Ryan King was looking forward to celebrating his 100th CFL game on Saturday night.
Instead, the Eskimos’ 32-year-old long-snapper will probably try to forget the milestone as quickly as possible.
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers beat the Eskimos 30-3 in a result that shocked not only the 28,788 witnesses in the seats, but also Edmonton’s players themselves, who take a lot of pride in how they perform at The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium.
The Eskimos had won each of their previous five home games this season.
“It’s tough to lose, but it’s a good milestone to hit and I’m proud to have played for Edmonton for all 100 games and hope to, obviously, continue that for another 100,” said King, a seven-year veteran. “It was a (crappy game), but I’m just happy to be out there with my team. Regardless of what happens out there, we’ve got a good culture in this locker room, we’ve got a lot of vets in this room.”
Saturday’s game included one of the worst Eskimos offensive outings since losing 17-3 to the B.C. Lions in July 2013. The only thing that prevented Edmonton from being shut out for the first time since 1976 was Sean Whyte’s 26-yard field goal on the last play of the first half. That 67-second drive was the Esks’ longest of the night in terms of number of plays (eight) and yards (53).
“Offensively, we didn’t have an answer tonight (for the Winnipeg defence),” said Eskimos head coach Jason Maas, “and they took it to us on that side of the ball.
“Defensively, I thought we hung in there,” he continued. “They played their butts off. I know they had some short fields and stuff like that, but I thought our defence played extremely well. (Winnipeg’s) offence did, too, scoring points when they needed to, but I was proud of our defence.
“Offensively, we just didn’t do enough.”
Surprisingly, the Eskimos had more first downs (19 to 17), more rushing yards (106 to 75), more passing yards (192 to 179) and more yards of net offence (264 to 239) than the Bombers, but Winnipeg owned the time of possession (32:21 to 27:39) and forced Edmonton into seven turnovers (three fumbles, three interceptions and a loss of downs late in the game) while sacking Esks quarterback Mike Reilly four times.
“It does show you just how hard pro football is in terms of you’re so used to seeing (No.) 13 (Reilly) and the guys put up so many points that a lot of times they make it look easy,” said Eskimos backup QB Danny O’Brien, whose first chance to get on the field this season other than as a holder for Whyte’s field goals and converts came during the final minute of the game. “But the guys on the other side of the ball get paid, too. I thought Winnipeg had a really good game plan for us and they had our number tonight.”
The first turnover came less than three minutes into the game when Winnipeg’s Marcus Sayles blocked Hugh O’Neill’s punt and gave the Bombers possession of the ball at the Edmonton 28. It was the Eskimos’ first blocked punt this season.
The Esks held the Bombers to a 37-yard field goal after defensive tackle Jake Ceresna’s fifth quarterback sack of the season, but a combination of the offence’s struggles, receiver D’haquille (Duke) Williams’ fumble after an 11 yard pass-and-run play plus Reilly’s first interception of the game kept Winnipeg in good field position during the first half. The Bombers started drives at the Edmonton 54, midfield, Winnipeg 53, Winnipeg 53 and Edmonton 26, eventually scoring two rushing touchdowns (one yard by backup QB Chris Streveler and five yards by running back Andrew Harris) to take a 17-3 lead at the half.
Turnovers again proved to be costly in the second half for the Eskimos. Reilly gave up a 73-yard interception-return touchdown to Winnipeg defensive back Kevin Fogg in the third quarter, then Fogg recovered a Reilly fumble when the ball was knocked out of the quarterback’s hand as he was throwing the ball a few plays later, leading to the second of Justin Medlock’s three field goals (37, 20 and 26 yards) as the Bombers scored 23 of their 30 points after Edmonton turnovers.
“Our defence was put in some bad spots all night and I thought they did extremely well,” Maas said. “We limited (Winnipeg) to a low output in yards, they made some big plays, they harassed (Bombers quarterback Matt) Nichols, too. But, ultimately, our inability on offence to stay on the field more and make plays and put together drives led to our demise.”
Maas recalled a famous quote by Lou Holtz, a former U.S. college and NFL coach who turned the then-struggling Notre Dame Fighting Irish football program into a powerhouse that played in a school-record nine consecutive Bowl Games from the late-1980s through the mid-90s – “You’re never as good as everyone tells you when you win and you’re never as bad as they say when you lose.”
“I’m hoping (Sunday) when I watch (the tape of the game), it’s not as bad, but right now it surely doesn’t feel very good,” Maas said.
The fifth wire-to-wire victory of the season for the Bombers dropped Edmonton into a tie with Winnipeg for third place in the West Division at 7-7. The teams were two points back of the 8-5 Saskatchewan Roughriders prior to Sunday’s game against the Montreal Alouettes and two points ahead of the B.C. Lions, 6-7.
