Bo Levi Mitchell extends 4 years with Stampeders

[WestCoastJoe]

http://www.ottawasun.com/2015/03/04/wil ... nce-evolve

Will Bo Levi Mitchell help the Calgary Stampeders offence evolve?

By Scott Mitchell, Calgary Sun

First posted: Wednesday, March 04, 2015 08:47 PM EST | Updated: Wednesday, March 04, 2015 09:06 PM EST

Mitchell John Hufnagel, seen here keeping a close eye on first-year starter Bo Levi Mitchell during Grey Cup week last November, could open up his offence as his quarterback matures. TODD KOROL/REUTERS

There’s no doubting a balanced offence is always the best offence.

No one is going to dispute that.

With Jon Cornish in the backfield, similar to Joffrey Reynolds before him, the Calgary Stampeders have been as run-first as it gets in the Canadian Football League during GM/head coach John Hufnagel’s seven-season tenure.

But Bo Levi Mitchell and his group of talented receivers could start to swing the pendulum back the other way.

With Cornish, 30, coming off an injury-plagued 2014 season and Mitchell showing he could make plays as well as manage the game and take care of the football, would anyone be shocked if the Stampeders went to the air more as Mitchell continues to develop and enters his prime years as an athlete?

Offensive co-ordinator Dave Dickenson, who’ll take over for Hufnagel on the sideline in ’16, wasn’t pulling punches when it comes to evaluating Mitchell, who signed a long-term deal that will keep him Red & White until the age of 29, and his future.

“We really feel like he will be the best player in the league soon,” Dickenson said. “It’s our job to keep working with him, keep him hungry, keep adapting to what teams do, and for him to give us that four-year commitment,

I thought, shows you the type of guy he is.”

So ... about that offensive gameplan changing.

Hufnagel doesn’t envision a major philosophical shift.

Neither does Dickenson.

But both men have a knack for maximizing personnel, rather than stubbornly trying to fit square pegs into round holes, meaning Mitchell could simply force their hands with execution.

“We have a philosophy that we don’t want the quarterback to just do everything every game because we feel like it’s harder to keep that guy healthy,” said Dickenson, who has clearly taken note of quarterbacks going down all over the CFL the past two or three seasons. “We’ve committed to a system, we’ve committed to a plan, and we do try to let the defences take something away and we feel confident we can execute the other side of that.”

Added Hufnagel: “I think one of the keys to be consistent on offence is to have a well-balanced offence,” the two-time Grey Cup-winning GM/head coach said.

“I don’t see our overall game-planning changing. We’ll take what the defence gives us and that’s what we’ve always tried to do.”

Taking what the defence gives them. That’s the key.

The Grey Cup gameplan hints at the Stampeders starting to feel more comfortable handing Mitchell the keys to the offence and putting more on his 25-year-old shoulders, as evidenced by his 25-of-34 for 334 yards passing exploits, while Cornish carried just nine times against the stout Hamilton Tiger-Cats front seven.

The matchup dictated the gameplan and Mitchell responded with an MVP performance in which redzone execution, or lack thereof, was the only misstep.

The Stamps threw the football 529 times (29.4 attempts per game) in ’14, good for second-last in the CFL to the Darian Durant-less Saskatchewan Roughriders.

They ran it 411 times (22.8 rushes per game), second-most in the CFL behind only the Riders.

In ’13, with Kevin Glenn at the helm for the majority of the season, they threw the football the fewest times in the league and rushed 414 times, second-most in the league, during Cornish’s sublime MOP campaign.

A Hufnagel-guided QB has never thrown the ball 600 times in a CFL season, with Henry Burris coming the closest in ’08 (591 attempts), while Dickenson topped out at 549 passes during his playing career.

With his talent, work ethic and reputation for being the first guy in the building and the last guy out, no one should be betting against Mitchell changing that by staying one step ahead as defences attempt to catch up and exploit his weaknesses.

But that’s the challenge, and the evolution of the Stampeders offence depends on it.

“In the second year, defensive co-ordinators will have a little bit better of an understanding how to defend a certain quarterback, and those are the type of things that he’ll have to overcome and we will have to overcome as a football team,” Hufnagel said.​

[WestCoastJoe]

http://www.calgarysun.com/2015/03/03/ca ... 18-sources

Calgary Stampeders sign Bo Levi Mitchell through to 2018

By Scott Mitchell, Calgary Sun

First posted: Tuesday, March 03, 2015 09:33 AM MST | Updated: Tuesday, March 03, 2015 06:35 PM MST

One of Bo Levi Mitchell’s best attributes is that he’s calm, cool and collected.

Now, he’s calm, cool and collecting the cash.

But not as much as you’d think a 25-year-old Grey Cup MVP coming off a championship in his first season as the starter would pull in.

And he’s fine with that.

Actually, it was his idea when he approached the Calgary Stampeders about tearing up his old deal, which ran through the 2016 season, and replacing it Tuesday with a four-year pact that will keep him in Red & White through the 2018 campaign.

“The first thing I told them is, ‘I don’t want to be the top-paid guy in the league, I don’t want to be overpaid. I want a contract that teammates can look at me and look at my contract and respect it and say what he’s making is what he’s worth,’” Mitchell said Tuesday morning at McMahon Stadium, announcing the deal on his 25th birthday.

“I gotta be honest, there’s not another city I’d want to play for in the CFL. I didn’t want to go to free agency in two years and test the market and get overpaid, which I know is probably contrary to most people’s beliefs in football. That’s just not what it’s about for me. I’m getting paid to do what I love and I don’t need to break the bank and I don’t need to take every penny the Stampeders have.”

