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12 Audibles: How the Stampeders are dealing with Mylan Hicks' death
Welcome to another week of 12 Audibles, our regular look at storylines from around the CFL. This time around, we start with a look at how the Stampeders are handling the death of defensive back Mylan Hicks, who was fatally shot outside a Calgary nightclub Sunday morning.
1. Bo Levi Mitchell's comments on Hicks: There's a lot to process in the wake of Hicks' death, especially as this is such an unusual situation in the CFL. Tragedies have happened in this league, including former Lion and Blue Bomber Antonio Armstrong being shot by his son earlier this year, the suicide of Ticats' signee Adrian Robinson Jr. in 2015, the death of Hamilton linebacker Tom Pate after suffering an aneurysm in a game against Calgary in 1975, and the 1956 plane crash that killed five CFL players (and 62 people in total), but seeing a current player gunned down is incredibly rare. It's also clear that despite only being on the Stampeders' practice squad, Hicks made a major impression on his teammates. Consider what quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell and fellow defensive back Josh Bell said about him Sunday, as recounted by Danny Austin of The Calgary Sun:
“A lot of guys outside the locker-room didn’t know a lot about Mylan. That’s the one thing I ask and I beg of you guys … please make this story about Mylan,” Mitchell asked Sunday’s media horde at McMahon Stadium on Sunday.
...At practice for the Stamps, Hicks was a workhorse. Defensive back Josh Bell described Hicks as a ‘dog,’ saying he was relentless at practice, while Mitchell admitted that the 23-year-old’s work-rate could sometimes leave the QB feeling ‘pissed off.’
“He literally made plays,” Mitchell said. “He truly just cared about making the team better. I’m not just saying that, I really do mean that.”
...“I lost my little brother today,” Bell said. “I feel like to a degree I’m a father figure because I’m the old man on the team, so I lost a son today.
“I have a son at home and, just in reflection it hits you, that could’ve been me and I have a wife and a son and a little one on the way.”
Asked about the type of person that Hicks was, Bell described weekly nights out to the movies and dinners out at Calgary restaurants.
Mitchell admitted that he wasn’t best friends with Hicks, but they still shared good times together around the Stampeders locker-room, and Mitchell recalled an afternoon playing cards that brought a smile to his face despite Sunday morning’s senseless tragedy.
“The smile on his face when he thought he’d won and had the rules a little messed up in his head,” Mitchell said. “Now, you think back to seeing the guy smile.”
...“One thing we will do is celebrate his life,” Bell said. “We should take the positives and the good from him, from the experience of knowing Mylan Hicks.
“There was beauty in that person … his spirit, the essence of the person that he is should live on forever.”
From Austin's story, it sounds like the Stampeders are doing all the right things as an organization, including making grief counselling resources available for their players and working to get Hicks' mother a passport so she can visit. However, this is still going to be a long and tough process for them. As Mitchell told the Canadian Press, "We had the most devastating loss we could. ...Football doesn't even seem important right now." Someone who knows that that can be like for a team is...
2. Bob Hartley. The former Flames' coach was coaching the Atlanta Thrashers in 2003 when Dan Snyder was killed in a car crash shortly before the season. He spoke to Eric Francis of The Calgary Sun about what that season was like for him:
“At first I said, ‘Forget about hockey right now,’ ” said Hartley.
“The start of the season was approaching and we didn’t practise. I didn’t want to force anyone to do anything they weren’t ready to do. It was not a matter of wins and losses — it was a matter of life. At the start I was trying to be a voice of comfort than a voice insisting we need to win.
“(Thrashers GM) Don Waddell and the owners were unbelievable. As much as we wanted to win and we are paid to win at the NHL level, I don’t think at that time it really mattered. No one ever put an ounce of pressure on me for that.
“The more we got onto the ice, I felt being on the ice we could escape. It was bringing back the game we love so much. We discussed many times there’s nothing more that Danny would like than to be on the ice with us.”
