‘I just played like crap,’ Reilly says

At what point do the Edmonton Eskimos tell themselves they can play half a game of football and still only lose by one score?

On the way to a 31-23 loss to the Lions Thursday at B.C. Place Stadium, the Eskimos took twice as many penalties for 60 more yards, lost the turnover battle 4-2, were outpossessed by two minutes 18 seconds and still had two drives in the final 3:25 to tie the score and force overtime.

Of course, the flipside is the Eskimos earned 90 more yards of offence (345-255) held Travis Lulay to a 55 per cent completion rate for 239 passing yards, which included a touchdown and an interception, added three sacks to the league-leading 17 they had coming in and still ended up coughing up a 10-point halftime lead.

And a loss is a loss, which, to answer the question, is the only thing that matters to the Eskimos, who suffered their first divisional loss of the season to fall to 5-3.

The Lions, meanwhile, improved to 3-0 at home as they drew even with the fourthplace Saskatchewan Roughriders at 3-4.

“They played better defence than they played offence,” Eskimos head coach Jason Maas said of the role reversal that occurred at halftime before his team earned just two third-quarter yards and three second-half points. “We just couldn’t get things going, couldn’t get any first-down production and that makes it very difficult against any team in second-and-long and we were there, it seemed like, most of the third quarter.

“So we just didn’t do our part tonight, they played better.”

Mike Reilly completed 15 of 20 first-half passes for 148 yards and two touchdowns, while connecting on 10 of 21 second-half throws for 154 yards and two interceptions. His lone rush came on a oneyard keeper into the end zone in the second quarter for Edmonton’s largest lead of the game at 14-3.

“I thought we played well in the first half; the second half, I just played like crap,” said Reilly, who came into the game leading the league in passing yards and touchdown passes and left tied for the league lead in interceptions. “I turned the ball over three times and you can’t do that.”