Courtesy Calgary Herald:

Offence sells tickets and defence wins titles. So it goes in pro football — even the CFL, a league that dared to be known by scoring alone just a few short years ago. With the evolution in coaching and defensive players, it’s demonstrably harder to mount the aerial circuses Stamps fans saw under Doug Flutie, Jeff Garcia and Dave Dickenson.

So when Dickenson, back in Calgary after a seven-year hiatus, reflects on his early days in the league in 1997, he sees change — and plenty of it — in the way the guys on the other side of the ball are making his life difficult.

“I remember when we first came up that we would get Allan Pitts on a linebacker and it was such a mismatch,” said Dickenson wistfully after morning practice. “It happened sometimes. Back then, you were able to work more matchups. You had more aggressive defences that were trying to make things happen.

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