Christmas comes early on Sunday for Alberta’s CFL fans with the Eskimos and Calgary Stampeders meeting in the West Division final for a 13th time since 1978.
It’ll also be the third time in the last four years the provincial rivals have squared off in the West final, which will be played at Calgary’s McMahon Stadium. Game time is 2:30 p.m.
“It’s a huge game for the province, a huge game for both cities,” said Jason Maas, who spent nine seasons wearing Green and Gold as a player (2000-05 and 2008-10) and now two years as the Eskimos head coach. “There’s so much history between us. It makes it extra special here in Alberta, so I’m all for it if it happens to be every year.
“There’s nothing better than beating Calgary, personally,” he added.
Calgary won the West final 43-18 over the Esks at home in 2014 while Edmonton celebrated a 45-31 victory over the Stamps at Commonwealth Stadium in 2015 en route to winning the team’s 14th Grey Cup in Winnipeg. The Battle of Alberta version of the West final series between the teams is tied 6-6.
“If our team is playing in the West Final, I expect it to be against Calgary,” said Eskimos quarterback Mike Reilly. “I expect it to be us against them every single year, whether it’s at our place or theirs. No surprise that we’re doing the Battle of Alberta for the fourth time this year and this is the only one that really matters.”
Calgary swept both games in the home-and-home series in early September, but the Eskimos snapped a four-game losing streak to the Stampeders with a 29-20 victory in Edmonton on Oct. 28.
“It had been almost two years that we hadn’t beat them and we finally got over that hump a little bit,” Maas said about the last game. “But I felt like we had played them tough and not beat them. To finally play a good football game and come out on a positive end means a lot. … Having been able to do that before gives you confidence that you’re able to do it again.
“We know if we play good football, we can beat those guys and we’ve proved it. But it’s going to take a great performance for that to happen, particularly on the road in an all-stakes game.”
The Eskimos haven’t won a playoff game in Calgary since 2005. That was also the last time a team won the Grey Cup without having a playoff game on home turf.
The Calgary-Edmonton rivalry went through its most intense period in the CFL from 1990-98 when the Eskimos and Stampeders played each other seven times within nine years in the West final. Calgary won four of those games.
“I’m excited for it,” Reilly said about Sunday’s game. “I think we’ve got a great football team. I think they do, too, as well. This is what you want in the playoffs. You want the best teams going up against each other and I certainly think we’re two of the best.”
The Eskimos, 12-6 during the regular season, have won each of their last six games, including last week’s West semifinal over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
“The only thing it does is give you confidence to know that you can play at a high level when it matters the most and we’ll use that experience to help us in this game,” Maas said. “We are peaking at the right time. I think this is what every team envisions through 18 games and one playoff game, to be playing your best football at the end of the year. … Now it’s all about how well you’re playing at this moment. Going in, we’ve got 60 minutes to prove it again.”
The Stampeders, 13-4-1, shockingly lost each of their last three games, but Reilly doesn’t put a lot of stock into those defeats because Calgary had already locked up first place and the games didn’t mean anything to them.
“They’re a veteran football team,” Reilly said. “They’ve been in the position of playing in this game for a lot of years.”
This will be Calgary’s sixth straight West Final and the fourth time they’ve hosted the game during that span, so they know how to deal with the bye before the West Final. Meanwhile, the Eskimos are playing in a divisional final for the fourth year in a row, although last season it was in the East Division against the eventual Grey Cup champion Ottawa RedBlacks.
“Every time we play, it’s always a very physical, violent battle and it’s going to be no different on Sunday,” Reilly said about games with Calgary. “Whoever wins, it’s usually coming down to the end, like in the (Labour Day) rematch game and in October (where the Eskimos ran out the clock to preserve the victory) … so I’m not expecting either team to win by a wide margin. I expect it to come down to the fourth quarter. We’re going to have to battle and play our best football for 60 minutes. If it goes to overtime, so be it.”
Here’s some other reasons why it should be a great game:
· Both teams have plenty of playoff experience. Edmonton has almost 200 games of CFL post-season experience, including 14 players who won the 2015 Grey Cup and four players who earned championship rings with other teams, while Calgary has 228 games of post-season experience, including three Grey Cup appearances in the past five years.
· Both teams have great quarterbacks – Reilly, the West’s nominee as Most Outstanding Player this season, and Calgary’s Bo Levi Mitchell, who won the award last year. They are ranked first or second in the CFL in passing yards, completions and touchdown passes over the past four seasons. Both players have won the Grey Cup MVP Award.
