Sting of OT playoff ouster lingers for Stamps

The Calgary Stampeders capped an uphill season with a valiant, but messy effort in a playoff exit. A healthier quarterback and more roster continuity is their goal for 2022.

“Nothing was easy. Nothing was smooth,” head coach Dave Dickenson said Monday. “Everything we did seemed to come at a cost, so that’s why, when you put that much investment into something, you kind of want a return on your investment and we were hoping to get more return in the playoffs.”

Less than a day after a 33-30 overtime loss to the host Saskatchewan Roughriders in the West Division semifinal, Dickenson said the season felt laborious and isolating at times because of measures to keep the COVID-19 virus out of the dressing room.

The pandemic wiped out the 2020 Canadian Football League season. While Dickenson lauded the league for treating the pandemic with more caution than the NFL, the coach hopes for a return to more normalcy next year

“We want to have a feeling of camaraderie,” Dickenson said. “We want to meet as a team, we want to have a chance to go have wings together. We want to do the things that make being part of a team, and a sport, special.

“I do believe 2022, we’ll be there. This year was a grind. We did everything we could to keep this thing rolling and stay in our bubble.”

A team that won three Grey Cups and played in three others between 2008 and 2018 was ousted in the West semifinal a second straight season.

Calgary (8-6-0) opened a CFL campaign shortened and delayed by the pandemic with a 2-5 record. The Stampeders rallied to win six of their last seven and finish third in the West.

Calgary’s weak start and resurgence aligned with losing quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell to a fractured fibula by Week 2, and his return to the lineup in Week 6.

But the 31-year-old Texan threw more interceptions (13) than touchdown passes (10) in a season for the first time in his career.

Mitchell managed pain in his throwing shoulder. He had off-season surgery on it in 2020.

“My arm is what makes me the person I am on the football field,” Mitchell said.

“I’d be in a great mood and all of a sudden I’d make a throw and it would hurt. It would just change my mood. That’s hard.”

Mitchell says more rehabilitation, not surgery, is the plan for his throwing arm.

Calgary wasn’t strong converting red-zone chances — 20 yards out from the goal line — into touchdowns with a 54 per cent success rate in 2021.

The Stampeders ranked sixth in the CFL in TDs averaging just under two per game.

The Stampeders’ turnover ratio of minus-8 ranked in the league’s bottom four clubs.

Mitchell threw for 285 yards, but zero touchdown passes and was intercepted twice in Sunday’s loss in Regina.

Division all-star kicker Rene Paredes, so reliable in the regular season with a league-leading 91 per cent success rate, faltered Sunday.

He missed three of eight attempts, including one from 35 yards.

His 47-yarder with 59 seconds left in regulation sent the game into OT, but booting a 44-yarder wide in extra time opened the door for Saskatchewan’s winning field goal.