For most of the CFL season, the Eskimos could do no wrong.
Now they’re having trouble doing enough things right.
Five turnovers and 13 penalties for 128 yards proved to be especially costly on Friday when the Saskatchewan Roughriders shocked the Eskimos 54-31 in front of a CFL season-high 41,738 spectators at The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium.
“This was embarrassing tonight in front of our home crowd,” said linebacker Kenny Ladler. “We let a lot of fans down. Especially in the first half, everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong.”
The same Green and Gold team that overcame the disruption of a constantly changing lineup to become only the 10th CFL team to start a season 7-0 since 1961 has been unable to make the big plays when it needs them during the last two games.
Maybe playing with 73 different players through their first nine games (with 38 of them sitting out at least one game with an injury) has finally caught up to the Eskimos, who always seemed to be able to find a way to win during their first seven contests.
Now, back-to-back losses to the surging Winnipeg Blue Bombers (7-2) and Saskatchewan (4-4) have dropped Edmonton (7-2) into a tie for second place in the West Division with the Labour Day Classic home-and-home series against the 7-1-1 Calgary Stampeders next up on the schedule.
“There’s no need to hit the panic button right now,” said Ladler, who tried to do his part Friday by blocking a Saskatchewan field goal attempt, knocking a loose ball on a fumbled Roughriders punt return towards the end zone (where Cauchy Muamba recovered the ball for a touchdown early in the fourth quarter) and making three tackles, including two on defence.
“We’re 7-2. We took a bad loss. It’s football. It happens,” he continued. “How we respond to these losses is going to define the character of this team. Are we going to lay down and sob or are we going to pick ourselves up and get ready to get that next ‘W.’
“We’ve got to take this one as it is and we’ve got to learn from it and make sure that we’re ready for this next game because this next one is going to be big. It’s big just where the season is going right now, with (the standings) and everything.”
The first sign of trouble came early in Friday’s game when quarterback Mike Reilly fumbled the ball on a third-down, short-yardage gamble at the Saskatchewan 39. Five plays later, Roughriders quarterback Kevin Glenn tossed the ball over the head of slotback Naaman Roosevelt in the end zone for a seven-yard touchdown to open the scoring.
Six minutes later, former Eskimos defensive end Willie Jefferson blocked a Hugh O’Neill punt and then recovered the ball, running the last 22 yards for his first career CFL touchdown to give the Riders a 14-0 lead after the opening quarter.
Edmonton finally got on the scoreboard when Reilly plunged for his sixth TD of the season after slotback Brandon Zylstra reached the one-yard line on a 33-yard pass-and-run play, but any momentum gained on the play was lost right away when Saskatchewan’s Duron Carter ran 113 yards with the deflected O’Neill convert attempt to score a two-point convert.
A 15-yard roughness penalty on Eskimos safety Josh Woodman helped Saskatchewan get in position for a 21-yard Tyler Crapigna field goal and Edmonton defensive halfback Forrest Hightower dropped a possible interception at the Esks 16-yard line that could have prevented a Roughriders touchdown with 24 seconds left in the first half.
“We make that play, we’re off the field,” Ladler said. “If we make the plays we’re supposed to make, then we have a different ballgame.”
Even then, it looked like Glenn was about to get sacked on the next play just before he sent a shovel pass to running back Cameron Marshall, who ran 21 yards to the end zone as the Riders took a commanding 26-6 lead to the locker room.
“We were not getting that stop that we needed early in the game to stop their momentum,” Ladler said. “Once their momentum got rolling, we didn’t respond. We didn’t make a play to settle down their momentum.”
Eskimos head coach Jason Maas said the game got out of hand because of “a perfect storm,” including penalties, the fumble on the first drive, two interceptions returned for touchdowns in the third quarter and other miscues here and there.
“And the team (Saskatchewan) outplayed us at the end of the day,” he added. “So you have a whole bunch of bad things happen to you and don’t make as many plays as they do, the score is going to be exactly what I’m looking at.”
A disappointed Reilly, who had his worst game of the season with 15 completions in 26 pass attempts for only 160 yards plus the two picks returned for majors, planned to be back at The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium early Saturday morning to review the game film and figure out how to correct his mistakes.
“We’ve got a big game against Calgary coming up,” Reilly said. “Obviously, I’ve got to play better in that game than I did tonight.”
Maas knows that Reilly can easily make some of the throws he missed on Friday and will take the blame for some of the miscues.
“I know one thing about Mike: He’s got big shoulders and he’ll accept the challenge and get better because of this game,” Maas stated.
With the game already out of hand, Esks backup QB James Franklin made his first appearance of the season with seven minutes remaining. The 26-year-old pivot put together two long touchdown drives of 65 yards (nine plays) and 73 yards (seven plays) while completing 10 of 12 passes for 111 yards, a touchdown and two two-point converts.
“I thought he did very well,” Maas said. “I thought he had some really good drives at the end, made some really good throws, made some really good reads and it’ll give him confidence going forward. Not that he needs any. He’s a very confident quarterback; he’s a very good quarterback.
“But for our guys to see him go out there and step in and play that well, it gives them confidence around him, too.”
Franklin said his results were “a little deceiving” because of the game situation, “but I was glad I got to go in and get some (repetitions). Hopefully, it’ll help me if I have to go in some other time.
“It was nice to get out there, but obviously, I would have rather had a win,” he continued. “I’d rather be going in there when we were up instead of down.”
Running back LaDarius Perkins (nine-yard run) and wide receiver Bryant Mitchell (20-yard catch) scored the Eskimos TDs in the fourth quarter.
Saskatchewan also scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter – one after recovering an Esks fumble at the Edmonton 21 and getting a second chance when an offside penalty wiped out a field goal – as the teams combined for 30 points in the last 7-1/2 minutes.
SHORT YARDAGE: The Eskimos collected more than 130,000 pounds of food during the Purolator Tackle Hunger promotion for the Edmonton Food Bank … Edmonton slotback Kenny Stafford caught his 100th career CFL pass Friday. “Hopefully, they keep coming,” he said. “I’ve got 900-and-something to catch Nik Lewis, so we’ve got a journey. Congratulations to him, by the way. He’s one of my mentors.” Lewis, who now plays with the Montreal Alouettes, became the CFL’s all-time receptions leader with 1,030 on Thursday … National slotback Cory Watson also hit a milestone Friday, reaching the century mark in career receptions with the Eskimos … With Duke Williams catching six passes for 101 yards, the Esks extended their streak of having a 100-yard receiver to 10 consecutive regular-season games … The loss was the Eskimos first at home this season. They have a 4-1 record at Commonwealth … Terrance Bullitt became the fourth player to start a game at weakside linebacker this season, but was injured early in the game and replaced by 2017 draft pick Christophe Mulumba-Tshimanga.