Greg Ellingson has made playing in the Grey Cup a habit ever since he came into the CFL in 2013.
He doesn’t see any reason why this year should be any different.
“I think everyone is well aware that we have talented players, that we are dangerous when we all play well together,” said Ellingson, a six-foot-three, 197-pound receiver whose teams have played in five of the last six Grey Cup games despite – in some cases – having only a .500 record or even a losing record (8-9-1 twice) during the regular season. “It’s just a matter of doing it. Just make sure we cut out penalties, make sure we execute correctly.
“It’s that feeling that you’ve learned your lessons through your losses – we’ve lost the last four (games) – and I feel that in this locker room,” he added. “I think we’ve learned a lot of lessons this year.”
Ellingson also said that getting blitzed 21-0 in the first quarter by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats last week was “a slap in the face” and “could very well be one of those moments that we look back on and say, ‘That’s where we started to turn things around and realized how dangerous we could be,’ especially against one of the best teams in the league that’s won 10 games.”
With contributions from the offence, defence and special teams, the Eskimos rallied to tie the game 24-24 early in the fourth quarter and then tied it again at 27-27 with 35 seconds left to play only to lose 30-27 on a walk-off field goal by the Ticats.
“If you can claw back like that and give yourself a chance, you’ve got something,” Ellingson added. “We just have to put everything together in all three phases. When we go to Ottawa on this roadtrip and then Hamilton, if we can win both of those games, it’s going to really set us with the right foot forward playing B.C. and then Sask the last two (games).”
The Eskimos, 6-7, have fallen into fourth place in the West Division, but are still on the verge of clinching a playoff berth (at least a crossover berth in the East Division). They can eliminate the B.C. Lions (3-10) with a win over the Ottawa Redblacks at 2 p.m. Saturday at TD Place Stadium (TSN, 630 CHED) and a B.C. loss to the Montreal Alouettes (7-5) later Saturday night.
“We know we need a win this week,” said Eskimos Head Coach Jason Maas. “We’re hungry to win. We haven’t won for a while, so I don’t think you need any more motivation to win than what’s in front of us, but our guys do have a clear understanding as to what it will do.”
The Redblacks (3-10), who have lost their last five games, could also be in peril if the Alouettes defeat the Lions and the Eskimos win both games during their eight-day East Division road trip.
“It doesn’t really matter what your record is throughout the year,” said Ellingson, a 30-year-old Tampa, Fla., native who needs only 34 yards to reach the 7,000-yard receiving milestone in his seven-year CFL career. “It’s how you finish the year. If you carry some momentum into the playoffs and if you’re playing good football at that time of year – when it comes to October, November – then you can be dangerous.
“If that was the turn-around last week of really waking everybody up and realizing that we’ve got to go, then that was the time to do it because we’ve got five games left and we’ve got to make a turn-around,” he continued. “We have a good group of guys. You know when you see talent. I’ve been on talented teams that made it to the Grey Cup and kind of clawed our way (into the playoffs) at the end of the season. It’s just about getting that momentum.
“If everybody keeps the belief and keeps executing and we play like we know we can, especially down the stretch, that’s what makes a team dangerous.”
Ellingson has been down this road before with both the Redblacks and Tiger-Cats.
Hamilton went 4-1 down the stretch to finish with a 10-8 record in 2013 and 7-2 in its last nine games to get to 9-9 in 2014 and advanced to the CFL’s championship game both years.
The Redblacks were 5-1 in the last third of the 2015 season to finish 12-6 before eventually losing the Grey Cup to the Eskimos at Winnipeg. They won Ottawa’s first Grey Cup in 40 years in 2016 despite an 8-9-1 regular-season record and needed to win their last three games to duplicate that mark in 2017, when they lost the East Division semifinal. Ottawa, a Grey Cup finalist at The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium in 2018, also won it’s last three games last year to finish 11-7.
“It’s just the belief in the locker room that you’re a team that can compete and you’re a team that can make a run in the playoffs,” Ellingson said. “For me, it feels very similar (to previous seasons). It’s just the belief that you have a good football team, that you can make the plays and doing it at the right time of the year.
“Becoming dangerous down the stretch and into the playoffs, that’s what matters. Most teams know that, but it’s one thing to know it and it’s another thing to do it, so we definitely have to prove that and the first step to proving that is in Ottawa.”
Road trip can be bonding experience
The Eskimos are hoping their upcoming roadtrip, where the team will settle in Hamilton for several days after playing in Ottawa on Saturday, will tighten the bonds of an already close team.
“We need a trip together,” said Maas, who pointed out that it couldn’t come at a better time for the Eskimos. “We need some time away, time to bond. We’ve done a tremendous job of that since Day 1, but there’s nothing like being on the road together where it’s just us. … We have our backs up against a wall a bit and enjoy each other’s company and get a little bit closer and, ultimately, go out and fight together.”
This is the first time in five seasons that the Eskimos have taken an extended road trip to the East Division, but Ellingson was familiar with long road trips to the West Division when he played with both Ottawa and Hamilton.
“You spend a lot of time with people,” he said. “You’re not in your normal circumstances. Of course, people are going to miss their families, but when you get to sit in a hotel room with all the guys and you all go to dinner together, it’s a little bit different than when you’re at home. You build that camaraderie and that togetherness just develops. If that can translate to the football field, especially in the last third of the season, you can be dangerous and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Logan Kilgore, who is starting at quarterback for the Eskimos while Trevor Harris recuperates from a lingering injury to his throwing arm, said he always felt his East Division teams in the past (Toronto and Hamilton) “would come back a different team” after spending a week together on a West Division road trip.
