Call it a team win.
The Eskimos clinched a CFL playoff berth on Saturday night because of key contributions from the offence, defence and special teams. Their 30-27 come-from-behind victory over the Toronto Argonauts in front of 26,738 spectators on a chilly, damp night at The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium featured several heroes in the dying minutes.
“What you’re hearing in that locker room is jubiliation because we are in the playoffs,” Eskimos head coach Jason Maas said. “That’s our first goal of the year. No matter where you want to finish in the regular season, you want to make the playoffs first and foremost.
“It was a big deal to get this win to solidify the playoffs. Now we can focus on getting better these next three games, but know that we’re in the dance. That gives you the chance to ultimately lift that (Grey) Cup at the end.”
Edmonton, 9-6, regained sole possession of third place in the West Division with their second victory in a row while the Saskatchewan Roughriders, 8-7, lost to the Ottawa Redblacks on Friday. The Eskimos are still mathematically alive for second place, although they trail the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, 11-4, by four points with only three games to play. And they still could wind up in fourth place and play in the cross-over playoff game in the East Division.
“It feels good to know that we’re going to be in the post-season, but we’ve still got a lot of work to do,” said quarterback Mike Reilly. “The road is still long. We’re going to do everything that we can to improve our playoff position.
“But it’s going to be second, third or cross-over,” he continued. “To be quite honest with you, I don’t really care which way that goes as long as we’re playing our best football. We’ve got basically three weeks to do whatever we’ve got to do to make sure that we’re firing on all cylinders and this was a step in the right direction.”
The Eskimos, who had scored only 17 points during the first quarters of their previous seven games, actually got off to a good start in Saturday’s game. Runningback C.J. Gable had a 17-yard scoring burst up the middle while Reilly escaped the pocket and ran 28 yards up the sideline to score touchdowns for a 14-3 first-quarter lead.
It was the first time Edmonton has led after the opening 15 minutes since Aug. 10.
Reilly, who scored most of his seven touchdowns this season on one- or two-yard plunges, wasn’t expecting to get all the way to the end zone when he took off.
“I thought I would have to get out of bounds,” he said. “And then I was able to turn the corner and I could see downfield. I had another 10 or 15 yards, so I was going to take this as far as I can get it. My guys were blocking downfield and did a great job.
“I knew there wasn’t going to be contact until inside of five yards. I wasn’t sure how close to the goal line it was going to be. But at that point, I was like, ‘I’m already tired. I may as well try to finish this thing off so I can get off to the sidelines.’ ”
Reilly was hit just short of the goal line and flipped into the end zone, landing on his back. After the game, he recalled diving over the pylon in the same corner of the end zone against the Saskatchewan Roughriders last year.
With the Eskimos settling for field goals of 17, 28 and 31 yards by Swayze Waters instead of touchdowns, and ex-Esks QB Ricky Ray leading the Argos on two fourth-quarter touchdown drives, the game was decided in the final couple of minutes.
“It was far from perfect tonight,” Reilly said. “We had a lot of opportunities to put more points up that we fell short on, so we’ll have to get that straightened away.”
On the Eskimos’ fifth game-winning drive of the season – and first since Aug. 10 – slotback Brandon Zylstra made a clutch 31-yard catch of a Reilly bullet pass into triple-coverage at the Toronto 21-yard line on a third-and-10 play with 85 seconds remaining.
Reilly said his offensive line did a great job of protecting him on the play because Toronto started bring extra pressure once they got onto the Argos’ half of the field.
“We have our normal pressure throws, but they weren’t going to allow us to hit those, so we had to get a little bit more time to put the ball down the field,” explained Reilly, who completed 23 of 40 passes for 309 yards.
After drawing a pass interference penalty two plays later, wide receiver Derel Walker (eight catches for 82 yards) caught a swing pass from Reilly and raced untouched to the corner of the end zone with for a game-winning six-yard touchdown while Zylstra and Adarius Bowman drew the Argos defenders elsewhere.