The Calgary Stampeders, 11-2, have already clinched a playoff berth for a club record 14th consecutive season, tying the seventh-longest streak in CFL history.
“That’s not the kind of game you want to have late in the season, especially when you’re fighting for a playoff spot,” said Esks defensive halfback Aaron Grymes, who made six defensive tackles. “When other parts of your team are struggling for the day, you’ve got to step up bigger than that and we didn’t. We played OK. We did what we thought we were supposed to do. But if we want to go to the next level, if we want to win a Grey Cup, we’ve got to get more turnovers, we’ve got to score touchdowns defensively.”
Rookie defensive back Monshadrik (Money) Hunter had the Eskimos’ only turnover when he intercepted a Nichols’ pass at the Edmonton seven-yard line halfway through the fourth quarter. He had just entered the game three plays earlier after cornerback Mercy Maston was injured.
Nickel back Chris Edwards led the Esks with seven defensive tackles, including a great read on a play where he dropped Winnipeg receiver Weston Dressler for a five-yard loss in the backfield in the fourth quarter. Dressler currently has the seventh-longest pass-catching streak of 122 games in CFL history.
Ceresna, who was acquired from the Ottawa RedBlacks in the Odell Willis trade last winter, is also on a hot streak. He picked up five more defensive tackles Saturday to give him 11 in the last two games and he collected his third sack in the last four games.
But he almost had three sacks. One sack was taken away in the second quarter because of an Edmonton penalty while defensive end Kwaku Boateng got credit for his team-high ninth sack when he finished off the tackle after Ceresna knocked Nichols off-balance.
“I was feeling good out there (Saturday),” Ceresna said. “That first sack I got on the second play of the game for our defence just lit a fire under me and got me feeling good. I just built off of that.”
The game marked the first time Reilly has failed to throw a touchdown pass or score a rushing TD since Aug. 6, 2016, at Ottawa. He had 74 scoring passes and 33 rushing majors during his previous 42 regular-season starts.
“When the quarterback is getting hit more, it’s hard for him to stand back there and throw it accurately,” Maas said. “That’s what I felt (Winnipeg) did a good job of tonight.”
Maas wasn’t throwing his star QB under the bus, though.
“Even when he’s having an off night – if you think he is, and I don’t know that it’s all directly on him – he’s still capable of making great things happen,” Maas pointed out.
Reilly completed 17 of 31 passes for 164 yards – his smallest passing total of the season by 86 yards – and ran seven times for another 41 yards before being taken out of the game for the final 71 seconds after taking another big hit when he was sacked on a third-down gamble.
“That was definitely not something that I’m proud of, not something that we’re going to be proud of,” Reilly said about his performance and that of the entire offence. “You’ve got to learn from it. You’ve got to get better.”
It was the first time a pivot other than Reilly has directed the Eskimos’ offence this season.
“You hope as a backup quarterback in this league that when you’re up by a lot, you can get in there and do some things,” said O’Brien (three of four passing for 28 yards). “But anytime you can get in, it’s certainly (game film) that the whole league and our team is going to watch at the end of the year, so you want to make a good impression and show that you’ve been studying. I thought I did that.
“The last (pass) was just kind of a jump ball/Hail Mary type thing which unfortunately got picked (intercepted). But I thought the other stuff felt good.”
Williams, the league’s leading receiver with 1,337 yards, caught only two of his four targets for a season-low 37 yards and didn’t finish the game after taking a hit on his shoulder during an incomplete pass attempt.
“That sucks,” Reilly said about Williams getting hurt. “Everybody’s playing a little bit dinged up over the course of the season. That’s how it is around the league when you play pro football. But he’s out there giving us everything he has and takes a shot on a spot that probably already wasn’t feeling that great.
“Hopefully, he’ll be back quickly. Hopefully, he doesn’t miss any time because that’s a guy you certainly want out there on the field.”
It was the first time in six games that Williams didn’t catch a touchdown pass and the first time this season that Reilly didn’t throw one.
SHORT YARDAGE: Reilly’s pick-six was only the seventh he’s given up in 3,044 pass attempts since 2013 (basically one every 435 passes). The only current CFL quarterback with a lower percentage of not throwing interception-return TDs than Reilly is Hamilton’s Jeremiah Masoli, with just two out of 1,251 passes … The Eskimos didn’t have a kickoff in the entire game as they received the ball to start both the first and third quarters and never scored a touchdown … Middle linebacker J.C. Sherritt, who ranks fourth all-time on the Eskimos’ list for defensive tackles, had five more Saturday, bringing him within 19 tackles of the 500 mark for his career … Whyte passed Grant Shaw and Normie Kwong to move into sixth place on the Eskimos all-time points list at 432 points.