It took 10 attempts, but the Eskimos’ longest-serving player in the current lineup has finally won a Labour Day Rematch game.
Calvin McCarty, a 12-year Eskimos veteran of 181 regular-season games since 2007, didn’t play because of an injury when Edmonton defeated the Calgary Stampeders 27-16 in 2015 to kick off a 10-game winning streak that culminated with a Grey Cup championship.
The 33-year-old fullback is hoping for a similar result this year after the Esks cancelled the Stamps with a heart-stopping 48-42 decision on Saturday night at The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium.
“It’s good for our confidence moving forward, but at the end of the day, we know (the CFL season) is a marathon,” McCarty said. “It’s a game that we should build off of.
“The (most recent) years we won the Grey Cup – ’05 and ’15 – we split this series,” McCarty continued about the annual back-to-back, home-and-home, mid-season contests with Calgary, “so we’re aware of the history, but we also know you have to make your own path and create your own way sometimes. It’s a good confidence-builder moving forward, but I’m not going to hang my hat on that win.”
The Eskimos, 7-5, will enjoy the victory over the 9-2 Stampeders, however, as they head into a bye week. Edmonton doesn’t play again until Saturday, Sept. 22, against the Redblacks at Ottawa.
“Beat our rival in the Rematch for the season series, go to the bye week, get guys healthy and come back refreshed so we can really get this streak going into the playoffs,” said defensive halfback Aaron Grymes, who had his second interception of the season, forced a Calgary fumble and made two defensive tackles on Saturday.
The Eskimos will have the advantage in the event the two teams finish the regular season with identical records because their points for/against are better than Calgary’s from the two games the teams split.
Grymes was one of three Eskimos defensive backs who went up in the air with Calgary receiver Juwan Brescacin after Stampeders quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell lofted his final pass into the end zone as the final seconds ticked off the clock Saturday. A season-high CFL crowd of 38,611 plus 84 football players in uniform and two coaching staffs were all holding their collective breath as they awaited the outcome.
“Man, I was nervous,” said Eskimos receiver Kenny Stafford (five catches for 67 yards and his second touchdown of the season). “Any time a ball goes up like that, even though I believe in our defence, you know anything can happen in football. I’ve seen (Green Bay Packers QB) Aaron Rodgers complete so many Hail Marys, man,
“But our defence came through, popped the ball out, and we were able to win.”
If Brescacin had caught the 42-yard Hail Mary toss, the Stampeders would have won the game with the convert after the game-tying touchdown, rallying from a 20-point deficit in the fourth quarter.
Fortunately, for the Eskimos, Grymes, cornerback Mercy Maston (first career CFL interception earlier in the game) and safety Josh Woodman (four defensive tackles) all had one hand or both hands on the ball at times along with Brescacin.
“For me, those are the moments you live for, the moments you work for,” Grymes said. “You want to be in the limelight on the last play. They say big-time players make big-time plays in big-time moments.
“It felt like the receiver, and I both had the ball at the same time,” he explained, “but I just felt like if he comes down with it, they’re probably going to let the receiver have the tiebreaker, so we pushed it out in just enough time.”
“(Brescacin) got it in the air and I just tried to rip it out of his hands before he got to the ground and, luckily, it came out,” said Woodman. “Aaron had his hand in there, I had two hands on it, but so did Brescacin. It was more or less a battle of strength there. You’re just trying to pull it out, and he’s trying to pull it in and, luckily, it went our way.
“I was ripping it at. I just tried to get it out. Sure enough, it slipped right between his legs. That was a nice feeling of relief.”
Eskimos quarterback Mike Reilly (30 of 44 passing for 397 yards and three touchdowns) wasn’t shocked “that it would be literally that close to them winning the football game.”
“When we play against Calgary, we expect it to be down to the wire,” Reilly said. “The last game they won with a field goal with no time on the clock. This game we won with an incompletion with no time on the clock.
“You never feel comfortable and safe with a lead against Calgary because they’ve come back on us plenty of times, so it was about what I expected.”
McCarty was thinking as he watched the ball fly through the air that a team shouldn’t be able to lose three times in a row on the final play of a game (the Eskimos had lost their previous two contests on walk-off field goals).
“I was just glad to see the ball hit the ground,” he said. “I’m just glad we got the win and were able to pull it out. It was an awesome game, man.”
Place-kicker Sean Whyte, who has had his moments kicking game-winning field goals during his career, could only stand and watch this time and hope no penalties were called against the Eskimos, which would have given Calgary another chance to score from the one-yard line.
