Amid their worst season in two decades, the old men in the Stampeders’ locker room are starting to yell at clouds.
Friday night’s loss to the Saskatchewan Roughriders was a defining moment for this Calgary team. Winless in their last five, they had a chance to claw back into playoff contention with a victory over a floundering rival. Instead, they came out listless in all three phases and never recovered from a 15-point halftime deficit, losing 37-29.
If the result on the scoreboard and the production on the field were emblematic of the type of year this team has had, then what happened after was symbolic of everything wrong inside the franchise. According to multiple reports, a verbal altercation erupted in the team’s locker room shortly after the final whistle and lasted several minutes. Veteran cornerback Tre Roberson Sr. and rookie defensive tackle Josiah Coatney allegedly had to be separated by teammates.
“(The mood) is what you would think. It’s super frustrated. It’s a feeling of failure and I can’t even really go into much more (detail) than that,” quarterback Jake Maier told reporters after the spat. “It’s just an unfortunate feeling right now and there’s no way around it. There’s no way to hide it. We are what we are.”
The Red and White are hardly treading into new territory in pro football with a post-loss screaming match, particularly between defensive players who just surrendered a 200-yard rushing performance. However, it has become impossible to ignore the growing evidence of division on the team between the old guard and the fresh meat — especially when the players themselves are laying it out so plainly.
Two weeks ago, it was dubbed a “generational gap” by receiver Marken Michel. In a revealing interview with TSN’s Salim Valji that mostly flew under the radar, he and fellow pass catcher Reggie Begelton laid out the challenges of teaching the Stampeder way of doing things to a wave of young players they felt were unwilling to listen.
“I’m a little biased when it comes to what era we’re in. We’re getting to the entitled era and the participation-trophy kids that are coming through. It’s tough,” Begelton complained. “We knew grit. We knew the gritty times. We knew smash-mouth football when we were growing up and we didn’t get our way…we had to show our worth. That’s hard to preach to these young guys.”
As far as public comments about your teammates go, that’s as scathing as they can possibly get and it’s clear other veterans feel similarly. At 28 years old with four years of professional experience, Coatney may be no spring chicken but he is a CFL toddler in the eyes of the 31-year-old Roberson, who was there for the organization’s peak.
Seven players remain on the Stampeders’ roster from their 2018 Grey Cup win: Roberson, Begelton, Michel, fullback William Langlais, kicker Rene Paredes, defensive end James Vaughters, and defensive tackle Mike Rose. For them, the slow decline of the franchise over the past five seasons has been especially painful, as historical strengths have turned to devastating weaknesses. Even Calgary’s once-fabled special teams unit had fallen from grace, with veterans alleging that there has been a lack of buy-in.
“When I first came here, I wanted to play, but I understood that (I had) to earn that right to play. Meaning that if I wanted to get on the field with special teams, I had to take pride in special teams, the proving ground,” Begelton told Valji. “I truthfully don’t think the younger guys understand what that truly means.”
When battle-seasoned former champs point the finger at inexperienced interlopers, it’s all too easy for fans and media to get behind them. But for all their moaning about the entitlement of youth, it is old-school thinking that has Quick Six galloping toward the glue factory. Instilling the Stampeder way of doing things into the next generation means nothing when those strategies no longer function.
For the duration of their decade of dominance, Calgary was a talent factory. Their unique ability to have an all-star level replacement waiting in the wings whenever a star player departed was almost uncanny. The depth chart functioned as an assembly line, with older players indoctrinating the rookies into the organizational culture in a way that this current group has failed to replicate.
With such incredible results from the personnel department, then-general manager John Hufnagel could afford to be cheap. Pay raises don’t need to be handed out when you have a backup capable of doing the same job for less and the opening of free agency can be treated like a vacation day when you don’t need to bid for top talent. Their championships were built from within.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when or how but at some point after the Grey Cup rings went on, the factory broke down. With the advent of new spring leagues and the pandemic-cancelled 2020 season, the talent pipeline dried up. Their personnel processes stagnated further after Dave Dickenson was promoted beyond his capabilities to handle general manager duties as well and they never opened the coffers in free agency to compensate.
There is an argument to be made that the Stampeders have remained too loyal to their remaining veteran core, with players like Roberson sticking around well past their best-before date. However, 16 other players from that 2018 team are still kicking around the CFL and remain impact contributors for other franchises: Bo Levi Mitchell, Ante Milanovic Litre, DaVaris Daniels, Richie Sindani, Ryan Sceviour, Micah Johnson, Folarin Orimolade, Derek Wiggan, Wynton McManis, Jameer Thurman, Tunde Adeleke, Ciante Evans, DaShaun Amos, Ka’Deem Carey, Justin Lawrence, and Royce Metchie.
It would have been impossible to keep them all but given how many ex-Stamps are poised to be All-CFL selections in other uniforms, you have to wonder how a team without adequate young talent has failed to keep their best veterans at the same time. Outside of Begelton, Calgary may not have another player honoured by league voters this year.
And so the CFL’s marquee franchise of the 2010s finds itself here: divided internally, at each other’s throats, and staring down the end of the longest active playoff streak in North American sports. Veterans with fading clout scream into the void about a way of life that has been extinct for years, while young players scramble to earn the trust of a coaching staff that may not be back in 2025. All this as a bye week sends everyone their separate ways at the most critical juncture of the season.
“I don’t necessarily feel great about a performance like this and going on a bye,” Dickenson admitted on Friday. “Hopefully, they try to find us something and keep working. I really feel like there has to be something that gives us that little oomph. We’ve got to find something that puts us over the top right now, it’s just not happening.”
“Every time we’ve seen something where we needed a win or we feel like a win could get us going in the right direction, we lose. That’s a challenge.”
It is unclear whether Dickenson himself has lost the locker room, but the organization has lost its way and the players inside aren’t finding what they need in each other. Sitting last in the CFL and four points out of a playoff spot with four games left, they don’t have the luxury of time to discover it.
The Stampeders (4-9-1) will return to action on Friday, October 4 when they visit the B.C. Lions (7-7).
