The Canadian Press
Here they go, maybe for the last time. Probably never like this again.
The Calgary Stampeders took the longer-than-usual route, but they clinched their third consecutive first-place West Division finish on Saturday, downing the BC Lions 26-9 on Saturday night.
That they wiped out a rare three-game losing streak to finish a league-best 13-5 speaks volumes to the Stamps’ dominance in the CFL over the last seven seasons. In that span they’ve made it to at least the Western Final in each year, playing in four Grey Cups and winning one.
This year has been like all of the rest so far, but could also be very different.
Like every team in the league, the Stamps will have a plethora of free agents to re-sign after this season. At the top of that list will be Bo Levi Mitchell. Alex Singleton will be right behind him. Both could explore NFL options after this season.
Defensive coordinator DeVone Claybrooks remains the most sought after coaching candidate in the league. Montreal wanted him for the job last year but he declined. BC is already looking for its next head coach and Toronto joined the mix on Saturday morning, firing Marc Trestman. Other teams could make moves in the next few weeks or in the days after the Grey Cup. He won’t be a coordinator forever.
RELATED:
» Stamps take care of business in season finale
» Matchups Set: 106th Grey Cup Playoffs ready for kickoff
» Wally’s Way: How Buono became the CFL’s most iconic coach
However you cut it, the 2019 Calgary Stampeders could look drastically different than they have over the last seven years.
Depending on how big the changes are for this team, these next few weeks could be this Stamps team’s last really good run at a championship. It takes time to build this kind of talent throughout a roster. When key pieces go their separate ways it can take a long time to build it back up.
“I know how blessed I am to play under Dave (Dickenson) and Huf (John Hufnagel) and play with Claybrooks and the defence I’ve gotten to play with over these last couple of years,” Mitchell said. “No matter how much you want it to stay the same, sometimes it doesn’t always do that. Sometimes it’s not in your hands.
“You’ve got to take advantage of it and enjoy the time you have right now because the future, you never know what it holds.”
Mitchell led the charge on Saturday night and for the first time in weeks, the Stamps looked like the team that’s dominant, that puts opponents away quickly. Calgary set the tone within the first five drives of the game, led 25-0 at half and cruised to the win. Mitchell had 278 yards and a touchdown.
It’s easy to get caught up in a team’s dominance and think that it’s a constant, that it has no good reason to end. The reality with all dynasties — and that’s what the Stamps have flirted with in this run — is that the window starts shrinking well before anyone thinks that it could. It’s why you have to maximize those opportunities while they’re in your grasp.
“I think we’ve proved over the last couple of years that it’s important to cash in on these opportunities whenever you get them, because your team is going to change every year,” Mitchell said.
“This year especially, with contracts, the CBA . . . guys can’t even sign after their last game of the season. We told everybody, me and Micah (Johnson) said it partway through the season, ‘Hey man, realize that this team is going to look a lot different this year. This is the only chance we get to play together. We’re too good and we put in too much time and paid the price. Make sure we take advantage of that and reap the benefits.’”
“It’s my third year in a row clinching the Western Final,” Singleton said after making seven tackles in the game, padding his league-leading total to 122.
“We want to win the Grey Cup. That’s all we want to do as a group. For the three years I’ve been here not much has changed, really. It’s one goal in mind. It’s going to the Grey Cup.”
Juwan Brescacin reaches for a pass during Saturday’s 26-9 win over the BC Lions (Jimmy Jeong/CFL.ca)
Sometimes, all of the talent in the world isn’t enough.
The Vancouver Province’s Ed Willes pointed out this week that Wally Buono coached four 14-plus-win teams in his career that failed to win a Grey Cup. There’s nothing easy about it, regardless of talent.
“I know Wally would say that, it’s a lot harder to win it than you think,” Dickenson, who played on Buono’s 2007 14-win team, said on Friday.
“What I think a lot of people don’t realize is that if you start out hot and you’re winning, you’re not really going to make a ton of changes with your team and a lot of teams in the league somewhere in September start making changes.
“There are NFL cuts, a lot of them are CFL veterans that have been released by NFL teams and they’re not the same teams you were beating earlier in the year.
“When you’re winning, you show loyalty — and you should — but those guys at the end of the year are beat up and maybe don’t have that same energy. I saw it many times. We’d beat a team earlier in the year and by the time we play them late, they’re not the same team. So, it is harder, but it’s also pretty good opportunity. You really only have to sometimes piece together two wins to win it. To me, that’s the ideal way to do it.”
Dickenson, Mitchell and Singleton are all there now, sharing the driver’s seat again with maybe one last, really good shot at another Grey Cup with this group. It almost hurts to think about the same take-us-through-last-year scenario that could await the Stamps if they get to the Grey Cup for a third year in a row, but there’s only one solution to make those questions go away.
“A lot of people are going to say we’re not going to be able to win the Western Final,” Singleton said.
“All this noise we heard last year and the year before, we have to play our brand of football. We know how to win. We know how to win close games. We know how to do everything. You need to win close games, hard games no one else in the West has won (for the last two years) and we’re ready to come out and put our best foot forward.”