...“It’s not like everyone wants to be hugged by a coach, especially at the pro level — some guys need it and some guys don’t even want to think about it,” said Hartley.
“I remember some guys were dealing with it pretty tough. Other guys were hanging in there. There were many individual and team meetings and the mood was very somber.
“I think Dave, along with John and the ownership, have lots of good people around them. You can’t hide from those situations and I think it’s good to be open-minded. It’s something you need to take minute by minute.”
The key takeaway from Hartley's comments may be that not everyone on the team is going to react the same way, and that players will need different kinds of and levels of support. This may be particularly difficult for the teammates who were with Hicks that night. Here's what Hicks' mother Renee Hill told the Sun about what happened:
Renee Hill says she’s heard through police and teammates that her 23-year-old boy was trying to defuse tension inside the Marquee Beer Market, after tempers flared between two groups who would confront each other in the parking lot a short time later — and that included an attempt to calm to alleged killer with a liquid peace gesture.
“He was always so selfless. Apparently Mylan even bought the person a drink and tried to embrace him when he was all riled up,” said Hill.
“He put his arm around him and tried to talk him down, saying ‘it’s not bad, it’s all okay.’
“He was trying to do the right thing.”
Renee and her husband Reggie, a former Detroit firefighter, aren’t surprised to hear the CFL defensive back would try and keep the peace, and then get his teammates out of harm’s way when it became apparent diplomacy wasn’t going to cool tempers inside the Macleod Trail bar early Sunday morning.
“I’m told he was looking out for his team members, trying to get them out when it was looking bad,” said Hill.
“He was the one telling them, ‘look, we need to go,’ and he’s the one who ended up catching it.’”
The Hicks story is terrible on so many levels, but it's also particularly rough to hear that this is the second tragedy his mother's experienced personally; her first husband was killed in a robbery-homicide 29 years ago when she was nine months pregnant. It's also awful to hear her say that "My worry about him was so much less with him up in Canada — before that, he was a young African American man living in Detroit, and I worried all the time." It's proof that tragedy can strike anywhere, and the CFL is far from immune.
On the field, the news has been much better recently for the Stampeders, especially following...
4. Saturday's incredible comeback. Calgary looked sure to lose to Winnipeg after falling behind with just 20 seconds left, but a remarkable final drive from Mitchell and a great 52-yard field goal from Rene Paredes gave them their 10th-straight victory. This was a game where the Bombers did just about everything right in the second half, and yet the Stampeders still found a way to win. That's frequently been the case for them this season, with their own fans even giving up at times before eventual comebacks. Calgary's 11-1-1 on the season and in firm control of the West, though, and they've excelled on offence, on defence and on special teams. Saturday's game showed that you can never write off the Stampeders, and that they'll be a threat down the stretch. We'll see how they do in Hamilton this coming Saturday. Speaking of Hamilton, how about...
5. Kent Austin's handclap suspension. During Saturday's loss to Saskatchewan, Austin got extremely frustrated over an unusual illegal procedure call and went to yell at an official, swinging his hand and making contact with the official's hand. Austin has said it was unintentional, but that still led to him getting fined and removed from the sideline for the Ticats' next game; however, that punishment seems lighter than it should be, especially when you consider Duron Carter's one-game suspension for making contact with an opposing coach. At least Austin's actions gave me an excuse to make this, though (Music is Fitz and the Tantrums' "Handclap":
That leads into a wider discussion of...
6. 6-7 Hamilton. At times this year, the Ticats have looked like one of the league's strongest teams, but their current record is not the most impressive. They're still very much in contention in the East, being just behind 6-5-1 Ottawa and ahead of 5-8 Toronto, but there's a lot they'll have to work on to make a big postseason impact. A big concern is the offensive balance. Hamilton has the most passing attempts in the CFL so far at 504, but has the fewest rushing attempts in the league at 174. That determination to throw the ball and keep throwing the ball makes it easier for defences to predict what they're doing, and it may be part of why the Ticats have 15 interceptions on the year, second-highest behind only Toronto, and a completion percentage of just 68.3 per cent, fourth-lowest in the CFL. Against the Riders, running back Michael Ford only carried the ball three times (for 11 yards), and the rest of their ground production came from substitute quarterback Jeremiah Masoli (32 yards and a touchdown on four carries).
