It’s officially do-or-die time for the Eskimos.
After what probably seems like an eternity (eight full days between games) since they were embarrassed in their worst home loss since August 2015, the 7-7 Eskimos return to action needing a win to avoid falling into last place in the West Division.
With the Winnipeg Blue Bombers (8-7) and BC Lions (7-7) both winning this weekend, the Eskimos’ 34th Thanksgiving Day game since the official formation of the CFL in 1958 has huge implications for Edmonton’s playoff hopes.
Win their showdown with the Saskatchewan Roughriders (9-5) at 2 p.m. Monday at Mosaic Stadium in Regina, and a second-place finish in the West Division (with a home game in the West semifinal) is still a possibility for the Eskimos.
Lose by more than seven points to the red-hot Riders (six wins in their last seven games) and both first and second place will be officially out of reach.
Even with a loss Monday, the Eskimos could still control their own destiny by winning their final three games of the regular season, including contests with both the Lions and Bombers, but there would be no room for error if Edmonton is to make the playoffs, even if it’s a crossover berth in the East Division.
“If we beat Saskatchewan, if we go in there and take care of business like we plan to, then we’ll be in a better spot moving forward and making these playoffs,” said veteran defensive halfback Aaron Grymes.
“You’ve got to look at it in one of two ways,” quarterback Mike Reilly said. “Either we put ourselves in a bad position, and now we have to take care of business over the next four weeks, or we’re in a spot where if we play our best football for four weeks, we’re going to be real happy with where we’re at in the post-season.
“We’re going to choose to look at it in a positive direction, but also not be blinded to the fact that we’ve got to get better from what we’ve been doing,” he added.
The Eskimos have lost four of their last five games, didn’t hold a lead in each of the last two games and also lost four straight games on the road, but Reilly said the team’s confidence is still high, even after the disappointment of the 30-3 defeat by the Bombers.
“Our guys understand that when they come out and play to the best of their ability, we can take on anybody in this league, “ Reilly said, “but it’s an eye-opener when you have a game like last week to know that you can’t let anything slip. It’s pro football. You’re going to get smacked around if you come out and you don’t play to your best.
“We’re not proud of the last performance, but guys on this team have a lot of pride, and they take personally the type of performance that we have when we show up on game day and play. (Last week’s game) was something nobody was happy about.
“Based on what we’ve done so far this season, we have a great opportunity in front of ourselves over the next month of football. If we take our foot off the gas for any moment, that’s catastrophic. So you have to play with a playoff sense of urgency, and we haven’t for the last two weeks. But the time is now. It’s crunch time, and everybody in that room knows that.”
Eskimos Head Coach Jason Maas said the key to unlocking success for his team through the final weeks of the regular season depends upon how it responds to the Winnipeg loss.
“Sometimes, when you get beat like that, it wakes you up a little bit differently, it awakens a fire that you maybe didn’t have, and you’ve got to reach deep to go forward,” Maas said. “That’s the type of group we have in our locker room. Our hope and my hope is that we’ll be better because of such a bad beating.”
Reilly said playing football is all about toughness.
“Physical toughness we all know about,” he said. “You have to be physically tough to play this game. What people might not understand is mental toughness. That plays a bigger role than physical toughness because you have to fight through stuff and figure out a way to get better from it and not sit there and sulk about it. You can’t feel sorry for yourself. You have to learn from it and get better, and I think we have.
“It can be challenging after something like (the Winnipeg game) to question your ability as an individual, as a team, all that kind of stuff, but you’ve got to let that go, and you’ve got to be prepared to come out and fight. That’s going to be a very good football team we’re going to be playing against in Saskatchewan, but we’ve had a lot of success against every team in this league at times when we’re playing with confidence and at the best of our ability.
“But it’s also become quite clear that when we’re not on top of stuff, you’re going to get pushed around.”
Reilly pointed out that the Eskimos have nowhere to go but up right now.
“It doesn’t get much worse than that,” he said about both his own performance and that of the offensive unit last week. “But I know the mental makeup of this team. I know that we’re mentally strong. You can take this one of two ways. You can just skulk about it and feel sorry for yourself, or you can get back up off the mat.
“We got knocked down on the mat,” he continued. “If you’re a strong team, you’ll get back up, and you’ll start swinging again. We’re going to swing, and I promise you that. We’re going to swing… We’ve got no choice but to get up and give our damnest swing that we’ve got and I know it’s a pretty damn big swing, so I’m going to make sure we’re out there fighting.
“I can promise you this much. I’ll be better than I was (against Winnipeg) and the rest of our team will, too.”
Reilly loves Esks fan base
Eskimos fans have been upset about the recent results and rightfully so.
As much as the Eskimos started the season dreaming about sitting in their own locker room for the 106th Grey Cup, their fans were also counting on watching the Green and Gold play that Sunday at The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium.
“I’d be upset if they weren’t concerned about it,” Reilly said. “I love our fan base. This city is the best city I’ve ever been able to play football in, and I love how passionate (the fans) are about our team.
“As upset as they are about a performance like that (against Winnipeg), it doesn’t hold a candle to how the guys in that room – myself included – feel about it. We take a lot of pride in how we play, and we take a lot of pride in playing well for our city.”
Rebooting the offence
As head coach and offensive coordinator, Maas was working extra hard this week to figure out what needs to be done to get the Eskimos’ high-powered offence fired up again after it’s been out of sync for the last five quarters.
Maas said the offence has sputtered ever since the Ottawa RedBlacks intercepted a Reilly pass that bounced off D’haquille(Duke) Williams’ shoulder pads five minutes into the fourth quarter on Sept. 22. Trailing 18-15 at the time, the Esks were threatening to score and take the lead for the first time in that game.
