REILLY KEEPING IT ALL TOGETHER AS ESKIMOS’ STREAK CONTINUES
The last thing you want to do is credit one player for what the Edmonton Eskimos are doing this season with 18 men on the six-game injured list.
Players from two, three, and in one case, four deep on the depth chart, are coming up with solid performances to keep Jason Maas’ team undefeated through the first third of their season.
But you can’t downplay what their leader, what quarterback Mike Reilly is doing to grab the team by the throat and lead the way while players continue to drop with serious-looking injuries.
Player of the Month for July in the CFL, Reilly did it all in the first half to give the Eskimos a 23-11 lead over a surprisingly competitive Hamilton TigerCats team that came to town 0-5 and coming off a humiliating 60-1 loss to the Calgary Stampeders.
The Eskimos had five possessions in the first half and scored on four of them. Reilly engineered three lengthy, time-consuming touchdown drives and set the team up for a field goal on another.
The Eskimos time of possession for the half was 20:07 to 9:53 for the visitors.
Despite losing his top receiver Brandon Zykstra and all-star centre Justin Sorensen, Reilly was his usual efficient self, completing 16 of 21 passes for 188 yards.
But due to the latest injuries (Canadian linebacker Doug Parrish also departed and didn’t return in the first half ), Reilly was required to carry the ball himself eight times, including two touchdowns.
So it went into the fourth quarter with the Eskimos down to a five-point lead. But, again, Reilly came through, finding Vidal Hazelton alone in the end zone to restore a 12-point lead. And this team, that gagged on a 25-point lead and recorded the most colossal collapse in franchise history, wasn’t about to let this one go. The Eskimos held on to win 33-28.
What a story this team is writing. With the win, the Eskimos ran their record to 6-0.
They made it 11 of their last 12 regular season games, wrapping around to last year.
That’s now eight of their last nine at home.
Curiously it’s 18 of their last 19 on TSN Friday Night Football.
The last time the Edmonton Eskimos started the season 6-0 was 1961.
Jackie Parker was still quarterback, but not for long. He was in his last season before being traded to Toronto.
The year before was the last hurrah for the glory gang team with Normie Kwong, Johnny Bright and Rollie Miles. They won the Grey Cup in 1954,
’55 and ’56, lost three straight Western Finals to Bud Grant’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers, and finally made it to the 1960 Grey Cup, losing to the Ottawa Rough Riders.
That 1961 team actually made it to 7-0 before coming undone, going 3-5-1 the rest of the way and losing the two-game, total-point semifinal to Calgary.
The team record start to a season is 10-0 set by the same group of guys in a two-loss Grey Cup winning season in 1955.
Before you start looking up longest winning streak in a season (10 in 1955) longest winning streak wrapping around from one season to another (14 from 1954 to 1955), most wins in a season (16 from 1989), etc., it ought to be pointed out the Calgary Stampeders are one point (5-1-1) back of Edmonton and the two teams have yet to play any of their three regular season games this year.
And then there are those injuries.
Sooner or later, no matter how much of a badge of honour the Eskimos continue to keep pinning on themselves, you have to believe the injuries have to take a bite out of this team.
But what Reilly and his followers have accomplished with this 6-0 start to the season is to give themselves a net to play with while they perform this incredible high wire act.