WILD, WACKY ESKS VICTORY
Will win set stage for rest of season?
Reilly hit the two-thirds mark of the season with 3,943 yards passing and a serious shot at 6,000.
When the laser show was over and the fireworks had finished, the complete craziness of one of the wildest Canadian Football League games ever played remained to contemplate.
And with a third of a season to go, the events of this Labour Day doubleheader between the Edmonton Eskimos and Calgary Stampeders leave us to ponder the significance of it all with an eye toward the 106th Grey Cup in Edmonton.
Saturday’s rematch at Commonwealth Stadium was the kind of game that could keep a stats guy like Steve Daniel of the CFL or Brian Desjarlais of the Eskimos up all night.
With the combined total of 90 points, the Eskimos’ 48-42 victory before the largest crowd (38,611) in the league this season marked the highest scoring game in the history of this storied rivalry.
The shootout between the league’s top two gunslingers saw Edmonton’s Mike Reilly and Calgary’s Bo Levi Mitchell look like they were playing a pinball game.
Reilly completed 30 of 44 pass attempts for 397 yards and carried eight times for another 43 yards on the ground. He threw three TD passes and ran for three more. That made him the first Eskimos QB to throw for three touchdowns and run for three in a game.
It also gave Reilly a leagueleading 26 touchdown passes and a league-leading 11 rushing majors with a third of the season to go. Only Doug Flutie has ever managed 50-plus combined touchdowns and holds the record at 56. Reilly became only the third Eskimos QB to rush for 10 plus TDs in a year, the other two being Johnny Bright and Blake Marshall.
Reilly hit the two-thirds mark of the season with 3,943 yards passing and a serious shot at 6,000. Only three QBs have thrown for more than 6,000.
Mitchell was good on 25 of 46 passes for 491 yards and threw four touchdown passes. Between them, there were 888 yards passing.
The Stampeders had 590 yards of net offence and the Eskimos 462. The 1,052 yards of combined net offence was the most recorded for an Eskimos- Stampeders game, the old record being 1,030 from a 38-35 Edmonton win in August of 2009.
The 12 offensive touchdowns is just one off the CFL record of 13 and was a record for a Calgary-Edmonton game. It was one of only eight games in CFL history where both teams scored at least six times on offence. Calgary had seven turnovers leading to 31 of Edmonton’s 48 points while 45 of the 90 points overall came off nine turnovers between the two teams.
It was also a coming-out party for Edmonton’s Duke Williams. Forced to leave the game midway in the second quarter, Williams returned for the second half and ended up with seven receptions for 172 yards and has a league-leading 1,235 yards on the season. That puts him on pace for Brian Kelly’s team record of 1,817. The CFL record is 2,036 by Allen Pitts of the Stampeders.
So, yes, it qualified as one of those “I was there” games.
But the big question is how big a role will these two games mean in the overall scheme of things.
During the week, the 12 Edmonton players remaining from the 2015 Grey Cup team spoke of using a win in this game — only their fifth over the last 26 games during the Labour Day doubles — to duplicate their Grey Cup run of 2015. Their win in 2015 launched them on an eightgame winning streak to the title.
Chances are slim the 7-5 Eskimos will overtake the 9-2 Stampeders for first in the West but it must be said that Calgary has lost two of their last three and been hit hard by injuries in the two games against Edmonton. The Eskimos did win the season series by points, 68-67, so it’s possible but not likely.
With the Saskatchewan Roughriders winning both ends of their Labour Day double against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Chris Jones has Gang Green on a four-game winning streak with a 7-4 record.
So it looks like it’s going to be Saskatchewan and Edmonton vying for second place and home field advantage in the west semifinal. And that points to a massive match Oct. 8 in Regina.
The Eskimos, 26-19 winners over the Riders here, have @Ottawa, Winnipeg, Ottawa, @B.C. and Winnipeg remaining while the Riders have Ottawa, @Toronto, @ Montreal, @Winnipeg, @Calgary and B.C. on their plate in addition to the Oct. 8 meeting.
With the defending Grey Cup champion Toronto Argos and Montreal Alouettes sitting at 3-8 in the East and more or less out of playoff contention, you can pretty-much book the fourth place team in the west for a crossover playoff spot. Winnipeg (5-7) and B.C. (4-6) can fight for that.
It promises to be an interesting finish leading to the Grey Cup game at Commonwealth Nov. 25.