There are regular-season games left, then the postseason, and who can say for sure how November will play out? But this much is certain: the Calgary Stampeders have come to the crossroads.
Either they fashion a remarkable turnabout in the next 30 days, or the time will have come to dismantle their core, retool their lineup and start anew with fresher bodies. It's really down to that.
For proof, just look at how unsetting this season has been. At one point, Calgary was 6-2 and coming off a win over the defending Grey Cup champion Montreal Alouettes. Now, the Stampeders have lost four of their last five games and are limping down the stretch.
At one point, running back Joffrey Reynolds was an entrenched starter. So, too, was quarterback Henry Burris, the CFL's most outstanding player in 2010. In Friday's game against the Saskatchewan Roughriders, Reynolds checks back onto the roster after being benched for four games, while Burris takes a seat behind new No. 1 pivot, Drew Tate.
That a football team would scrub its ace running back and veteran quarterback in a month's span is a rarity, but that's how hard the Stamps have fallen. They're unhappy. They're desperate. They know the clock is ticking.
So how did things get this way?
Coaches like to say football is a team sport where one player's actions can affect an entire unit. Reynolds, a career workhorse, wasn't hitting the line of scrimmage with his usual speed and tenacity. Burris wasn't as comfortable in the pocket and began to force throws and make mistakes. (He's turned the ball over a combined 24 times on fumbles and interceptions.)
The case can be made that much of what's been wrong with the Calgary offence has to do with the departure of all-star left tackle Ben Archibald.
As head coach, John Hufnagel understood Archibald's importance as the blind-spot blocker for a right-handed passer and wanted to re-sign the CFL's most outstanding offensive lineman from 2010. As general manager, Hufnagel couldn't afford to pay Archibald what he wanted and lost him to free agency and the rival B.C. Lions.
That, combined with an injury to replacement tackle Edwin Harrison, hung a "under repair" sign on the Stampeders offensive line. From then until now, the line has had its good moments and bad but has yet to instill a belief it can get the job done when it counts. And that affected Burris, whose erratic play had slotback Nik Lewis complaining about not getting enough passes thrown his way, which eventually lead to Hufnagel questioning his team's mental toughness following a 55-36 beat down from the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
You get the picture; how things fell apart piece by piece.
Of course, the cheerleaders are still cheering because there's just enough time to right the ship and sail to glory. But that requires faith and the Stampeders have misplaced theirs along the way because it's not their rookies who are letting them down, it's their veterans.
Burris is 36 and now "hesitant," as his head coach described him the other day. Reynolds turns 32 next month. Receivers Romby Bryant and Ken-Yon Rambo are both in their early 30s. Lewis just turned 29. These are the players that should be leading the charge, but they're not. They're either benched or hurt or coming up short and that, too, has permeated the Stampeders' soul.
So if the ending is quick and painful, the house-cleaning needs to begin. The Stampeders won the Grey Cup in 2008. They arguably should have won another. But instead of getting closer to the championship game, they're right now headed in the opposite direction. They look suspect and vulnerable, undisciplined and prone to errors.
That wasn't supposed to be the story for the 2011 Stampeders, but the time has come because it's running out for this bunch.