CALGARY — The Calgary Stampeders announced on Wednesday that special teams coordinator and assistant head coach Mark Kilam, defensive coordinator Brent Monson and defensive line coach Juwan Simpson would not be retained for the 2025 season.
It appears to me that the Stamps are cutting off the extremities while leaving the torso intact. I’m on board with those calling for Dickenson to give up at least his coaching duties. In fact I think it would be best if he was gone entirely, but as I’m not a Stamps fan I will leave it up to them to weigh in. I can say from an outsider point of view that if Dave stays on in his current role that will make it easier for the rest of the Western teams to make the playoffs next year.
Quite surprised to see Kilam axed. He’d been there a long time and it didn’t seem like special teams was a problem area. At least from the outside. Looks like they’re setting up brother Craig to take over STC…
I am surprised by Killam being let go, but not Monson or Simpson. Calgary’s defence was pretty much the worst in the league (other than the secondary, which was in the top 3 or 4). Calgary had almost no pass rush from the D-Line, and seemed to stick to zone defences even when being picked apart play after play. I think it was telling when Mike Rose (DT, and CFL Western all-star) said “I did what I could with what I was given” during his year-end interview with the media. As for special teams, Calgary’s special teams - a strength of the team over the last decade - has degraded a great deal in the last few years. In the last couple years we’ve given up a number of large returns, including 5 or 6 TD returns. The punting game was dead-last in the league in terms of net punting average, the coverage teams were mediocre, there were a lot of penalties against calgary on Special Teams, and really the only bright spots were Peyton Logan and Rene Paredes.
You knew someone had to take the fall. Great coaches have touble being the head coach and GM. Maybe the solution here was to send Dave back to coaching and fire him from the GM position. Even Wally went downhill when he did both.
I agree, Dickenson should probably just coach. I’m waiting, however, to see if they implement a different structure like some other teams have where there’s a head coach and GM, but most of the GM duties are actually done by an assistant GM. The run defence was so bad this year, Calgary gave up 200 yards + on the ground several times, and was dead-last as a run defence, so cutting the D-Line coach and the D-Coordinator makes sense to me as a Stamps fan. As for Dickenson, I still think he’s a good coach, although his flaws have been exposed. Another key aspect of the Stamps is their recruiting. In past years when we lost players to free agency there was always another great player behind them to take their spot. The Stamps’ recruiting has sucked pretty hard the last couple of years, which seems to fall at the feet of Hufnagel’s son, Cole. We’ll see what happens.
At the start of the year, Isaac Adeyemi-Berglund was interviewed on an Als podcast, and he mentioned in passing how impressed he was by the number of plays Noel Thorpe was able to install in training camp and then practice during game weeks. The number discrepancy he mentioned (between Montreal and Calgary) was pretty staggering. I too am not surprised that Monson got canned.
Wow, I didn’t know that. Thanks for that. Yeah, I’m not surprised either. I can’t think of a single game this year where Calgary’s defence really had the other team’s number the whole game. They played OK at times, but all the games Calgary won were close and Calgary lost four games (Winnipeg, Montreal, Ottawa, BC) because the defence couldn’t stop anything when Calgary had the lead late in the game.
I am also very surprised to see Kilam go. Calgary’s special teams unit has been top tier for many years now. Rene Paredes had a great year, kicking over 90%, Aaron Crawford is an elite long snapper, and we all know how dangerous Cody Grace can be (#1 Punter in 2023). The Coverage unit struggled this year, which led to Grace having the lowest net average of his career but it certainly wasn’t all on him.
They were also the most complete team at the returner position and somehow found star after star after star (Peyton Logan, Erik Brooks, BJ Emmons, Cam Echols, Kylin Hill, the list goes on).
Moving on; I hope that they promote Des Catellier to the Special Teams Coach in 2025. The 28-year-old grew up in Calgary and has been with the team as Quality Control / Special Teams Assistant Coach for 2 years now. He deserves a chance in my opinion.
I’d bet my money on another “Dickenson” getting the Special Teams spot. To be fair, Craig Dickenson had an excellent special teams group when he coached it in Calgary a decade ago. But yeah, I’d put my money on Dickenson getting that nod. I don’t think Grace punted well this season, he had many short kicks that resulted in No Yards penalties. Not sure what was up with him but he definitely seemed to miss a step. Also in the Ottawa game with the clock running, he left 12 seconds on the clock that he should have run off. If he runs those seconds off, Calgary wins, since Ottawa moved into field goal range with 1 second remaining on the clock before they kicked the winner.
I won’t deny his punting was not as good as last year but I truly do think that he is still an elite punter and would be more than willing to give him another year to get out of this funk.
By my count, Grace led the league in punts under 30 yards. I think next year I will count “No Yards” penalties against the Punters, not just the coverage units.
I agree with a lot already said here, not sure the correct changes were made, but those that made them must believe the org is strengthened by them. Will wait to see the results…
I agree with you. I don’t think they should punt him (apologies), but I’d like to see him get back to where he was in 22 and 23, where he was top 3 or better. I just think back to those Edmonton games where Jake Julien was punting 70+ yards for singles, or punting from his own 15 yard line with Calgary ending up on their 23 yard line. But when Calgary had the ball, and kicking in the same direction, Grace was average. Hopefully it was just a down year for him.