Harris placed on six-game injured list
Trevor Harris, who pulled himself from the Labour Day Rematch game with the Calgary Stampeders because of his injury and sat out last week’s game against the Ticats, was placed on the six-game injured list Friday.
That leaves Kilgore, a five-year CFL veteran who played in seven games with the Toronto Argonauts in 2016, to make his second consecutive start for the Eskimos while rookie QB Jeremiah Briscoe serves as his backup.
The 29-year-old Kilgore completed 22 of 36 passes for 223 yards and two touchdowns as the Eskimos scrambled back to tie a game they once trailed 24-0 last week against Hamilton.
“You want to start peaking at this time of the season,” Kilgore said. “Obviously, we had an upward trend in that game. … We were a couple of plays away from beating a very good Hamilton team.
“Climbing all the way back wasn’t just a one-phase deal,” he pointed out. “Special teams put us in great situations field-position-wise, defence was getting some great stops and, offensively, we were able to capitalize on some drives. As a team, we took a big step forward, especially (because) all three phases in the second half played pretty well.”
Maas said he liked “the fight and the finish,” in the game and pointed out that Kilgore was a part of that comeback.
“You own the fact that we were down 24-0, but you’ve got to also own the fact that you fought back, that it was 10 minutes to go in the game and it was a tied ball game,” Maas said. “… It didn’t come into a win, but it was a comeback and that’s a great thing. We made plays down the stretch and it got to be a very exciting ball game at the end.
“The way you can do that is by believing and by fighting. That’s the things you take from it is that our team is willing to believe and still winning to fight. Those are good things to have at this time of year when things haven’t quite gone our way the last four weeks. As long as our guys will continue to do those two things and we continue to work, I like the future for us.”
Kilgore, who sat out last season while he started to contemplate a possible coaching career for his future, is also benefitting from getting a lot of extra work during practice while Harris is injured.
“He’s only going to get better the more reps he’s in there and he had a good week in practice so you hope that translates onto the field,” Maas said.
Kilgore said a quarterback gets “a little more comfortable” with every repetition during a practice or game. He also acknowledged that he’s got great players around him, so “I don’t have to be Superman or anything like that. I just have to execute the offence and get guys in and out of the huddle and try to get the ball to our play-makers and give them a great chance to be successful.”
Ellingson is one of those play-makers. His 32-yard touchdown catch late in the third quarter last week pulled the Eskimos within seven points of the Tiger-Cats as Edmonton fought its way back from the 24-point first-half deficit.
While the play wasn’t as spectacular as his diving catch in the end zone against the Argos earlier this season, it was just as impressive from the standpoint that it appeared to be an interception until he pulled the ball out of the waiting hands of a Hamilton defensive back.
“It was a similar play to the one I had in the playoffs in Ottawa against Hamilton,” Ellingson said. “You get in that defender’s blindspot and, at the last moment, if you can see the ball and the defender and know where to time it up to make a play, that’s what you try to do. You try to accelerate and try to high-point the ball if you can.
“This moment, I couldn’t really high-point it because it was still a little bit further out there, but I just had to jump on top of him and put my hands in the right place. He still got in there and disrupted it a little bit. I just tried to stay focused and grabbed it with my left hand because we were tangled up with my right hand and tried to secure it.”
Ellingson, who has an active reception streak of 56 games and 175 career second-down conversion catches, is closing in on a 1,000-yard season for the fifth straight year. He has 65 receptions for 871 yards and a team-leading five touchdowns.
TD Place Stadium ‘fun’ place to play
Ellingson joined Harris and offensive lineman SirVincent Rogers as former Redblacks who signed with the Eskimos on the opening day of free agency this year, but the receiver is the only one of the three who’ll play in this week’s game at Ottawa. Rogers suffered a torn tricep injury during training camp and is still on the six-game injured list.
“I have no animosity or hard feelings,” Ellingson said about the Redblacks. “It’s going to be fun to go back and play at Lansdowne (Park, where TD Place Stadium is located). It’s a good venue, it’s a nice part of the town, everybody can bus down and enjoy the game. It’ll be nice to get back on that field. I’ll be wearing different colours, but it’s probably going to be the same feeling.”
Short yardage
- Punter Hugh O’Neill returns to the lineup after sitting out the last six games with a leg injury. Place-kicker Sean Whyte, who has made each of his last 16 field goal attempts (the longest active streak in the CFL), also handled kickoff and punting duties while O’Neill was on the sidelines.
- Backup running back Shaquille (Shaq) Cooper is also on the game roster this week while offensive lineman Tommie Draheim and special teams player Blair Smith were both placed on the six-game injured list. It’ll be the second stint on the injured list this season for both players. Smith was hurt in last week’s game while Draheim was injured again during practice earlier this week.
- Veteran left guard Travis Bond, who played 45 games at left guard for the Eskimos and Winnipeg Blue Bombers and nine games at left or right guard this year, will become the fourth different player to start at left tackle this season. Rookie Kyle Saxelid and right guard Matt O’Donnell have also played the position.
- Defensive end Nick Usher returns to the starting lineup this week. Veteran Alex Bazzie started last week’s game.
- Middle linebacker Larry Dean has 18 defensive tackles, one special teams tackle and two pass knockdowns during the last two games.
- Kick-returner Christion Jones’ 100-yard missed field goal return last week was the longest kick return of any kind for the Eskimos since Kendial Lawrence’s 107-yard kickoff return touchdown in 2014.