Calgary Stampeders get wakeup call with beatdown from Ottawa Redblacks

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There are excuses and explanations.

The Calgary Stampeders (3-4) were playing their second game in five nights and had to fly across the country to Ottawa for Friday night’s tilt against the Redblacks (5-2).
All of that is going to make it hard to win a football game.

But there’s no sugarcoating what happened.

The Stampeders got beat and they got beat bad.

They were out-classed everywhere on the field and beaten in all three phases.

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The final 33-6 scoreline really did tell you everything you needed to know.

And if you’re looking for positives, well, you won’t find them here.

They got dusted, plain and simple. They didn’t show nearly the fight that was needed if they were going to give the Redblacks a game.

Now, there are completely reasonable and valid explanations for why the Stampeders weren’t at their best on Friday night and the reality is that the Redblacks have emerged as a true contender this season.

One loss doesn’t define these Stamps, just like their impressive win over the B.C. Lions last weekend only told us so much about them.

But if we take this game on its own and ignore the larger narrative, the reality is that their performance against the Redblacks meant they never had a chance.

In all three phases, they were bested.

Let’s start with special teams, because we never do that.

The Stamps were actually pretty decent in their own return game, but allowed a back-breaking third quarter touchdown to Kalil Pimpleton that put the already lopsided game completely out-of-reach – at least Rene Paredes was good, though, he went 2-for-2 on field goals.

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Offensively, it was pretty rough.

The natural tendency among some fans is to always pin that on the quarterback, but Friday night does not fall on Jake Maier’s shoulders. He had little-to-no time to step back and find his receivers, as a well-below-par performance from the o-line led to four sacks for the Redblacks.

Maier completed 20-of-27 passes for 136 yards and no touchdowns. Those numbers certainly aren’t great, but again, he just didn’t get the protection he needed to make plays happen.  It only made sense to pull him near the end of the game and give

The run-game didn’t provide much relief, either, with Dedrick Mills running for 43 yards on nine carries – the Stamps had no choice to go away from their ground attack once they were down, to be fair.

But the Stamps gave up four sacks. That might be the most telling stat of the evening when it comes to the offence.

On defence, though, it wasn’t much better.

Even after Redblacks running back Ryquell Armstead was ejected in the first half and they were left without a true ground option, they still never struggled to move the ball.

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Dru Brown was excellent at QB for the Redblacks, completing 30-of-37 passes for 325 yards and a touchdown, and comfortably picked apart the Stampeders defence with seeming ease.

So where were the positives? This writer is struggling to find them.

It was men against boys on Friday night, and while the Stampeders didn’t have a single full practice this week because of a combination of the CFL schedule and the forest fire smoke that enveloped the city, you’d still have wanted to see more from them than what they showed on the field.

These Stamps remain a work-in-progress. At times, frustratingly so.

This game should probably be evaluated in isolation. The Stampeders are better than what they showed on Friday night.

But that doesn’t mean the performance should be ignored. It wasn’t good enough.

They had to deal with some difficult circumstances, but all anyone wants is to see that they can handle adversity.

On Friday, they didn’t. Not even a little bit.

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