While Mitchell, entering his fourth CFL season, doesn’t exactly have the tenure on his resume that some other quarterbacks around the league do, bringing the franchise its first Grey Cup since ‘08, generally looking like a veteran for the majority of his first season as a starter, and still having another level or two to ascend to gave him all the leverage he needed.

However, according to sources, Mitchell won’t be among the top-five paid quarterbacks in three-down football, taking a Tom Brady-esque hometown discount to help his bosses build a winner.

“Bo’s well-paid,” said Stampeders GM/head coach John Hufnagel, trying hard to stop smiling after getting the face of the franchise signed long-term. “It’s a fair contract, but it’s not the best contract. He’s not the highest-paid quarterback.”

Essentially, the old contract extension signed last January was a placeholder, one that would be discarded if Mitchell walked in and won the open quarterback competition last spring with veteran Drew Tate and show he deserved the label of franchise QB.

“It was something we kind of hand-shook about last year, I guess you could say,” Mitchell said. “It was kind of, ‘If you become the guy and you play the way we think you can play and it’s something you want to do, we want to lock you up long term.’ I think I had a good year last year and, I think, I can have a better year.”

It would be hard to script a better first season as the man for Mitchell.

He led the CFL with a 98.3 QB rating, starting 14 games and completing 264-of-417 passes (63.3%) for 3,389 yards, with 22 touchdowns and eight interceptions, in addition to tacking on 232 rushing yards and four TDs on the ground, as he showed the ability to make plays with his feet and not just his arm.

Of course, leading the Stamps to a 20-16 Grey Cup win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats was all sorts of icing smeared on the cake.

The new contract is an absolute coup for the franchise and the city, locking up a rising star who already calls Calgary home and doesn’t seem to have plans to leave anytime soon.

“I just think it gives us stability,” Hufnagel said. “It shows, not only to the fans, the city, his teammates, but to the whole organization, the commitment he’s made and how much he really enjoys playing in McMahon Stadium and wearing Red & White. He’s very determined to make it work.”

It also quells talk of Mitchell leaving for the NFL, at least temporarily.

If the next four years go as swimmingly as Year 1, Mitchell could test the waters south of the border at the age of 29 if he so chooses, and his contract also coincides with the expiration of the new CBA that was signed prior to the ’14 season.

“I looked at what age I’d be coming out after the two years in 2016, being 27,” Mitchell said. “It’s a good age to come out, it is, to try an NFL shot, but with zero NFL experience you’re most likely going to be relegated to a No. 3. If you get lucky enough, maybe a No. 2, but that’s mostly because you know somebody and I don’t know a soul in the NFL, other than players.

“I’m in a city that I love, I’m playing for a great football team with a great coaching staff and I, honestly, when it came down to it, I couldn’t see myself playing anywhere else.”​

[WestCoastJoe]

Amazing. Good for Bo. Good for the Stampeders. Good for the CFL. He is a not a die hard NFL wannabe. And he is wise too. In Calgary he is the guy. He is in a great situation with Calgary. Solid organization. Great coaching. Two quarterback gurus to guide him: John Hufnagel and Dave Dickenson.

Calgary is the flagship of the CFL. And Bo Levi Mitchell just might be its marquee player.

Calgary is setting the bar very high. Makes it tough for other teams to compete, but it does build the league, and raise the standard.

He approached them with the concept (extending, and for less than top dollar).

“I gotta be honest, there’s not another city I’d want to play for in the CFL. I didn’t want to go to free agency in two years and test the market and get overpaid, which I know is probably contrary to most people’s beliefs in football. That’s just not what it’s about for me. I’m getting paid to do what I love and I don’t need to break the bank and I don’t need to take every penny the Stampeders have.”

“Bo’s well-paid,” said Stampeders GM/head coach John Hufnagel, trying hard to stop smiling after getting the face of the franchise signed long-term. “It’s a fair contract, but it’s not the best contract. He’s not the highest-paid quarterback.”

“It was something we kind of hand-shook about last year, I guess you could say,” Mitchell said. “It was kind of, ‘If you become the guy and you play the way we think you can play and it’s something you want to do, we want to lock you up long term.’ I think I had a good year last year and, I think, I can have a better year.”

“I looked at what age I’d be coming out after the two years in 2016, being 27,” Mitchell said. “It’s a good age to come out, it is, to try an NFL shot, but with zero NFL experience you’re most likely going to be relegated to a No. 3. If you get lucky enough, maybe a No. 2, but that’s mostly because you know somebody and I don’t know a soul in the NFL, other than players.

“I’m in a city that I love, I’m playing for a great football team with a great coaching staff and I, honestly, when it came down to it, I couldn’t see myself playing anywhere else.”​

This is a great development for our league. Now we just have to find a way to compete with what the Stampeders have built.

[Toppy Vann]

It's also not lost on me that Bo could also be looking at the careers of two other Alberta QBs - Warren Moon and Jeff Garcia - as well as being coached by two former QBs who know that you need a balanced offence to win and they don't want the QB to have to it all alone. We saw that with Kevin Glenn's success there too. In BC he was tossed to the wolves.

I'd have to say that the Stamps are the best coached organization without internal philosophy conflicts in coaching like BC had with Dorazio and his schemes and thinking that led to unbalanced offences.

[TheLionKing]

Mitchell not among the top 5 of highest paid quarterbacks ?

[JohnHenry]

Mitchell not among the top 5 of highest paid quarterbacks ?

Travis $475k; Burris $450k; Durant $425k; Ray; Reilly; Mitchell $375? Collaros; Willy; Crompton.

[David]

Mitchell took less money (a la Tom Brady) in order to make the team around him stronger (with more room to sign players).


DH