If the Eskimos are going to play in the 106th Grey Cup on The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium in November, they’re going to have to get games like Thursday night out of their system.
The Eskimos had everything seemingly under control with a 20-10 halftime lead, the offence had scored a touchdown all three times it was in the red zone (inside the opponent’s 20-yard line), and the defence was bringing all kinds of pressure against BC Lions quarterback Travis Lulay.
And then they did nothing in the third quarter and not enough in the fourth to fall 31-23 to the Lions, who have won all three of their home games this season, but still have only a 3-4 record.
“It’s just one of those things where you feel good going into halftime, and you feel good about your adjustments that you make, and then you go out there and don’t execute,” Eskimos head coach Jason Maas said on the 630 CHED post-game show. “That’s on all of us. I told the team it’s just one of those things we’ve got to have a learning moment from and get better. We just didn’t do enough all together.”
The loss snaps a three-game win streak for the Eskimos, whose record drops to 5-3. That’s still good enough for second place in the West Division, but the Esks are falling further behind the undefeated Calgary Stampeders (7-0, bye this week) in the race for first place.
The Lions outscored the Eskimos 21-3 in the second half, controlling the ball in the third quarter for 11 minutes and 18 seconds while scoring a touchdown, convert, 51-yard field and punt single.
Meanwhile, Edmonton managed only two yards of offence over a pair of two-and-out series in the third quarter.
“We came out a little flat in the second half,” said defensive tackle Almondo Sewell (four defensive tackles and a 16-yard reception off a fake field goal play in the second quarter). “We can’t be doing that, but this is like lessons learned right now. Rather early in the season than late in the season for us.
“That’s a little uncharacteristic of us,” he added. “We’ve got to find that killer instinct and be able to finish off teams we know we can beat, and this is one of them.”
The Eskimos have been notoriously slow starters this season, but they opened the scoring for the second game in a row, assembling an eight-play, 71-yard scoring drive capped by Nate Behar’s first CFL touchdown catch (10 yards) at the BC goal line.
They also marched 75 yards over nine plays on their third possession, with running back C.J. Gable twisting to make another incredible catch at the BC eight-yard line and quarterback Mike Reilly plunging into the end zone for his seventh touchdown of the season to tie the league high and give the Esks a 14-3 lead 2:53 into the second quarter.
A couple of short two-and-out series were sandwiched around BC kick-returner Chris Rainey’s 79-yard punt-return touchdown, his first this season but fourth of his CFL career.
Then weak-side linebacker Korey Jones picked off a screen pass intended for Rainey and ran 70 yards with his second career CFL interception to the BC 15, where he was tripped up by Lulay himself. Reilly found a wide-open Derel Walker (five catches for 117 yards) in the end zone on the very next play for a 15-yard TD and a 20-10 lead. It was Walker’s sixth receiving major of the season – the most in the CFL – and third straight game he has scored.
While Edmonton put up 155 yards of offence in the fourth quarter (most of it on three catches for 98 yards by Walker) and limited the Lions to just 19 yards, BC won the final quarter 10-3 thanks to the efforts of a few ex-Eskimos players.
Running back Travon Van (2017) had an eight-yard touchdown run after linebacker Otha Foster (2014-15) sacked Reilly, causing a fumble and then recovering the loose ball himself. Defensive back Garry Peters (2016-17), who earlier had a couple of knockdowns, made his second interception of the season in the end zone with eight seconds remaining to snuff out Edmonton’s last hope of forcing a showdown in overtime.
“In the third quarter, we didn’t do enough,” Maas said. “In the third quarter, we wore our defence down, leaving them out there on the field. We didn’t get any first down production or at least conversions, anyway. … We couldn’t convert on anything.
“We just didn’t do enough, and then in the fourth quarter, it still comes to where we still have a chance at the end, and we didn’t make it happen. Obviously, we just couldn’t get it done, and it sucks.”
The Eskimos, who have required a comeback in all five of their wins this season, are usually pretty good at late-game rallies, with Reilly having 21 game-winning drives during his CFL career.
The Eskimos had a couple of opportunities to salvage the game before their final drive. Middle linebacker J.C. Sherritt (team-high five defensive tackles) created a turnover when he sacked Lulay for a nine-yard loss and defensive end Alex Bazzie recovered the fumble at the BC 39-yard line with 5:23 remaining, but Reilly’s pass to Walker on the next play was tipped by Foster and intercepted by Winston Rose, who ran 55 yards to set up a 34-yard field goal by Ty Long to give the Lions a 30-23 lead.
Maas also decided to gamble on third-and-10 at the Edmonton 48 with 2:18 left in the game. Even though an illegal procedure penalty pushed the Esks back five yards, Mass left the offence on the field, but Reilly’s third-down pass was knocked down by BC defensive back TJ Lee.
“We haven’t played our brand of football since throughout most of that Saskatchewan game,” said Reilly (26 of 41 passing for 302 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions). “We showed up in the first half and played pretty well, but the second half clearly not.
“There’s a lot of reasons to get better,” he continued. “Grey Cups aren’t won and lost in August. We’re eight games into this thing. We’ve still got a long road, and there’s ups and downs throughout the season. This happens to be one of the downs, and we’ve got to dig our way out of it and get back to the ups.”
Both Maas and Reilly personally shouldered the blame for the loss.
“Second half, I didn’t think there was necessarily a whole lot different outside of just my play,” Reilly said. “I played how I’m supposed to play in the first half, and in the second half, I didn’t. That was the main difference in my opinion.”
BC was able to get more pressure on Reilly in the second half, but the 33-year-old QB said that’s just part of football.
“That’s the defence’s job to get in there and get pressure, and it’s the quarterback’s job to stand in there and make good decisions and good throws,” he said. “Again, I felt I did a much better job of that in the first half than in the second.
“It doesn’t really matter what the defence is doing,” he continued. “Your job is to stand in there and throw the ball to the right spot play-in and play-out. Again, I didn’t do that tonight.”
For his part, Maas pointed out that he is also the offensive coordinator and didn’t call enough good plays. He also said he “didn’t do a good-enough job changing our protections to get us some movement, screens, something to change it up for Mike’s launch points and things like that.”
Kicker Sean Whyte made a 40-yard field goal and two of his three convert attempts to complete the scoring for the Eskimos.
The Eskimos, who lead the league in both penalties and penalty yards, had another bad game in that department with 14 infractions for 132 yards.
“I had two of them tonight (both offside penalties), but at the same point, it’s part of football and penalties are going to happen,” Sewell said. “But some of the dumb penalties we took today were totally uncalled for.”
SHORT YARDAGE: Reilly lost another head-to-head matchup against his former teammate and friend Lulay, who has won three of the four games they have played against each other since 2013 … Reilly moved past former Ottawa Rough Riders great Russ Jackson into 19th place on the CFL’s all-time passing list with 24,685 yards … Gable, who rushed for 165 yards against the Lions on June 29, had 51 rushing yards on 10 carries and 30 receiving yards on five catches Thursday … League-leading receiver Duke Williams caught two of Reilly’s first three passes but finished with only four receptions on 11 targets for 46 yards… The Eskimos have given up seven sacks in the last two games after allowing only four in their first six games … Defensive lineman Mike Moore, who just came off the six-game injured list, and Darius Allen had the Eskimos other defensive sacks in the game.