Jul
Calgary: Back to square 1
Courtesy Calgary Herald:
Intensity is used ad nauseam in sports to denote emotion and passion for the game at hand. Some say it’s a missing ingredient at this early juncture of the Calgary Stampeders’ 2009 campaign, one reason to explain the Canadian Football League club’s limping start.
Others will beg to differ.
“We go out there and get down like we did the first week–it’s easy to say things like that,” mused receiver Nik Lewis. “If we didn’t have the passion to play this game, we wouldn’t play it.”
“People say that all the time,” offered defensive back Wes Lysack. “They want to know why one team comes out and has success early on and another one doesn’t. I would imagine everyone at the level we’re at is prepared to play and excited to play. If you’re not, you shouldn’t be here.”
The Stamps were still smarting from the 42-30 loss they sustained at the hands of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Friday night, giving the defending Grey Cup champs an unbecoming 0-2 record.
“I don’t like starting out slow,” conceded Lysack, after the team’s rundown Saturday morning. “You can’t fall back on that and say, ‘Well, we did it last year and things will turn around. Every time, whether it’s in the media or us in the locker-room, someone talks about last year, that’s all it is . . . last year. We have to focus on this year and what we’re doing wrong and what we need to correct.”
Penalties and turnovers, a couple of no-nos of which the club had to be cured last season, have reared their ugly heads once again.
“We’re back to square one of what we were trying to accomplish last pre-season,” concurred head coach and GM John Hufnagel. “Identifying the problems they had the year before and correcting them. We have those problems at this time this year and we need to correct them if we have a chance to win football games.”
Lewis suggested it’s unfair to equate this team to the one that took it all last year.
“We didn’t win the Grey Cup in 2009; we won in 2008,” he pointed out. “We don’t have the same players we had then. We lost some players who gave us swag and some players that helped us out a lot. To put it in perspective, we’re not the same team and, offensively, I can’t recall a year when we started off great.”
Quarterback Henry Burris, victimized by three interceptions in Winnipeg, was pulled with about seven minutes left in favour of backup Barrick Nealy, who drove the club to a pair of major scores. The yanking wasn’t meant to send any message, Hufnagel insisted.
“I don’t want people to misread what happened last night,” Hufnagel explained. “Hank was the subject of some misfortune. I thought Henry played hard, made some plays for us, executed the game plan. He had three turnovers; one was his fault, I will say that. He tried to make a play he shouldn’t have.
“When I made the change, because of the misfortune he was having, I hoped that we could change our luck by putting Barrick in the game. That’s all that’s to it.”
Miscommunication and a lack of rhythm were terms Burris used to describe the ineffectiveness of the Stamps’ offence. He philosophized about being taken out.
“You never like to be pulled,” he maintained. “I can’t say, yeah, I’m ecstatic about it. But the big man makes the decision and we go with it. Barrick did a good job of coming in there and moving the team. It is what it is. I played my butt off, but luck wasn’t on my side.
“We’re off to a start we didn’t expect and we take a lot of pride in what we do. I feel that sense of urgency to be there this upcoming weekend against Toronto and it has to be there. For a team with so much talent, we keep putting ourselves in holes. The better teams find ways to get themselves out of these ruts.”
On the injury front, defensive lineman Juwan Simpson (arm), fellow lineman Justin Phillips (hip) and receiver Titus Ryan (ankle) will all be assessed this week.
