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Bo Levi Mitchell waited four long months to watch the video evidence of the nightmare that was the 2016 Grey Cup.
Until then, he needed no reminder thanks to his subconscious working overtime every night as he tossed and turned.
“I was having dreams about each play and how I could have done it differently,” the Calgary Stampeders quarterback said. “You wake up and you think you’re a champion.”
Every morning, Mitchell had to come to grips all over again with the bitter truth. Yes, the Stampeders dazzled in a 15-2-1 regular season. And yes, they won five trophies – including Mitchell’s hardware for most outstanding player – at the CFL awards show.
But in the end, Calgary lost the game that mattered the most in a heartbreaking 39-33 decision against the Ottawa RedBlacks.
“It’s so crazy – so hard to describe,” Mitchell said. “You’re playing a team that’s 8-9-1. They have a losing record. You almost expect to win …”
His voice trails off.
“As long as you don’t do what I did.”
Mitchell threw eight interceptions through 18 regular-season games last season. In the Grey Cup, he uncharacteristically tossed up three picks.
But Mitchell, 27, has plenty of company when it comes to Stampeders with regrets over how the championship went down.
Slotback Marquay McDaniel wishes he didn’t jam his shoulder in the first quarter, forcing him to sit out and leave Mitchell without his most dependable target. Linebacker Alex Singleton bemoans the numerous missed assignments and blown coverages that allowed an aging Henry Burris to pile up 39 points.
“You don’t win games doing that,” Singleton says. “The defence just wasn’t clicking. It was definitely our side of the ball.”
Then there was the play debated by armchair quarterbacks all over the country. With time ticking down on second-and-two – and the Stamps two yards away from a Grey Cup title — head coach Dave Dickenson tasked third-string quarterback Andrew Buckley to sweep right as part of an option play.
The RedBlacks stymied Buckley, leaving Dickenson open for criticism over why he didn’t ask Jerome Messam to pound the ball up the middle.
“Actually, Ottawa messed up but it worked out in their favour,” McDaniel said. “They didn’t cover Anthony Parker, who was in motion. They didn’t cover him and he came back to the side he was supposed to come to. But Ottawa didn’t cover it right and since they didn’t cover it right, it ended up working to their advantage.
“It’s just football. If it works, great. If it doesn’t work, then it’s ‘Why didn’t you throw the ball?’ You live with it. Dave is a great play caller. If they line up right and run their defence a little bit different, then it might have worked out.”
It might have worked out, but didn’t. And so the Stamps set out to recreate the regular-season fairytale of 2016 but with a happier ending.
“Honestly, I think we might have needed that loss even with all the success that we had,” said wideout DaVaris Daniels, the CFL’s rookie-of-the-year. “It shows us that even if you win that many games, it is tough to win the Grey Cup. You have to put that work in now to win that. You can be that close and still fall short.”
McDaniel is a cagey eight-year veteran, so he realizes better than most the magnitude of the missed opportunity.
“I’m not taking anything away from Ottawa,” said McDaniel, 33. “They came to play. They came to play and they punched us in the mouth, and we didn’t respond.
“It’s going to be a long season. That’s the thing about age. You enjoy playing games, but the playoffs are what matters. You wait to get that point and try to get a Grey Cup.”
It snowed Monday in Calgary, but the Stampeders – one year older and one year wiser – realize time spent in the off-season lifting weights and studying game film could spell the difference come November.
Gone are the likes of defensive end Frank Beltre (New York Jets), receiver Bakari Grant (Saskatchewan Roughriders), linebacker Glenn Love (Saskatchewan Roughriders), defensive back Adam Berger (Ottawa Redblacks) and defensive lineman Zach Minter (Saskatchewan).
But Mitchell, McDaniel, Singleton and Daniels are back along with much of the core.
“You take what happened and you use it,” Singleton says. “You’ve got to use it as a chip on your shoulder. You’re a professional.
“You need to be able to show up the next day and do it all over again,”
POPEYE PROOF
Quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell plans to use the sting of losing the 2016 Grey Cup as fuel for improvement this season.
He intends to bottle the feeling and use it like “spinach for Popeye” in his quest to lead the Calgary Stampeders to a title.
“I just have a burning drive and a passion,” Mitchell said. “I’ve been working out harder than I ever have and pushing myself to find new limits and finding different things I can change about my game.”
Keep in mind, Mitchell won the CFL’s most outstanding player award in 2016. He completed 68 per cent of his passes last season for 5,377 yards, 32 touchdowns and just eight interceptions.
“We’re not going to try and recreate the wheel,” he said. “We know who we are. I know who I am as an athlete and a quarterback. So I’m going to play football the way I play football.
“But I look at guys like Michael Jordan, Lebron James, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, guys like that. They’ve all failed. They’ve all lost games. So I look forward to proving myself right and everybody else right about who I am.”
vhall@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/vickihallch
