Stampeders fans in attendance for the team’s 80th birthday celebration could have been excused for looking at the program every time a play finished, wondering who it was that just made an impact on the field.
The new-look Calgary squad had an entirely reworked defence and many newcomers on offence when they took to the field against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Saturday night at McMahon Stadium.
A few hours later, the fans streamed out of the building in a state of optimistic euphoria, having seen their team score 38 points offensively and essentially shut down the vaunted Hamilton passing attack for the first three-and-a-half quarters.
All of that combined with a feeling that this should still get better, and the weight of the post-Covid era seemed a much easier burden to carry.
Here’s what I saw from high in Section I.
A seamless fit
Vernon Adams Jr. suffered none of the typical hiccups you might see in a quarterback’s first official game in a new system with a new club.
If you didn’t get to watch the game, you might think that 19 completions on 28 attempts with no touchdowns and two interceptions isn’t a great day at the ballpark. Those stats would surprise anyone who did see it in person.
Adams completed 67 percent of his passes and targeted multiple receivers, much like Jake Maier did when he was starring as the quarterback here. The difference between the two in this regard was the depth of the targets.
Every receiver averaged at least 10 yards per catch in the game, something that was rare previously. Dedrick Mills had the lowest average at exactly 10 yards, while Clark Barnes turned his four targets into 112 yards for a 28-yard average. Adams just missed another long ball to Tevin Jones with the wind at his back as it carried just too far for the pass-catcher to reel it in.
This isn’t to say the day was flawless by any stretch, but we are often prone to forgive an interception when there is a deflection or contact as the QB throws the ball — both of which happened on the second interception of the day. Adams was also under pressure on his first.
After the game, head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson said the offensive line struggled with their protection and gave credit to the Hamilton defence.
“(Hamilton) did a lot of different stuff. They were bringing six or seven guys and dropping guys out. It was tough.”
Mills hits a triple
In 2024, Dedrick Mills almost hit the 1,000-yard mark despite missing a portion of the season for personal reasons. A reasonable total but what was lacking in the stat category was finish, as he scored just a single touchdown all season.
It didn’t take long for Mills to match that mark with a one-yard plunge that capped off the team’s first offensive drive of the season. He would add another three-yard TD in the second quarter and finish off the trifecta with a third score in the fourth quarter, this time from five yards out.
Mills was awarded the game ball from Adams in the locker room, but he regifted it to the offensive line, saying, “They got me in the endzone three times. I had to give it to them. They earned it.”
Mills might have had a fourth score but instead, it was PJ Walker who got his first CFL touchdown with a one-yard QB sneak.
The game can turn in a second
In this case, it was a minute and fifty-two seconds, broken up by halftime.
It all started with a bad snap from Hamilton back toward their punter, who took off running after feeling Calgary’s pressure coming. Nik Constantinou looked like he might try and get a running kick away but was tackled by the Stampeders’ Gary Johnson Jr. at the Hamilton 48-yard line, well short of the marker.
Adams would need just five plays over the next 42 seconds to increase the lead and snuff out Hamilton’s momentum, which they had built on back-to-back field goals to draw within two.
The teams went in for halftime and immediately after the wheels fell off for the Ticats.
With the wind blowing strongly in their faces, the Stampeders lined up to start the second half. Rene Paredes kicked the ball, which hung up in the air long enough for yet another Calgary newcomer, Jeshrun Antwi, to jump up and try to recover it. It bounced around for a few moments before eventually being corralled at the Hamilton 13-yard line by Kelon Thomas.
Two plays later, the Stampeders were once again in the endzone, this time courtesy of Walker, and the score was 25-9, a deficit that the Ticats never recovered from.
Just keep it in front of you
The Stampeders DB group is short on experience and new defensive coordinator Bob Slowik did what he could to slow down last year’s passing yards leader, Bo Levi Mitchell.
Mitchell admitted after the game he had no idea what to really expect from the Calgary defence.
“You are playing a team that has multiple safeties, and they are trying to play robber coverages and lock guys while trying to play zones behind it,” he said. “You’re playing against a coordinator that hasn’t been a coordinator in however many years, so you are guessing what they are going to do. They had a good plan, and they did a good job.”
For the most part, the Stampeders seemed content to give up the underneath routes and take away the deep ball that Mitchell has long been known to throw.
Mitchell also threw the ball 50 times, a byproduct of an ineffective run game. The Ticats were held to just 52 rushing yards as a team on 14 attempts, which both Mitchell and his head coach Scott Milanovich said wasn’t good enough.
Under pressure
The unit that returned the most players from last season was the offensive line, though Bryce Bell has stepped in for the outgoing Seam McEwen. The consistency didn’t offer the pass protection the team might have hoped.
Adams was sacked twice, threw two interceptions while being hit, and there were four other tackles for loss on the day.
Flipping that around, the Ticats OL only allowed two tackles for a loss and zero sacks.
Those numbers likely aren’t sustainable for a whole season if winning is the aim and both sides of the Stampeders’ line of scrimmage could proudly say they won the rushing battle, but lost the passing skirmish.
Head East, young men
Next up for the Stampeders is a team that suffered some Week 1 growing pains — the Toronto Argonauts.
The Stampeders will look to take advantage of a club that suffered the post-championship vultures that Stampeders fans became accustomed to during their last run of success. Kickoff is scheduled for 4:00 p.m. EDT on Saturday, June 14.
