It was the same old story line for the undefeated Eskimos on Thursday at Ottawa.
They made big plays on offence and defence when they needed them the most, lost two more key players to injuries and racked up another win to open a season 7-0 for the first time since 1961.
The Eskimos defeated the reigning Grey Cup champion RedBlacks 27-20 at TD Place Stadium to become only the 13th team in CFL history to win each of their first seven games. The only Edmonton team to ever win more games off the start of a season was the 1955 Esks, who went 10-0 before losing a game.
“That was a hard-fought one, for sure,” quarterback Mike Reilly said about the game on the 630 CHED post-game show. “It definitely wasn’t pretty at times, but just has been the case all year, we got the job done when we needed to.”
Only three of the previous 12 CFL teams to start a season 7-0 went on to win the Grey Cup, but that’s the least of the Eskimos worries. Right now, they have to figure out how to offset the loss of all-star defensive tackle Almondo Sewell (upper body injury) and defensive end Marcus Howard (lower body), who was carried off the field with 21 seconds left in the game.
Reilly and the defensive line have been the rocks of the Eskimos foundation this season as players from all other positions have landed on the injured list. Edmonton has had 27 players spend at least one game on the injured list this season and had 20 players on the injured list last week alone.
They had only 34 players on the injured list in 2016.
The Esks currently have four linebackers, three defensive backs, three offensive linemen, two running backs, two receivers (and another one on the 46-man roster who didn’t play Thursday), a defensive lineman and four special teams players (including kicker Sean Whyte, long-snapper Ryan King and kick-returner Kendial Lawrence) on the injured list.
“The beauty of it is we’re seven games into this thing,” Reilly pointed out. “We’re going to start getting some of our original injuries healthy again. They’re going to start to slowly trickle in over the next month or two. When that happens, we’re going to be in very good shape because we’re going to have starters back who were starters for a reason and playing at a very high level and their backups are going to have some very good experience to draw on.”
The defensive line will be the next unit using the Next Man Up philosophy. It had three more quarterback sacks – Odell Willis (sixth), Da’Quan Bowers (fourth) and Euclid Cummings (third) – and a lot of pressures against Ottawa.
For Thursday’s game, the offensive line was completely overhauled, with 24-year-old Sherwood Park native David Beard (a former member of the University of Alberta Golden Bears) making his first CFL start at centre. Right guard Matt O’Donnell shifted to left guard, former right tackle D’Anthony Batiste moved over one position to right guard, newcomer Colin Kelly made his Eskimos debut at right tackle and Joel Figueroa returned to left tackle after missing the previous game with an injury.
“That game was won (Thursday) in the trenches,” Reilly said. “Our offensive line did a great job of giving me time to throw the ball and our defensive line put pressure on them and, ultimately, that was the difference.”
Reilly completed 27 of 38 passes for 384 yards and two touchdowns (giving him 100 in his CFL career), along with two interceptions. He also ran 11 times for 51 yards and scored a two-point convert as the offence maintained possession of the ball for 36 minutes and nine seconds.
“The only times I was getting hit in the backfield was when I was too slow on my decision-making getting the ball out of my hand,” said Reilly, who was impressed with the play of Edmonton’s makeshift offensive line. “In the pass protection, for five guys playing at different spots, that’s a tough ask of any group and they held their own all night.”
By throwing at least one touchdown pass in each of the last 17 games, Reilly broke the Eskimos club record, moving past former QBs Warren Moon and Tracy Ham. He also matched his personal best of eight straight regular-season wins from Sept.-Nov. 2015.
The Eskimos scored a touchdown on their first drive for the third game in a row, this time marching 92 yards on 10 plays. A block by Batiste allowed rookie running back LaDarius Perkins to take a screen pass 35 yards for the score.
“That first drive, that’s how you hope to start a game,” Reilly said. “We were just efficient.”
That wasn’t always the case the rest of the game as the Eskimos settled for four field goals from kicker Hugh O’Neill (from 20, 38, 21, 42 yards) before veteran Chris Getzlaf caught an eight-yard pass in the corner of the end zone to give Edmonton the lead for good five minutes into the fourth quarter.
“Ultimately, when we needed a touchdown the most, (Getzlaf) came down with it,” Reilly pointed out. “That was a good finish on that drive.”
After falling behind 13-0 in the second quarter, Ottawa closed the deficit to 16-13 by halftime and took a 20-19 lead midway through the third quarter.
The Esks then forced the RedBlacks to punt the ball on each of their next four series. After O’Neill missed a 49-yard field goal with 56 seconds left, cornerback Johnny Adams picked off a pass from Ottawa QB Trevor Harris at the Edmonton 17 for his first interception of the season to close out the game.
SHORT YARDAGE: Edmonton’s next game is 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Winnipeg against the 5-2 Blue Bombers, who thumped the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 39-12 on Saturday … It’ll be the first of four straight games against West Division opponents … With the sweep of Ottawa, the Eskimos have won 10 consecutive games against East Division opponents, including five this year. Only four teams, including the 1979-81 Eskimos, have had a longer inter-divisional win streak against East Division teams since 1961 … Rookie wide receiver Bryant Mitchell had seven catches for 114 yards (his second consecutive 100-yard game) while former Eskimo speedster Kenny Stafford, who returned to Edmonton this year, had a 70-yard pass-and-run play to set up the first-quarter field goal. He finished with three catches for 84 yards … Perkins rushed 16 times for 51 yards against the tough RedBlacks run defence … Explosive kick-returner Chris Edwards had 12 returns for 153 yards … Adams led the Eskimos defence with eight defensive tackles.