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Stampeders player is brutally honest about teammate's 'stupid play' in Grey Cup (VIDEO)

Rob Williams
Rob Williams
|
Nov 28 2017, 2:58 am
Stampeders player is brutally honest about teammate's 'stupid play' in Grey Cup (VIDEO)

Tell us how you really feel.

Reporters were probably expecting cliche answers when they asked Stampeders receiver Marquay McDaniel about one of the plays that cost Calgary the Grey Cup on Sunday.

Instead, they got brutal honesty.

With the Stampeders up eight points and driving towards Toronto’s end zone with under five minutes to go in the fourth quarter, one lapse in judgement changed the entire complexion of the game.

Stamps receiver Kamar Jorden fumbled the ball at the four-yard line and the Argos capitalized. Cassius Vaughn picked up the ball and returned it 109 yards for a touchdown.

Jorden didn’t have two hands on the ball. His focus should have been on ball security, not breaking a tackle. His team paid the price.

Instead of being up 11 points or more, after a successful two-point conversion, the game was tied.

It was undoubtedly the most regrettable play of the game, and McDaniel didn’t try to sugarcoat it.

“Where are you going? You’re in traffic, put two hands on the ball,” a candid McDaniel told reporters in the locker room. “Go down, at worst, you get a field goal right there. I just don’t get it, honestly. It is what it is.”

Asked by a reporter if he could chalk it up to a teammate trying to make an extra effort:

“No. No. We don’t need extra effort right there. The ball is the most important at that time of the game.”

Well, then.

Here’s part of McDaniel’s comments, caught by a CFL camera:

Jorden, for his part, was gutted.

The 28-year-old was having a great game before the fumble. He led his team in receiving yards, with 117, to go along with a touchdown catch.

Credit to him, he owned up to his mistake.

“I just had to be smart with the ball,” Jorden told reporters. “I should have had two hands on it and I let it get away from me.

“We were in a position to win the game. It hurts, man. It sucks. At the end of the day, I’ve got to be better with the ball, I’ve got to be smarter with the ball. The fumble was a big time fumble, and I look at it like I cost our team the game.

“I let my team down and I got to deal with the consequences.”

While many people saw McDaniel’s comments as throwing a teammate under the bus, the 33-year-old later clarified his feelings on Twitter.

Upset two years in a row in the Grey Cup, this will be a tough game to recover from. It should be an interesting offseason for the Stamps.

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