GREY CUP HOPES DEPEND ON KEEPING PACE WITH STAMPS

If you can’t be good early, you better be great late.

Friday night against the Toronto Argonauts, after once again failing to score a point in the first quarter, Eskimos quarterback Mike Reilly had to play ball-possession football for the final 2:23 to preserve a 16-15 win.

It wasn’t pretty. But it was a win.

You could criticize many aspects of the Eskimos’ win on Friday night in a downpour at Commonwealth Stadium.

But it was a win. And after what happened last Saturday in Toronto, the Eskimos needed a win more than critical acclaim.

With the next two Grey Cups taking place in Alberta, there’s going to be even more focus than normal on where Edmonton and Calgary are positioned in the standings during the regular seasons. And that’s what this one was all about when they kicked off in front of about two-thirds of the 31,056 ticket buyers on hand for the return of former Eskimos backup James Franklin and halftime rapper Ludacris.

The team finishing first and playing host to the Western Final has ended up in the Grey Cup for the past four straight seasons, including Edmonton’s 2015 championship. The Eskimos gave significant lip service to that, and then stumbled out of the gate and put themselves in the position of having to chase the season.

The win, strangely, left Calgary (4-0) and Edmonton (3-2) with the only winning records in the CFL.

Winnipeg, Saskatchewan, Ottawa and Hamilton are all 2-2.

The Eskimos’ challenge going forward is to not fall any further behind Calgary than what they can overcome with a pair of wins in the annual Labour Day doubleheader. And you should know they haven’t won a Labour Day Classic in McMahon Stadium since 2011. You have to go back to 2004 for the last time the Eskimos swept the series.

There are many more immediate concerns. Like staying within two wins over the course of the summer holidays.

The Stampeders stretched their stunning record coming off a bye week to 17-0 and their road version of that to 10-0 with their latest win.

Now it’s the Eskimos’ turn. Edmonton returned from their most recent bye week with a loss last year.

While the Stampeders play at home to Montreal next week, the Eskimos have their first of the three byes this year, returning the following week to play the Als in Montreal.

Calgary visits Saskatchewan, plays host to the Lions, visits Saskatchewan again, and is home to Winnipeg before Labour Day. The Eskimos are home to Saskatchewan, play the Lions in Vancouver, are at home to Montreal and visit Hamilton before the pair of games against the Stampeders.

And judging from the Calgary team we’ve watched so far, Edmonton is going to need the entire summer to get its defence anywhere near the level of the unit the Stampeders are putting on the field.

Calgary held Ottawa to a mere 27 yards and just one first down in the first half on Thursday. Over the course of the game, they had four sacks, three interceptions and three points allowed.

If you figured the Eskimos would be all over the Argos in this one after what happened last week in Toronto, it looked like that was the game plan from the get-go.

Reilly threw a 43-yard firstplay bomb to Duke Williams. Unfortunately, when he went long again, it was tipped and intercepted.

Franklin then moved the Argos 43 yards in seven plays for a field goal that gave Toronto a 3-0 lead.

For the fourth time in the first five games, the Eskimos gave up the first points of the game.

But while they didn’t get much done early in the game, at least they kept the score down, and took only seven penalties for 70 yards. The defence also recorded a sack and an interception.

In no way did they look like the Stampeders on defence.

Reilly went 21 for 36 for 258 yards and completed nine of them for 123 yards to Williams.