuesday. “I think that would have been pushing it at the time but I would say that as fast as I have progressed right now, I could have started a month (earlier) and I would have been farther along than I would have been right now.”
Mitchell was limited to 11 games last season because of an injury to his pectoral muscle and had a procedure to fix a labral tear in December. In limited media appearances throughout the winter, he insisted he would be ready to play by the time the regular season got underway.
Nothing Mitchell said Tuesday contradicts that. It’s just that the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the season and allowed the two-time
Grey Cup champion to be more cautious with his recovery and focus on ensuring that his shoulder healed in the right way.
Mitchell is understandably reluctant to say that delaying the start of the season was a positive thing for him. He even referred to that line of thinking as being selfish, given the impact that COVID-19 had on so many people’s lives.
But it’s reasonable to point out that the extra time to rehab was likely helpful for Mitchell and the Stamps. He chose to have the surgery in an effort to permanently fix a shoulder that had been bothering him for a couple years, and if he’s able to come back as good as new that bodes well for the Stampeders’ future.
“That’s kind of the blessing in disguise. You have the time to go through rehab and strengthen all the muscles in your shoulder,” Mitchell said. “You have time to focus on those kinds of beginner mechanics and get yourself back to where you want to be.
“It’s honestly been a pleasant trip going back down memory lane to where my mechanics started from and where they’ve progressed to from compensating over a couple seasons.
“The nice thing is I’m videotaping every single throw I make and I can go back and look and say ‘OK, this one hurt a little bit and this is why.’”
Mitchell began throwing about five weeks ago and has been back at Mcmahon Stadium since it reopened to put in more work with a small group of players who are currently in the city.
His recovery has been a long process. Even before he went under the knife, Mitchell reached out to close friend and Toronto Argonauts QB Matt Nichols and former B.C. Lions pivot Travis Lulay to hear about their recoveries from similar surgeries.
Their advice proved invaluable as Mitchell attempted to overcome the peaks and valleys that come with recovering from major surgery — something he hadn’t gone through previously.
By all accounts, Mitchell has navigated those ups and downs and is steadily progressing toward having a strong and healthy shoulder that’s ready to go whenever the CFL resumes.
Back in December, Mitchell restructured the contract he signed earlier in 2019 in a way that cleared cap space for the Stampeders in 2020.
On Tuesday, he explained why. “It was two-fold,” Mitchell said. “It was trying to give back to the team to shore up some cap space for other guys I wanted to keep around, but at the same time, it was giving the Stamps a little bit of breathing room for me to be able to go get surgery and feel confident in myself for the next couple years instead of just continuing to deal with ailments in my shoulder.
“Everybody has a 50 per cent roster bonus, so if Montell (Cozart) was the guy, he probably makes double his salary if he’s the starter. If I’m gone the first four-to-six weeks, then that’s money they’re having to pay another guy, so it was just understanding where to help the team out to stay successful.”