“I have hope on our offence because we’ve played very well for the majority of the year and for years here, so this is very uncharacteristic of what our offence has been,” said Maas, who has re-evaluated everything the Eskimos have been trying to do on offence.
Maas said there were some “uncharacteristic” missed blocking assignments last week – not necessarily by the offensive line – that allowed Winnipeg to sack Reilly or force him to hurry his throws at times. Turnovers also proved to be costly (the Bombers scored 23 of their 30 points after Edmonton turnovers), and Reilly missed some throws, like a pass to a wide-open Bryant Mitchell down the sideline early in the game.
Turnovers also proved to be costly (the Bombers scored 23 of their 30 points after Edmonton turnovers), and Reilly missed some throws, like a pass to a wide-open Bryant Mitchell down the sideline early in the game.
“That was not up to our standards or anybody else’s standards, really,” Reilly said. “When we’re playing fast and not thinking, that’s when we’re at our best.”
The Eskimos expect their preparation during the past week will help them achieve that result again. But they’ve also tweaked things on offence about “how we’re operating on the field and really narrowing down what we’re really good at, and we’re giving ourselves every opportunity that we can.
“This offence, since I’ve been in it, has been one of those ones when we get on a roll, we’re really hard to stop, but when we hit a lull, we’ve got to figure out how to pull ourselves out of it,” Reilly said. “If we can figure out what it takes to do that, we’ll be in much better shape.”
Reilly said the casual fan probably won’t notice much different “in the structure of how we run plays and things like that” on Monday, but he thinks the players will have a comfort level “where we’re going to be able to perform at our best.”
Making kick-returns special again
The Eskimos replaced Special Teams Coordinator Cory McDiarmid with Special Teams Assistant Dave Jackson last week.
Maas was disappointed to see opponents block an Edmonton punt and return a punt for a touchdown (even though an opponent’s penalty nullified the TD) in recent games while the Eskimos’ kick-return numbers (both punt and kickoff) are the lowest in the league.
“Ultimately, I don’t put all this on Cory,” Maas said about McDiarmid, who has been with the team for the last 2-1/2 years. “I just say our whole room needs to get better. At the end of the day, you have to believe when you make a move like this, that everybody has to understand that every job is important, every detail of every job on special teams, offence and defence is important, and we better start doing it and doing it better. Ultimately, that’s on all of us.”
Maas acknowledged that the move sends a message that “holds everybody accountable.”
“If everyone focuses a little bit better over the next four weeks and understands there’s consequences to losing, consequences to not doing your job the way it’s needs to be done,” it may provide the spark the Eskimos need to get back on track.
The Esks recently acquired kick-returner Martese Jackson in a trade with the Toronto Argonauts to try to add some explosiveness to the return game, but Maas wasn’t seeing the improvement he wanted from special teams.
Looking for silver linings
Maybe the Eskimos just need to turn the page – or calendar, in this case.
“Thankfully, September’s over,” Reilly said after Edmonton’s record in September dropped to 1-3 this year and 12-25 during the past eight CFL seasons.
“We’ve found a way to play really good football once October hits,” Reilly continued, referring to the Esks’ 13-1 record during the regular season in October/November the past three years.
But Grymes, for one, doesn’t see any value in those records.
“That means nothing to me,” he said. “That was in the past.
“If we lost a game and said, ‘Oh, that was in the past,’ then we have to leave those wins in the past, as well. We’re trying to go 1-0 (this) week, and that’s the biggest thing for us. We’ve got to stop worrying about what (playoff) seed we’re going to be and things like that. Let’s just worry about winning this next game. Let’s put a complete game together, all three phases of the team, and let’s go out there and get a big win.”
Williams back in the lineup
Having the CFL’s top receiver back on the field will be a boost for the Eskimos.
Williams, the second-year receiver who leads the league with 1,337 yards, returned to practice Friday and will play in Monday’s game after getting knocked out of last week’s game with a shoulder injury.
“To have Duke’s toughness and the way he plays back out on the field for us is a big deal,” Maas said.
Maas had said earlier in the week: “If Duke can run and he can catch, he will play. He’ll deal with the pain that comes with that. That’s why we all love him.”
The Eskimos already have been missing star wide receiver DerelWalker (lower body injury) for the last three games. Maas said Walker’s injury didn’t require surgery so he could possibly return for the playoffs, maybe earlier.
“As much as we miss him, we know we’re not going to get him back for a while,” Maas said. “So it’s up to all of us in that locker room, and particularly the guys on the offensive side of the ball, to pick up the slack and play better.”
The Eskimos’ only lineup change this week has fullback Pascal Lochard coming back on the roster for special teams duty in place of injured receiver Sam Giguere.
Short yardage
• After a multi frame-by-frame review, the CFL adjusted a quarterback sack initially given to Eskimos defensive end Kwaku Boateng in last week’s game. The sack has now been awarded to defensive lineman Jake Ceresna based on his initial takedown of Winnipeg quarterback Matt Nichols. Ceresna has three of his six quarterback sacks this season in the last two games.
• The Eskimos won their only game with Saskatchewan this season 26-19 on Aug. 2 in Edmonton.
• Backup quarterback Kevin Glenn, who has either played with or been the property of every team in the CFL, hit the 300-game mark in his CFL career last week. Glenn, who hasn’t taken a single snap on the field this season, has started 208 of those games and ranks sixth all-time in passing yards (52,867) and seventh in touchdown passes (293).