“Our playmakers stepped up at the end and that was one of the best drives I’ve seen with everything on the line,” Maas said. “The throw to Zylstra on a third-and-10 was one of the best throws I’ve ever seen up here.
“We hadn’t finished a drive for a while in that red zone, so it was nice to finish it off and score and get the lead and then hold it.”
With 57 seconds on the clock, there was plenty of time for Ray to work his magic. He had already given the Argos their first lead of the game with 3-1/2 minutes remaining.
After Kenny Ladler stopped Toronto kick-returner Martese Jackson at the Argos 34 on the kickoff, Ray threw two passes for first downs to get to the Edmonton 48. There was still 36 seconds left.
Eskimos defensive back Aaron Grymes knocked down a pass intended for Toronto’s S.J. Green, who had already caught 13 passes for 159 yards, a touchdown and a pair of two-point converts, and then Ray’s next pass was deflected at the line of scrimmage by defensive end John Chick and landed in the hands of middle linebacker Korey Jones to seal the victory.
“Good football teams find a way at the end and our guys certainly stepped up and made a big play when it mattered most,” Maas said. “It was awesome to see.
”Tough-fought battle, but I loved our resolve. I loved the way we worked all night and, when it mattered most, the offence stepped up, the defence stepped up and the special teams stepped up. I couldn’t be more proud of the group, knowing what our season has been like, the good and the bad. This just got gooder, I guess.”
“We’re going to celebrate that tonight,” said Walker, who made amends for dropping a probable touchdown pass at the Toronto 12 late in the third quarter. “We’ve got an extra game, an extra cheque. A lot of guys are excited. We get another opportunity outside of the (regular) season to keep going and further ourselves and get closer to the Grey Cup this year.
“We struggled throughout the game here and there execution-wise,” he added. “I had a couple of drops myself, so next week I want to build and get better on that. But we finished with a win. That’s what we wanted to come out and do today.”
Walker said he got too “excited” about the potential scoring pass he dropped with the Eskimos clinging to a 17-12 lead.
“I knew I ran a pretty good route and Mike threw the ball perfect,” he said. “I knew the timing from the route to the ball was perfect timing to get away from the DB (defensive back) and there was a lot of field out there so I got a little excited and let one get away from me, let one slip away.
“It killed the drive for us,” Walker continued. “We ended up getting a field goal and not the touchdown that we needed. When it was time for that last play call we had, I just made sure I caught that ball and saw it all the way into the tuck and just made sure I made it into the end zone.
“That was a game-winning touchdown. I’m just happy I was able to catch that ball and get in there.”
The sure-handed Zylstra was once again a ball magnet for Reilly, catching nine of his 11 targets for 147 yards, including that crucial catch with the game on the line.
“When I saw him catch that, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, we’re going to finish this. No doubt in my mind,’ ” Walker said. “He has been having a hell of year.”
Zylstra has caught 47 passes for 880 yards during his last six games, averaging 147 receiving yards per game, to take over the league lead with 1,481 yards on 91 catches. He also had his ninth 100-yard receiving game Saturday to tie the club record set by Brian Kelly in 1981 and equalled by Bowman in 2016 and leads all CFL receivers by catching 62.5 per cent of his 24 targets (15 catches) of 20 or more yards.
SHORT YARDAGE: The Eskimos won for the first time at The Brick Field since Aug. 4, snapping a three-game losing streak at home. “It just feels good to get a win at home again,” said Reilly. “It had been a little while. Especially when we were honouring the Edmonton police for the events that were happening a couple of weeks ago.” … Gable had his second consecutive 100-yard rushing game in as many starts with the Eskimos … Natey Adjei recovered a fumbled Toronto punt return in the third quarter to set up one of Waters’ field goals … Weak-side linebacker Adam Konar led the Eskimos with eight defensive tackles … Defensive tackle Almondo Sewell, in his 100th career game – all with the Eskimos – had a quarterback sack for the fourth game in a row … The Eskimos won seven of their eight games against East Division teams this season, losing only to the Argos at Toronto in September.