Streveler taking CFL by storm
Best thing about Blue Bombers’ rookie QB is he loves practice, writes Paul Friesen.
For his next trick, Chris Streveler will eliminate the lineups at Winnipeg emergency rooms and rid the city of mosquitoes.
Wait a minute, he’s already taken care of that second one.
Two games into his professional career, it seems there’s not much the Blue Bombers’ rookie quarterback can’t do.
The popular thinking was the Bombers would do well to simply tread water while starter Matt Nichols recovered from a knee injury.
Thrown into the deep end of three-down football for the first time in his life, the 23-year-old Streveler looks like a fish in water.
If the eye test the last two weeks didn’t hook you, maybe some of these statistics will.
The man almost nobody in Winnipeg had heard of a month ago leads the CFL in touchdown passes with six.
Streveler’s quarterback rating (QUAR, 94.9) is higher than anyone who has played two games, and if you prefer the more traditional passing efficiency scale, his 109.5 rating trails only Bo Levi Mitchell of Calgary (115.7).
Streveler’s second-down conversion rate is a phenomenal 64.6 per cent, a full 15 percentage points better than Mitchell’s in second place.
Behind the University of South Dakota product, the Bombers are the league’s highest-scoring team, coming off a 56-10 dismantling of the Montreal Alouettes on the road,
That’s Winnipeg ’s biggest blowout win in 16 years, and the most points the Bombers have scored in 17 seasons. And they did it on the road.
Yeah, the Alouettes were bad. But, still.
“We haven’t done that, really, in whatever length of time,” head coach Mike O’Shea said. “For the guys that have been here, I don’t know that we’ve had that kind of convincing win.
“So they enjoyed it.” Nobody more than Streveler, who when he wasn’t playing catch with his receivers was tucking the ball away and running for 98 yards, the first time in eight years (Buck Pierce) a Bombers quarterback has done that.
Ask Streveler what he’s enjoying most about his first full-time job, though, and he doesn’t point to the touchdown passes or the cheers, but to the less-glamorous stuff fans don’t even see.
“I love the preparation that goes into it,” he said as the Bombers got back to work Monday. “It’s long days here. It’s a job now. It’s a job to be as prepared as possible. It’s something I always enjoyed doing at the college level, but now especially at the professional level.
“I just really enjoy the daily grind of going through meetings and being out here practising and going back and watching more film, coming in early and watching film. That’s just fun.”
That’s music to the ears of a guy like O’Shea.
It seems the one thing the coach will admit has surprised him about his new quarterback is the way he’s handling all this.
“You expect it out of a seasoned pro and you’re not sure what you’re going to get out of a young player,” O’Shea said. “He’s remained very even-keeled, and just keeps going back to the process of trying to get better. He doesn’t believe this is him just going out and doing it. He understands that football is a team sport.
“You don’t really have to even worry about any of that.”
As for the details, Streveler appears to be sorting through those like an accountant through spread sheets.
After games, Pierce, the quarterbacks coach, comes up with a list of things for Streveler to work on.
“That list has shrunk dramatically from Week 1 to this week,” O’Shea said. “And if it continues to shrink as long as you’re not seeing a repeated mistake, there’s a lot of growth there. But it’s the same with any quarterback.
“It’s not like we’re lowering our expectation because he’s a young quarterback.”
Those expectations have to be higher for the average observer now, too.
There’s no reason the Blue Bombers can’t win more than they lose with their rookie quarterback.
“As you see more pictures and get more reps, you start to recognize what’s going on a little bit more,” Streveler said. “And things start to slow down a little bit.”
Yet, he’s moving so fast. Next stop is Hamilton’s Tim Hortons Field on Friday, where the Ticats have a much better team than the Als.
And where The Streveler Show should give the Bombers more than a fighting chance.