Esks' win over Stamps a sea change in CFL West?
After the Stampeders thumped the Eskimos 43-18 in the 2014 West Final, the Edmonton players slouched in their stalls with poleaxed looks on their faces.
“They got us,” Eskimos defensive tackle Almondo Sewell said that day. “They got us.”
That lopsided victory completed a four-game season sweep, underscoring that, as good as the Eskimos’ 12-6 2014 season was, they were no match for the Stampeders on that team’s best day.
That dynamic has been reset. The Eskimos and Stampeders are both CFL heavyweights now. Fittingly, Edmonton’s 15-11 victory on Saturday at McMahon Stadium was a slugfest, not a scoring spree.
The victory clinched a home playoff date for the Eskimos, who won for the second straight time against the Stampeders. They snapped Calgary’s 12-game winning streak against Edmonton with a 27-16 win on Sept. 12.
It also was Edmonton’s first victory in Calgary since Labour Day 2011, and the Stampeders’ first home loss this season.
After the game, the whoops and hollers that thundered through the locker-room walls suggested something like a sea change in the CFL West Division.
True, 15-11 is hardly a gaudy score. Nor is winning two of the three 2015 regular-season games the equivalent of a four-game series sweep, one capped off with a dominant Calgary playoff victory last year.
But drill a bit deeper and the Eskimos’ performance against the Stamps this season is impressive, particularly on defence.
In three games, the Eskimos have limited Calgary quarterback Bo-Levi Mitchell and weapons like running back Jon Cornish and receivers Marquay McDaniel and Eric Rogers to three touchdowns, total.
In three games, the Eskimos have given up 43 points — slightly less than 15 per game — against the Stampeders, the defending Grey Cup champions.
In the Labour Day games — the 16-7 loss in Calgary; the 27-16 victory in Edmonton — the Eskimos gave up a single touchdown and 10 points by Stampeders placekicker Rene Paredes.
On Saturday, the Eskimos again yielded a single touchdown, a Mitchell bomb to Rogers late in the first half. Other than that, all Calgary could manage were three singles, two on Rob Maver punts, one on a Paredes kickoff.
For the entire second half, the Eskimos kept the Stampeders out of field goal range and surrendered no touchdown. That is defensive dominance.
The deepest the Stampeders ventured into Eskimos territory was the 34-yard line on a drive in the final two minutes. But safety Cauchy Muamba intercepted a Mitchell pass, effectively sealing the victory.
In the end, Mitchell completed 17 of 30 passing attempts for 230 yards, one TD and two interceptions. The Eskimos held Cornish to 72 yards, 52 in the second half, when he leaked through the wall for three first-down runs.
McDaniel caught eight balls for 92 yards, Rogers four for 77 and the touchdown — the only home run play by the Stampeders.
“I’ve been watching them do that for two years,” Eskimos quarterback Mike Reilly said of the Eskimos defence. “It’s generally dominant, but not as dominant against a single team that is as good as Calgary is.
“I was really proud of how they played tonight and very happy to see it. But each game is a different scenario and when we play against B.C. (Saturday, 5 p.m.) we’ve got to be ready to put as many points on the board as we can.”
Reilly completed 29 of 40 passing attempts for 264 yards, two interceptions and one touchdown, a beautiful 33-yard rainbow down the middle to Kenny Stafford.
Most of that offensive output was generated in the first half, before the defences for both teams took command, transforming the game into an intensely physical battle that was hugely entertaining for the football purists out there.
What does the victory in Calgary mean, defensive tackle Almondo Sewell was asked.
“It means everything,” Sewell said. “We all (filled out) our goal sheets at the beginning of the year and we all basically had it on our sheets, or 98 per cent of us, had it on our sheet that we wanted a first-place bye this year.
“It has been a while since we had that.”
The last time the Eskimos played host to the West Final was in 2003, when a Ricky Ray-led team beat Saskatchewan, then beat the Montreal Alouettes in the Grey Cup in Regina.
Since then, the Eskimos have played just three home playoff games, in 2004, ’11 and ’13, when they beat Saskatchewan, advancing to lose convincingly to the Stampeders in Calgary in the West Final.
“We control our own destiny and that’s all you can ask for,” said middle linebacker J.C. Sherritt. “Obviously, B.C.’s beaten us once and taken us to the limit the other time.
“So, if we rest on this game and think it’s over, then we’re going to be back in second place real quick. We understand what’s ahead of us.”
What’s ahead of them could well be another date with the Stampeders in the West Final, but in Edmonton this time, depending on how things play out.
Anybody up for one more goround between these two teams?