Mitchell’s worst game wasn’t so bad after all
CALGARY — When you’ve set the bar as high as Bo Levi Mitchell has, a three-interception game is going to look ugly.
But that comes with the territory for the Calgary Stampeders’ 25-yearold franchise quarterback.
It’s win-a-championship-in-your-first-season-as-a-starter territory. Grey Cup MVP territory. New four-year deal and the keys to the city territory.
Mitchell hasn’t endured many bad days as a professional, but there’s little doubt his Week 1 performance — he went 22-of-35 for 263 yards, one touchdown and the first three-pick game of his young career — was his worst.
But his “worst” would have been acceptable for just about any other 25-year-old with just 17-career starts under his belt and Mitchell made plays when he needed to.
After parsing through the film from the 24-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, it apparently wasn’t as bad as first thought, either, which has the Stampeders feeling good heading into their Week 2 road date with the Montreal Alouettes on Friday.
“Watching the film, we were better than I thought we were,” Stamps offensive co-ordinator/assistant head coach Dave Dickenson said. “He actually threw the ball really well, except he made a couple bad decisions and they just got magnified. Give Hamilton credit, they did a good job scheming and all that. He played well, just take care of the football a little bit more.”
Thanks to Rene Paredes’ clutch 50-yard boot, Mitchell wasn’t losing much sleep over it.
He was looking for the ‘W’ and he got it.
“Honestly, watching film, it was a lot better than I thought,” Mitchell said. “Obviously, the big three mistakes are very glaring because of the times they happened at, you know, being down.
“That’s something, as a quarterback and just me as a competitor, that I never want to do, turn the ball over. After looking at film, things were much better than I thought. Reads were sharp, throws were sharp, just those three plays ended up being bad.”
After throwing just eight interceptions all of last season in 417 attempts, Mitchell managed to pile up 38 per cent of that number in just 35 throws on Friday.