· Mitchell supposedly played with an injury to his throwing shoulder for most of the season, but Maas just watched Winnipeg Blue Bombers quarterback Matt Nichols play “really well” in the West semifinal with a broken finger and calf injury. Injured or not, Maas said the Calgary QB is still “dangerous any time he has the ball in his hands.” Or as Reilly pointed out, Mitchell won 13 games and played at a high level with his injury so “I don’t expect anything but him coming out and playing his best against us.”
· The Eskimos weathered a stormy season of injuries that riddled almost every position on their roster. “When we were winning the games early (a seven-game win streak to start the season), we had a lot of injuries, but we were still finding ways to win,” said Reilly, who has led the offence to an average of 33.8 points during its current six-game winning streak. “Right now, we have our best guys healthy and on the field.”
· The Esks had 11 second-down catches for first downs in the West semifinal, with league-leading receiver Brandon Zylstra moving the yardsticks on six of those plays as part of his game-high 156 yards on eight receptions.
· It’s not just the Eskimos offence that’s impressive right now. “Our (kick) return game has been excellent, our special teams have been excellent, our defence has been getting after the quarterback while still limiting teams’ production on that side of the ball, our offence is scoring points. We’re able to run the ball, throw it, protect our quarterback,” Maas said. “At the end of the day, we’re playing good football and we’re winning.”
· The Eskimos edged past the Stampeders to finish with the CFL’s fewest quarterback sacks allowed (29), which veteran centre Justin Sorensen said was “a pretty cool thing” to get for the first time in his career. But he also knows that what happened during the regular season doesn’t matter now. “To be honest, we gave up quite a few sacks against Calgary this year so we’ve got a new challenge to try to shut them out and put up a zero on the board,” Sorensen said. The Stampeders had three sacks in each of the three regular-season games with Edmonton this year. “We’ve got to be great up front to play against Calgary,” Reilly said about the starting O-line of Joel Figueroa, David Beard, Sorensen, Matt O’Donnell and Colin Kelly. “Their bread-and-butter on defence is getting pressure on quarterbacks.” Calgary tied for the CFL lead with 50 sacks and led the league with 125 quarterback pressures.
· The Eskimos led the league with 27.2 offensive points per game, offensive and rushing touchdowns, net yards, passing yards and yards per pass plus first downs, fewest two-and-out series and time of possession. Meanwhile, the Stamps defence gave up the fewest offensive points per game (16.7), first downs, offensive and passing TDs, offensive yards and yards per play allowed while leading the league in forced turnovers. That could be described as an immovable object versus an irresistible force. Or will special teams be a deciding factor? Calgary leads the league with a 15.4-yard punt-return average and has five kick-return TDs.
· Because the Stampeders had a bye last week and 15 days off since their last game, the Eskimos countered by scheduling only two days of practice during the past week. “When we feel like we’re playing against a team that’s more rested than us, we try to get our guys as much rest as possible so they’re mentally and physically prepared to play in this game,” Maas explained.
· That doesn’t mean the Eskimos weren’t working hard all week. “With how hard guys are working on the field and the speed of the game and the chance for injuries and things like that, it’s almost become more prevalent for teams to rest their players moreso than in the past,” said Reilly. “Being on the field and not working are two totally different things. We spend a ton of time in the film room and in the gym walking through (plays), doing things like that. We were still doing football. It just wasn’t out on the field. We were off our feet pretty early, trying to rest up. But the mental aspect is a big part of it in games when it comes down to (the playoffs). We’ve been playing for six months, so physically, you don’t necessarily need the (play repetitions) every single day that are going wear you down. You need the mental portion of it to make sure that you’re going to be ready to play fast.”
Lineup changes
After a season when injuries meant several new starters moving into the lineup on a weekly basis, the Eskimos had to adjust only one position for Sunday’s game. Starting safety Neil King was moved to the one-game injured list and replaced by backup Cauchy Muamba.
Fullback Pascal Lochard, backup defensive tackle Mike Moore and special teams players Christophe Mulumba-Tshimanga and Kevin Jackson were also added to the active roster while defensive end Phillip Hunt and wide receiver Duke Williams – who were both healthy scratches in the West semifinal – plus injured fullback Alex Dupuis were placed on the one-game injured list.