Landry: Argos Finding Solace In Each Other After Tough Loss

DON LANDRY – ARGONAUTS.CA COLUMNIST

TORONTO – I won’t suggest that it’s possible to eat your way out of being down in the dumps.

However, I would suggest it ain’t necessarily a bad idea to have it as part of your strategy, especially if it helps you stoke up the furnace as you prepare for your next game.

“We did all you can eat ribs last night,” began Argos’ offensive tackle Chris Van Zeyl. “It was a pretty large group, mostly the linemen. We even had some of the DB’s out there.”

With the team opting to stay in Calgary this week rather than fly home after Saturday night’s disappointing loss, the Argos are hunkering down in a city that is providing them with warm hospitality, even if its football team did not.

“I’ll tell you what,” continued Van Zeyl. “They ran out of ribs. I am not even lying. The manager came up and apologized and actually started bringing out brisket and chicken wings.”

Comfort food aside, it’s not that the sixth-year Argo lineman is in a happy place. While the bonding episode provided a lighthearted touchstone for the team’s extended stay in Alberta, the ‘Collapse in Cowtown’ does more than linger.

Van Zeyl groaned loudly when asked how he’d slept the night of Toronto’s 40-33 loss.

“It was horrible,” he moaned.

“Absolutely,” was receiver Jason Barnes’ response when asked if he’d had the same experience.

Trying to settle down after watching a 26-point lead against the best team in the CFL evaporate wasn’t easy. The Argos were on the way to their biggest win of the season, so far, one that could have ignited an ascent in the win column. They were certain they had the Stampeders hog tied and helpless at halftime.  When Calgary burst from their ropes and rolled to a comeback win it left Van Zeyl, Barnes and the rest of the Double Blue tossing and turning.

“That’s all you could think about,” Van Zeyl said of trying to calm his mind and catch some shuteye. “I don’t know how much I slept. You want to just keep watching the game and figuring out what happened and at what point.”

He’d had a personal movie running over and over again in his mind. With the Stampeders mounting their second half comeback, the Argonauts were trying to stem the tide and might have been cooking up a little drive that could do just that, when Van Zeyl was flagged for clipping. Instead of second and short, it was second and an acre. The Boatmen punted a play later and the Stamps kept moving.

“That was like a stake in my heart because I know we were turning the tide and I felt like we had ’em. That penalty that I took was horrible. That’s the kind of thing you think about after those games. Those plays where you didn’t do the right thing. You keep on replaying those things in your mind. It tears you up, really, for a little while.”

With a record of 3 and 8 and the formidable B.C. Lions next on their schedule this Friday night, Van Zeyl, Barnes and the rest of the Argos must now navigate the tricky minefield of using Saturday night’s meltdown as motivation, while keeping it from eroding confidence.

There are different ways to accomplish that and every player has a different way to cope with balancing what’s ahead with the ugly memories in the rearview mirror.

“Nobody’s saying anything about (the loss in Calgary) but it’s in the back of everybody’s mind,” assures Van Zeyl. “It gives you a little bit of a fire moving into this week. I think that’s the way a lot of these guys are approaching it.”

Barnes backs that up, admitting that he’s still wrestling with the ghosts of Saturday night. Doesn’t matter that the third-year Argo had a heck of a night at McMahon Stadium, with 6 receptions for 116 yards and a touchdown. Lose like that and it’s the things you didn’t do that stay top of mind.

“It still bothers me,” he said. “Little things I did (wrong) and some of the things we did as a team, it was on my mind this whole week in practice, in meetings.”

Afforded a few nights to work it out of their system, the Argonauts now try to turn the page and focus on winning a football game in a city where that hasn’t happened since 2002. In meeting the league’s premier pass defence, Toronto’s air game will have to find a way to keep the momentum. In the wreckage of last Saturday night there was still evidence enough that the injury-plagued unit might be returning to form.

From those statistics – quarterback Ricky Ray completed 33 of 38 pass attempts for 338 yards and 4 touchdowns – an optimistic tone can be distilled. Barnes, for one, sees it, even if he does temper it with cold, hard reality.

“I don’t believe in moral victories. Either you win or you lose,” he said, before adding: “I don’t think our record reflects our team. We’re better than our record.”

Van Zeyl is bullish on his teammates, pointing to the Grey Cup win in 2012 as an example of how a season can turn. While that team struggled – not as much as this edition, granted – through a major chunk of the regular season, it caught fire in October and hoisted the big mug at the end of November.

“I’m really excited with our potential,” Van Zeyl says. “I think you saw a glimpse of it in the first half of the last game. But there’s still stuff to learn from and stuff to build off of.”

“You haven’t seen our best yet,” he continued, repeating it for emphasis. “You have not seen our best yet.”

Barnes is hopeful too, while keenly aware of what is holding his team back. Keenly aware of what caused them to let it slip away last weekend.

“Ball security. Stupid penalties. Things that we can control. We’re still getting away from that. We haven’t grasped that yet. I don’t like comparing this team to the past but we just didn’t make those mistakes like we are now.”

That’s where last Saturday night’s crusher might finally provide the Argonauts with a lesson that really resonates.

“I hope we can use it as motivation because I know that one stung a lot of people,” said Barnes.

Both Barnes and Van Zeyl agree that staying out west this week is a good thing for an Argonauts team trying to put that bad loss in Calgary behind them. Had they headed back to Toronto for a week of practice before jetting over the Rockies to meet the Lions, they’d have missed out on the bonding exercise in which they’re currently immersed.

“There’s guys that live in Burlington, there’s guys that live up in Uxbridge, there’s guys that live in downtown Toronto,” said Van Zeyl of the team’s wide ranging home bases in the Greater Toronto Area. “We’re spread out all over the place.”

Due to that geographic sprawl, players head into practice, then scatter, with no real focal point for off-work socializing.

This week will provide them with that, and Barnes is a fan.

“These kinds of trips, they build team camaraderie,” he said. “You’re going to hang out with a lot of guys you don’t normally hang out with, for an extended period of time. I definitely think these long road trips are good for teams overall.”

Not so much with the all-you-can-eat scene for Barnes, though.

“Really just staying off my feet. A lot of Netflix nights. Strictly football and strictly relaxation,” he said.