“We haven’t had any good breaks this year,” said Whyte, who scored 12 points (field goals of 52 and 23 yards plus six converts) to pass former running back Jim Germany and move into eighth place on the Eskimos all-time points list (428). “The bounces haven’t been going our way. Finally, I feel like it all came together.”
Eskimos head coach Jason Maas called it “one of the most exciting games that I’ve ever been a part of” and said the fans played a large role in it on Family Day, including 3,632 children aged 17 and under who received free admission to the game.
“That was one of the most electrifying crowds I’ve seen in a while,” Maas said. “Absolutely that helped down the stretch. (Calgary) had one penalty on a procedure late in the game, but it just gives you energy, it gives you juice all game.
“As an athlete, to get supported like that is awesome,” he added. “Hopefully, it keeps happening.”
Maas also said it was Edmonton’s best offensive performance of the season (despite the absence of injured wide receiver Derel Walker, who is out for six to eight weeks with a knee injury) and pointed out that the defence and special teams also played well.
“Can we play better?” he asked. “Absolutely. Had we played better, it probably doesn’t come down to that last throw. That last turnover inside the (Calgary) 10-yard line gave them some momentum, and they were able to turn that into something more than what it should have been.”
Calgary recovered Reilly’s fumble at the end of a 17-yard run on the first play of the fourth quarter at its own five-yard line, then Mitchell promptly marched the Stampeders 105 yards over 10 plays to trim Edmonton’s lead to 48-35 with just under 10 minutes to play.
The Stamps scored again with 2:16 left in the game after an eight-play, 60-yard drive to create the thrilling finish.
“Bo can do some incredible things out there, and we made him work for everything they got,” Maas said about the Calgary QB. “At the end of the day, I’m very proud of our guys on a short week (playing two games within six days), a tough week of going against those guys. Getting a victory feels great.”
No one on the Eskimos team was surprised that the game went down to the final play, even after the Green and Gold’s season-high 21-point outburst in the first quarter. Edmonton held a 31-21 lead at halftime – the eighth straight game the Esks have led at the break – and 48-28 after three quarters.
The Eskimos led for all but 5-1/2 minutes when the score was tied 0-0 and 7-7 in the first quarter during their highest-scoring game of the season. They scored 31 points off of a shocking seven Calgary turnovers (two fumbles, three interceptions and twice stopped the visitors on downs) compared to the Stamps’ 14 points after Edmonton turnovers.
“As long as I’ve been here (five seasons), the games against Calgary – whichever way they go – usually come down to that last play, that last quarter,” Grymes said. “It’s always a battle, so I wouldn’t expect anything less from those guys.”
Reilly scored three touchdowns – all one- or two-yard plunges behind his big offensive line – and tossed TD passes to D’haquille (Duke) Williams (29 yards) and
Vidal Hazelton (four yards) in the first quarter and Stafford (six yards) in the third quarter. It was the second time in his CFL career that Reilly has had three rushing majors in a game, helping him regain the league lead (with 11) from former teammate James Franklin of the Toronto Argonauts.
With the win, the Eskimos, 7-5, kept pace with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, 7-4, who swept their mid-season series with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
“This was a big win for us,” said Maas. “You can just see it in our locker room right now.
The Eskimos were down another star receiver for a while when Williams – the CFL’s leading receiver with 1,235 yards on 64 catches – banged up a shoulder after getting the Esks out from under the shadow of their own goalposts with 5:36 remaining in the first half.
But Williams returned to action early in the third quarter and caught four key second-down passes in moving the yardsticks each time, finishing with seven receptions for a career-high 172 yards.
“I knew my whole team was depending on me and I know the fans were depending on me, so I had to come through for them,” he said.
It was Williams’ eighth 100-yard receiving game this season and the 12th game in a row that an Eskimos receiver has posted a 100-yard outing.
SHORT YARDAGE: Reilly, who improved to 4-7 in head-to-head matchups against Mitchell dating back to the first time they played each other in the 2013 Labour Day Rematch, has a 12-game touchdown pass streak … He also had an Eskimos-high 43 rushing yards in Saturday’s game to move past Damon Allen into third place on the team’s list for all-time rushing yards by a quarterback with 2,788 … Rookie running back Shaquille Cooper (eight carries for 42 yards), a late addition to the active roster this week, started in place of ailing veteran C.J. Gable … Defensive back Forrest Hightower caught his team-high third interception of the season to set up Edmonton’s second touchdown in the first quarter while Natey Adjei and Kwaku Boateng recovered first-half fumbles that led to another 10 points … The loss marked the first time in 29 road games that Calgary has suffered back-to-back defeats.