It's obviously harder for Hamilton to run the ball with star RB C.J. Gable out, but both Ross Scheuerman (who missed this last game with injury) and Ford have shown some potential, and there's a strong argument that the Ticats didn't use Gable enough while he was healthy either. The Hamilton offence was more balanced in last week's win over Montreal, with Scheuerman rushing for 79 yards on 16 carries, but they went back to their pass-wacky ways against the Riders despite wet and cold conditions that might have favoured the ground-and-pound approach. Running the ball more might take some of the pressure off quarterback Zach Collaros and open up the passing game. Perhaps Austin will be able to see that now that he's forced to watch Saturday's clash with Calgary from the booth.
Interestingly enough, while the Ticats have been praised for their offence much of the time, it's their defence that's really led the way this year. That's not immediately obvious from a points-allowed perspective (where they're fifth, with 26.1 points allowed per game), but it's clear from a yards-allowed and yards-per-play standpoint; they allow 334.3 offensive yards per game and 5.9 yards per play, both league bests. That defence got another intriguing piece Wednesday when they traded rights to an unnamed negotiation-list player to Winnipeg for...
7. Johnny Adams. Picking up Adams is notable, as he was a West Division all-star in his CFL rookie campaign last season, posting six interceptions (tied for the league lead), nine pass knockdowns (fourth in the league) and 64 defensive tackles. However, he has faced some injury struggles this year, and has only appeared in five games and posted 21 defensive tackles, five special teams tackles, one interception and one fumble recovery. He's played a combination of field and boundary corner this year, sticking to the right cornerback position in the last two games regardless of if it was the wide side or not. Bombers' blogger Eric Matthews gave Adams a good grade two weeks ago against Toronto, but was less impressed with him this week against Calgary.
We'll see if Adams can find his old form in Hamilton, but he's just 27, so it seems there's a decent chance of him returning to prominence. We don't know who Winnipeg traded him for yet, but this also may be about giving recent acquisition T.J. Heath (picked up in the Drew Willy trade) more playing time. Speaking of Willy, that trade seems to be working out fine for the Bombers, especially given the continued strongperformance of...
8. Matt Nichols. Nichols was the less-hyped of the two former Eastern Washington quarterbacks who faced off in Saturday's game, but he's been having a very good season in his own right, and his play has been critical to the Bombers' turnaround. He didn't have a great first half against Calgary, and Winnipeg trailed 27-7 at the break, but he found his footing in the second half and led a comeback that put them up one with just 20 seconds to go. He finished the day with 27 completions on 44 attempts (61.4 per cent), throwing for 287 yards and two touchdowns with an interception. Those aren't exceptional stats, but they're not bad against a tough defence, and Nichols did enough to put his team in position to win against the league's best team before Mitchell's remarkable comeback. There's reason to think Nichols can keep leading Winnipeg to success. What about the man he replaced?
9. Drew Willy. The thought here was that the Argos paid way too high of a price for Willy (Heath, a first and a third), especially considering that the promising Dan LeFevour had already led them to a win. The Argos stuck with LeFevour two weeks ago against Winnipeg, and that looked like the right call despite the loss; he threw for 271 yards and four touchdowns and ran for 57 yards on 10 carries, and while he also threw two picks and the Argos lost, they opted to keep starting him this past week against Ottawa. LeFevour struggled more in that one, though, completing 13 of 19 passes for 72 yards with an interception, and Willy replaced him at halftime. While Willy wasn't mind-blowingly good either, he did play a bit better (16 completions on 24 attempts for 153 yards and a touchdown, 66.7 per cent), and Toronto announced Wednesday he'll get the start Sunday against Montreal.
