Winnipeg Blue Bombers rookie quarterback Chris Streveler is making some impressive strides in his development with the team.
“That list has shrunk dramatically from week one to this week,” Blue Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea said this week (h/t CFL.ca). “As long as you’re not seeing repeated mistakes there is a lot of growth there.”
Streveler has made leaps since being a 3rd string signal caller in training camp.
“The thing I try to do is focus every single day on what I have to do that day to get better and help the team,” Streveler said. “It’s a day by day process for me, especially still being so new to the league.
“Every single day I think I have the opportunity to learn something new and pick something up that I didn’t know the day before or something I can improve on from the day before.”
As of now, Streveler carries a quarterback rating of 94.9, second best in the league, tossing for 429 yards and a league leading 6 touchdowns.
“He’s a very unique young man,” said Bob Nielson who was Streveler’s coach the last two years with the South Dakota Coyotes. “I’ve been a coach at the college level 25 years, coached a lot of very talented players. It doesn’t surprise me at all that Chris has hit the ground running and been able to provide an impact for the Blue Bombers’ program.”
“He immediately not just became a good player and a good quarterback, he became a tremendous leader,” said Nielson. “He is an exceptionally hard worker that went along with his talent as a quarterback.
“He’s a quicks study. He’s very football smart. If you show him something once he’s got it. He really is able to process information very quickly.”
Streveler has had to make an adjustment to the CFL since coming into the league.
“I didn’t know anything about the league,” he said. “I never really watched the game, didn’t know what a waggle was.
“When I got here it was pretty well all fresh.”
Streveler credits the lessons he learned from the early mistakes he made in his first game against Edmonton.
“Throughout the first game I am seeing different pictures and seeing different things and getting acclimated to the speed of an actual game,” he said. “I learned from the mistakes and learned from some things we did well.
“I think anytime you can get some game experience under your belt it makes you that much more ready to get into that experience again.”
Streveler is ready for Friday’s game against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
“It’s the overall experience of seeing different pictures,” Streveler said. “Every single day at practice I’m going against our defence and seeing the different ways they are playing and going to games and seeing how teams try to play us.
“Being around Canadian defences for a month I’m trying to soak up as much information as I can just to see all the different pictures and all the ways people are playing. That’s the thing I have to learn and get better at.”’