Aug
Calgary: Give us a break
Courtesy Calgary Herald:
A 3-4 record, combined with the Canadian Football League’s worst rushing defence and one of the most penalized teams — this is not, to put it bluntly, what Calgary Stampeders coach and general manager John Hufnagel had in mind.
So while his players head out all over North America for a few days off during their bye week, Hufnagel and his coaching staff will be re-evaluating their lineup and assessing where things have gone wrong.
Because, suffice to say, the current situation is not acceptable.
“I don’t want to come off saying that we’re in a panic situation, but we need to understand that what’s happening cannot continue,” Hufnagel told a media scrum Friday in the wake of Thursday night’s stunning 38-35 loss to the Edmonton Eskimos at Commonwealth Stadium.
“I believe in (the players), but I’m not so sure that my confidence is the same as it was. But we need to understand that we need as a football team to improve. It was the team that didn’t get it done, not one phase of the team. It’s an ongoing process. We need to get better in a short amount of time.”
And if that means new personnel, so be it, said Hufnagel. The Stamps scouting staff is in the U.S. travelling to various National Football League training camps, with cuts about to begin and the possibility of new talent heading north.
“We’re always hunting and, as a coaching staff, we need to get a true evaluation of the first seven games,” he said. “Where is there a problem that we don’t think can be fixed (with the current options) and then take steps to try to remedy it.”
Certainly, there’s no shortage of problems. All three phases of the game struggled at times in Edmonton. For all of the offensive fireworks, Calgary managed just two field goals off of a pair of Edmonton turnovers in the second half. A touchdown on either one of them would have decided the game.
The special teams gave up two massive returns to Tristan Jackson in the fourth quarter. And the defence gave up 174 yards on the ground and, oh yeah, one really big touchdown pass from Ricky Ray to Fred Stamps with nine seconds left in the game.
“Even had we won that game, had they not made magic in the last 38 seconds, we would have come back here with a great feeling, and then we would have watched film and be like, oh, crap, there was a lot that we did wrong,” pointed out long-snapper Randy Chevrier. “Would it have been nice to get the two points? Yeah, but it doesn’t erase the fact that there’s a lot we need to get better on.”
“Everybody is dissatisfied, because we’ve seen glimpses of how good we can be,” added offensive tackle Ben Archibald. “But when it comes down to certain plays, we just haven’t been able to get it done.”
The Stamps won’t return to action until Aug. 28 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto against the Argonauts, before returning home for the Labour Day Classic home-and-home set with the Eskimos, beginning on Sept. 7 at McMahon Stadium.
“You never like to go into the break like this, especially after a heartbreaking loss like that,” admitted Calgary quarterback Henry Burris, who had a career-high 479 yards in passing and surpassed Doug Flutie for No. 1 on the Stamps’ all-time passing yardage list. “I’ll take this as a positive in many ways. Just having to sit on a loss like that should definitely ignite the fire in our guys. Our guys are competitors, and I definitely see us coming back with a big-time hunger, committed and ready to win.”
“The training wheels are off. We should be able to execute our assignments in a manner in which we win football games,” added Hufnagel. “We knew it would be a physical game, a high-scoring game and that it would likely be decided in the fourth quarter. And that the teams that made the plays in the fourth quarter would win the game. We made some plays, no question about it. But the bottom line is, who makes the most plays at the end to win, and we came up short.”
EXTRA POINTS: MLB Tray Blackmon had an MRI on Friday to assess the damage to an ankle injury he suffered on a questionable fourth-quarter block by Esks OL Patrick Kabongo . . . DL Alain Kashama re-injured an ankle that had kept him out of the lineup for three games . . . DL Mike Labinjo’s calf injury is still being assessed, with no guarantees he’ll be ready for the Toronto game.