The question is if this is really going to help the Argos. There's a reason Willy lost his job to Nichols earlier this year, and a reason the Bombers went from 1-4 with Willy as starter to a seven-game winning streak with Nichols under centre. Wins and losses aren't the best way to measure quarterbacks, of course, but Willy played quite poorly in many of those early games; while he averaged 294.6 passing yards per game with a 72 per cent completion rate, many of those good plays came in garbage time, and he missed countless throws while the games were still in question. He also had just four touchdowns and five interceptions while in Winnipeg.
Perhaps Willy will do better in Toronto; Argos' head coach Scott Milanovich has helped plenty of quarterbacks find great success. The question is if the 29-year-old Willy can get there, though. If he can, he might be able to even establish himself as their starter going forward given the uncertainties about Ricky Ray's health. But it's far from a sure thing he'll succeed. Something else that's far from a sure thing, but does have rising odds, is...
10. A crossover berth. When we discussed the chances of a crossover last week, the Argos looked in decent position to hold off the Eskimos given their easier remaining schedule. Since then, though, Edmonton beat the tough B.C. Lions, while Toronto fell to Ottawa. If the season ended right now, the 6-7 Eskimos would cross to the East and take that third and final playoff spot from the 5-8 Argos. All isn't lost for Toronto, of course, as they only have to tie in record to get in (Edmonton would have to be better) and they're still not far from second or first, but the crossover barometer is rising. However, the Eskimos won't get reinforcements from...
11. Willie Jefferson. Jefferson was a force at defensive end for Edmonton last year, posting six sacks, three forced fumbles and 24 tackles in 18 regular-season games and helping the Eskimos to the Grey Cup. He parlayed that (and a strong 2014 campaign) into a NFL deal with Washington, but was cut earlier this offseason. Many thought he might return to Edmonton, but instead Jefferson opted to follow his old coach, signing with Chris Jones' Saskatchewan Roughriders Wednesday. This could be a very nice move for the Riders; their pass rush has been poor this year, and their 16 sacks are last in the league. Jefferson is just 25, and he may be a force for them for years to come. Speaking of a force, a growing one on the CFL landscape is...
12. DraftKings. I spoke to DraftKings' executives in June about why they decided to form a partnership with the CFL, and part of their answer was to give Canadians and Americans who like their brand of one-week fantasy football a summer option before the NFL started. That seems to have worked pretty well. According to stats supplied by DraftKings, over 400,000 CFL teams have been drafted so far this year, and 25,000 unique players took part in the free $5,000 Fantasy CFL KickOff Classic in conjuction with the league. They've also paid out over $1 million to those playing their CFL games so far. That's obviously good for DraftKings, but it seems pretty good for the league as well; fantasy and daily fantasy games are a key way to drive interest, especially with younger viewers, and that kind of response suggests there is a strong appetite for the CFL.
Bonus: Joe Theismann. The former CFL and NFL quarterback will appear on the Audience Network's Undeniable with Joe Buck Wednesday night at 8. That's not easily viewable in Canada, but the clips sent out in advance show he had some interesting things to say. One particularly good response was on social media, how it's impacted him, and how it might have impacted him during his playing career:
"If social media existed with the group I played with, there's no telling who would be where today, there's no telling which prison we'd be in."
Some of that rowdiness may have come during Theismann's time with the 1971 Argos, who were almost as renowned for the fun they had off the field as the success they found on it. He makes a good point; while many CFL players have used social media well and for great things, whether raising funds or awareness or trolling credulous media, it's also got some others in big trouble. Players should be very aware of how they're using social media, and while the vast majority use it really well, it can still create problems for some if mishandled.
Thanks for reading 12 Audibles! Stay tuned to 55-Yard Line for CFL coverage all week long, and come back here next week for the next installment of this column. You can also contact me with feedback on Twitter or via e-mail. Enjoy the games this week!
