Calgary, AB– For a second consecutive season, your BC Lions are going home after a convincing playoff loss to the Stampeders. Bo Levi Mitchell passed for 365 yards and three touchdowns- all of those majors in the first half- to lift the home side to a 42-15 victory and a trip to next Sunday’s Grey Cup against the Ottawa REDBLACKS. Mitchell and the Stamps erased any questions of rust by kicking things off with a three-play, 57 yard touchdown drive to give them an 8-0 lead. Unlike most of the season, Jonathon Jennings and the Leos’ offence couldn’t come up with a quick counter punch and they fell behind the eight ball quickly.
“We just came out flat and didn’t respond,” Jennings said. “They made plays on their side of the football and they didn’t. We’re mad at ourselves for not playing better. For whatever reason, we just weren’t electrified as always.”
Mitchell added second quarter TD strikes to Marquay McDaniel and DaVaris Daniels before Jennings threw an interception to Jamar Wall that was returned 32 yards for a score. It gave Calgary a 32-0 lead at the break and all but killed the Lions’ hopes of getting back to the big game for the first time since 2011.
Travis Lulay replaced Jennings to start the second half and engineered a nifty nine-play, 95 yard drive that was capped off by a Manny Arceneaux touchdown catch. It was all they could muster until a late score by Chris Rainey in the final seconds. Jennings returned to the game after Lulay threw an end zone interception to Glenn Love, which killed the Leos’ third quarter momentum.
“At halftime, I felt it would be important to go out and try and get a spark,” GM/head coach Wally Buono said. “I thought Travis gave us a spark. If we scored on the interception I probably would have kept him in. It was also important for us to try to get Jonathon back in the game to make sure he didn’t leave 2016 with a bad taste in his mouth.”
Although it was not a banner night for the defence, Solomon Elimimian and Adam Bighill were at their usual top form, leading the unit with eight and seven tackles respectively.
For Buono and company, the offseason has officially begun and much time will be spent trying to figure out how to get one step closer in 2017.
“As I told the club, I was proud of what they’ve accomplished, what they’ve become. Obviously we weren’t happy about today. To take today and let it be a whole season, that’s not fair to them either. They’ve done a lot of good things, they’ve played a lot of good football, exciting football. Today we just played a better team.”
Wally Buono
Calgary will play in the Grey Cup for a second time in three years after winning it all at BC Place in 2014, a 20-16 victory over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
Key Numbers
531– The total number of yards put up by the Stampeders’ potent offence.
13.8– Average yards per completion for Mitchell.
0– Number of field goal attempts for Paul McCallum in the 2016 playoffs. The good news is he remains perfect in the post-season as a Lion, 36-for-36 to be exact.
Bake’s Takes
Mitchell proved why he should run away with the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player Award on Thursday night. His decision to exploit the Lions’ secondary at every opportunity proved to be the difference in the first half. Not many QB’s at any level can engineer a 93-yard touchdown drive and followed it up with a 76-yard strike just moments later.
Remember the October 29th win in Saskatchewan where the Lions’ recorded seven sacks and we referred to it as the perfect template to success? Sunday was the polar opposite. Mitchell had way too much time in the pocket to make plays and the end result was zero sacks. That’s when the Stampeders’ pivot is most dangerous.
Line of scrimmage, speak of the devil, was the key. The Stampeders were able to pound the rock with Jerome Messam who averaged six yards per carry. During the first half eruption, the Lions’ run stoppers did not have much of an answer to Calgary’s ground attack
Excuse us for having our glasses half- full, but with time will come perspective. This was a 7-11 team last year and not many pundits were picking them to improve that total by 5 and earn a home playoff game before battling it out in the Western Final. They have their quarterback, an excellent and dynamic group of receivers, a solid running game and some playmakers on defence. Free agency serves up no guarantees, but this organization will break down this game for a long time and figure out what they have to do to be at the Stampeders’ level.
A personal thank you to all of our fans who have read and viewed our online content this season. It was a rather new experiment to send our crew on the road and deliver all kinds of stories, whether game-driven or featured, for BCLions.com The offseason will bring even more story opportunities and we cannot wait to continue this ride!
Matt Baker:mbaker@bclions.com