‘We immediately moved on and we’re ready for the next game,’ said Stampeders quarterback Jake Maier
“Immediately.”
The Stamps offence seemed to completely disappear in the late stages of the game, allowing the Als to claw back from an 11-point halftime deficit to secure a 30-26 victory.
It was a dispiriting, discouraging loss in a game where the Stampeders seemed to be in full control.
So the Stamps went back and reviewed the tape and tried to figure out what went wrong for their offence.
But they also tried to move on from the disappointment as quickly as possible.
They didn’t have much choice, really. There’s a game to be played against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Friday after all.
“I think when you look back at the film of that game and just how it all played out, I feel like we played three quarters and a few minutes into the fourth quarter of really good football,” Maier said. “My disappointment in that game was really the fourth quarter and not sustaining drives and that we couldn’t get the momentum back.
“But we immediately moved on and we’re ready for the next game.”
The end-of-game stats from Saturday night’s loss aren’t much fun to look at. Maier completed 18-of-28 passes for 106 yards, while throwing a touchdown and an interception.
The Stamps were better on the ground, but they simply couldn’t move the ball late in the game when a couple of first downs might have been enough to wind down the clock and hold off the Alouettes’ furious late-game rally.
The quarterback is always going to take a lot of blame in that scenario, especially when a team averages only 3.8 yards per pass — that’s simply not enough.
But the protection from the offensive line wasn’t great in the fourth quarter and there were dropped passes and penalties, too.
“Everyone took a turn,” said Stamps GM/head coach Dave Dickenson. “We looked at it, we don’t what we’re trying to correct. It won’t be easy, but for three quarters we played some really good football and we’ll build on that.”
Unfortunately, you do need to play a full four quarters if you want to win in the CFL. And those final 15 minutes are generally disproportionately important.
And through four games this season, the Stampeders are getting outscored 51-18 in fourth quarters, and have twice been completely shut out — conversely, that means they’ve put up 18 in their other two games, which isn’t half-bad.
Is there something bigger going on?
There have been concerns about the offence’s inability to regain momentum in games that date back to the start of last season. When things go wrong, it does often feel like they struggle to stop the bleeding.
At the very least, you want your offence to be able to stay on the field and give your defence a rest. That didn’t happen on Saturday night.
It needs to start happening.
“I think (momentum) is real, I really do,” Maier said. “Offensively, they got hot and I didn’t think as an offence we did a good enough job of slowing them down.
“I think we’ve played two really good fourth quarters this year and we’ve won the games and we’ve played two very average to below-average fourth quarters and we’ve lost those games. That’s the nature of this league and you don’t dwell on it too much because the next one is coming.”
Getting close
The Stampeders could be getting Rysen John back very soon.
The 6-foot-7 Canadian receiver didn’t make a big impact in his rookie year in 2023, but still has high-end potential and will be watched closely when he does return to the field.
He hasn’t played yet this season because of a hamstring injury, but has been a full participant in practice this week.
“I think he’s probably good to go, so if we have any injuries he should be ready to go,” Dickenson said.