B.C. bounces Stamps to the brink (& four other thoughts)

Photo courtesy: Paul Yates/ B.C. Lions

A few weeks ago, Stampeders’ head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson lamented that every time his team needed a win to build momentum or begin to progress, they lost.

This game against the Lions distilled the season trends into 60 minutes, as the Stampeders fell 32-15 with the score heavily flattering the hosts.

Here’s what I saw from my living room.

Maier checks it down

Jake Maier completed 19-of-27 pass attempts for just 164 yards. That averages out to just 8.63 yards per completion and 6.07 yards per attempt.

By comparison, his opponent on the night, Nathan Rourke, went 20 of 24 for 214 yards, which is 10.7 yards per completion and 8.9 yards per attempt. At halftime, the TSN panel asked if Rourke should be pulled in favour of Vernon Adams Jr. due to poor performance.

Looking league-wide, only Maier and McLeod Bethel-Thompson are averaging less than eight yards per completion among established CFL starters.

This was made even more glaringly apparent when Matthew Shiltz entered the game and threw his first passes of the 2024 season, going four-of-five for 99 yards and a touchdown against the league’s worst pass defence.

Granted, this was a garbage-time performance in the final minutes of a game that was virtually decided, but one does have to wonder what would have happened if Shiltz wasn’t injured for more than half the games played so far.

Maier’s short range is absolutely a combination of play-calling from the coaching staff and decision-making by the Calgary pivot, but which side of this scale hangs lower may no longer matter. His contract expires at the end of the year and given this season’s results, he may not be back in a Stampeders’ uniform for 2025.

Filling the holes

The Stampeders have been the worst team in the league when it comes to stopping the run, with teams routinely putting up season-best numbers against the Red and White.

However, in this contest, the Stamps managed to keep a good running back down, as William Stanback could only muster 50 yards from 15 carries. That represents just over half the average carry that the Stamps have allowed this season.

There has been a rotating cast of players along the defensive line this season. New faces have been signed and are on their way into the lineup in an effort to put any kind of pressure on opposing quarterbacks. The team managed three sacks in the first half last night and limited Rourke to just 23 yards rushing.

Turnovers turn the tide

This game was close through three quarters.

The Stampeders surrendered just a single field goal in the first three stanzas, one of which came from a fumble recovery that put B.C. close to the red zone on the first Stampeders’ drive of the game.

It was the first of four turnovers for the Stampeders on the day and two others went back for touchdowns, giving the opposition — who won by 17 points — a direct 20-point advantage. On the flip side, the Stampeders secured zero takeaways, which dropped their already league-worst turnover ratio to -20 on the year.

Maier was guilty of one interception, throwing the ball right to Mathieu Betts, who played the angles and outran Maier to the endzone.

The next offensive play was a screen pass, batted down, ruled a lateral, and returned for a touchdown by T.J. Lee, who became the first CFL player to score while wearing a Guardian Cap on his helmet.

Certain replays looked as though the pass was going forward and was not a lateral, but those were either not available to the CFL Command Centre or weren’t conclusive enough to overturn the play.

It seemed to be a feature of the CFL’s new policy to not blow dead a marginal call and let the Command Centre fix it if necessary, which was a reaction to a play earlier this year that also cost Calgary a touchdown.

This would work fine if the ruling on the field wasn’t the deciding factor in close calls, but right now it will always favour the scoring team.

Paredes doesn’t get a chance

Rene Paredes has never missed a game in his 13-year career, suiting up for 226 consecutive contests since stepping in for an injured Rob Maver for the second game of the 2011 season. Since then, he has become a first-ballot Hall of Famer and is among the game’s most accurate kickers.

However, this game against the Lions was an anomaly, as Paredes did not have a single field goal attempt. This was just the ninth time in 226 games that Paredes didn’t attempt a three-pointer.

With two convert kicks, he tied his fourth lowest-scoring career effort. He had just a single point from converts in games in September 2011 and another in August 2019. His only game without any field goal or convert attempts was on October 10, 2015, but he did still manage a point with a 79-yard kickoff rouge in a 15-11 loss to the Edmonton Elks.

He has never been held scoreless.

The season in a nutshell

Too many turnovers lost without any gained, a short-form passing attack that never looked downfield until it was too late, and errors that were incredibly costly on the scoreboard.

That paragraph above should be listed as the cause of death for the Stampeders’ 18-year playoff streak, which may have ended by the time you read this.

Should the Stampeders somehow stay alive in the playoff chase heading into next week, it would be only a sliver of a chance to make it while playing their provincial rival Edmonton Elks at McMahon on Thanksgiving weekend.

Serve up a turkey there and this franchise may be in for a titanic shift at every level.

Ryan Ballantine
Ryan Ballantine is a lifelong Stamps fan and host of the Go Stamps Go Show Podcast. He has been covering the team since 2008.