When the Edmonton Eskimos needed to answer the bell, who better to ring it than Bell?
Making his first start this season filling in for injured John White, running back Shakir Bell paced the Eskimos to a 33-25 win over the Saskatchewan Roughriders at The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium Friday night.
The Eskimos improved their record to 5-4 with their third straight victory before a CFL season-high crowd of 37,168.
Bell was already over 100 combined yards early in the second quarter with a pair of instrumental plays that got the Eskimos off to a 22-0 lead. He finished the game with 138 rushing yards, 32 receiving yards for a combined 170 yards on 22 touches.
His 42-yard run, the longest by an Eskimos running back this season, set up a scrambling 31-yard TD pass from quarterback Mike Reilly to Derel Walker.
Then, Bell snagged a pass from Reilly and scampered into the end zone untouched from 15 yards out.
“First and foremost, I’ve got to give thanks to the offensive line,” said Bell, a healthy scratch in the team’s first eight games. “Those guys don’t get enough credit. They were blocking and making holes that anybody could have run through. I’m just grateful I got the opportunity to help us get a win.
“John is one of the best running backs in the league. I took some of the things he puts into his game and I applied it to my game. The O line was out there blocking their butts off, Calvin McCarty was out there blocking his butt off. Whenever I get out there, I’m going to make the most of my opportunity.”
Following a trend he started last week in Toronto, Reilly mixed up his receiving package, hitting seven different receivers for the second straight week while supplementing the running game with six carries for 45 yards.
Saskatchewan attempted to mount a third-quarter comeback as quarterback Darian Durant plunged in for a couple of one-yard touchdowns to close the gap to 22-19.
Bell then ripped off a 27-yard run on a drive that Reilly finished off with a diving seven-yard touchdown.
“I thought Shakir ran extremely hard,” said Reilly. “He’s got a low centre of gravity and made a lot of guys miss. Our offensive line was great. The good part of it was when Shakir broke off a big run, you could see (the receiving crew) were downfield making those blocks. The O line gets him the first five, the receivers got him the rest.”
Reilly does not hesitate to use all the weapons at his disposal, including his own legs.
“It’s good to be balanced,” said Reilly. “We spread the ball around. It was really good. We had a lull, for sure, in the third quarter. It wasn’t a case of us letting our foot off the gas, it was a question of our execution being a little off. We executed real well in the first half, it dipped a bit in the third, but most of the fourth quarter was back up. Our defence played great, too.”
Eskimos head coach Jason Maas seemed more than pleased that his team’s running game produced 183 yards.
“It’s nice to be able to do that against such a good run defence,” said Maas. “For us to go out there and do that speaks volumes about what (O line coach Mike) Gibson, Shak and the offensive line doing their job. It was a great performance on their part to be able to do that. We had some balance as well being able to pass it.
“I told the guys after the game to have a great first half, come back against adversity in the third quarter and come back in the fourth quarter to do it when it mattered speaks volumes about the type of team we have.”
The annual Labour Day series kicks off in Calgary Sept. 5.
“We’re looking forward to the matchup,” said Maas.
