Offence driven by no-quit YAC attack

What the Edmonton Eskimos need right about now is someone to pick the team up and carry it on his shoulders. Figuratively, that is.

In the literal sense, there is no shortage of examples where players have been willing to go that extra mile to pick up an extra yard in efforts to put an end to a six-game losing streak that has followed up a 7-0 start to the season.

The team will try to do just that Monday afternoon when it travels to Montreal to take on the Alouettes.

Last week, while looking to end the skid against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, there were no fewer than three instances when Eskimos ball carriers put in extra effort and flat out refused to fall down.

Receivers Brandon Zylstra and Cory Watson, along with running back Pascal Lochard, all delivered highlight-reel plays where they could be seen lugging a string of tacklers for three, four or five extra yards before finally going down.

“You watch the guys on our football team, I think YAC (yards after catch) is part of what our offence is about,” said Eskimos head coach Jason Maas.

“We try to get as many guys who are capable of that as possible and put them in positions where they can utilize their strengths and run with the ball after the catch.”

Perhaps none can do that as effectively as Zylstra, who leads the West Division with 1,134 receiving yards in just his second Canadian Football League season.

“I set a goal at the beginning of the year to lead the league in YAC, so that’s something I try to do,” said Zylstra, who sits third among receivers and fourth overall with 330 after-catch yards.

“A lot of DBs (defensive backs) will hit you once and they assume you’ll go down, so I just try to be the guy that doesn’t do that.”

His efforts are setting the tone for younger teammates.

“There is no question it’s contagious,” said Maas. “Any time you see a player do that, I think everybody perks up a little bit and gets fired up about it and wants to emulate that.

“Brandon has a knack for it. He’s a great receiver, he’s multi-faceted, on the offensive side. He can do so many different things, but definitely YAC is part of his arsenal.

“He’s big, he’s physical, so he’s a mismatch for DBs anyway with his size and his strength, and then he’s just fluid when he catches the ball. He has guys bounce off him or he can run through them.”

But the physical skill set is only part of the formula.

“And then a part of it is drive, a not-wanting-to-go-down mentality and wanting to do more with it,” Maas said. “Some guys have it and some guys don’t. He definitely has it.”

Earning after-catch yards is one thing, but doing it with would-be tacklers draped all over you is entirely another.

It all comes down to a willingness to surrender nothing, whether it’s a receiver turning up field after a catch, or the entire team looking to pull itself from a six-game losing streak to get back on track.

“Yeah, there’s definitely fight and, obviously, it’s going to be that way for the rest of the year,” said quarterback Mike Reilly, who wasted no time winning the hearts and minds of his Eskimos teammates and fans in 2013 with tenacious attempts to pick up an extra yard while scrambling from the pocket — almost to a fault, where his health became a concern and he has since been told to stop putting himself in the line of fire so often.

“It’s going to be that way for the rest of the year. It’s going to be a dogfight every single week.

“It’s basically playoff football for us.”