Esks pass rush sets sights on ’Riders’ Fajardo
Boateng says he and his fellow pass rushers will treat ‘athletic’ QB like any other
The idea was always to get after Mike Reilly.
But never in their wildest dreams did the Edmonton Eskimos look to take him out of the game, let alone the rest of the season.
But that was the exact result on the way to a 19-6 win over a B.C. Lions club that won the Reilly sweepstakes in off-season free agency, which saw the former face of the Edmonton franchise bid adieu to the team he started at quarterback for over the past six seasons.
Just four snaps into the game on Oct. 12, Reilly was hit as he threw, wrapped up high by defensive end Kwaku Boateng and low by linebacker Jovan Santos-knox, which resulted in the quarterback breaking his wrist as he was taken to the ground.
“Mike is a hell of a player and a hell of a guy, it’s just so unfortunate because I know how much of a competitor he is,” said Santos-knox, who was making his Eskimos regular-season debut in the game after coming off an injury of his own having spent more time than he would have liked rehabbing a foot. “And as a competitor myself, we want to go against him because he’s the best in the league, or one of the best in the league.
“So I pray for a speedy recovery and it’s not too much. I pray for him.”
It was a rough game for quarterbacks. Moments earlier, Edmonton’s Logan Kilgore took a shot that left his tongue gouged and bleeding from an unnecessary roughness call against Lions defensive end Odell Willis.
“It’s just part of the game, when you’ve got two physical teams going after it, that’s going to happen,” said Santos-knox. “I just pray that he gets healthy soon.”
The Eskimos pass rush didn’t hold back against Reilly all season, sacking him seven and five times in their two previous meetings in a season series they swept 3-0.
“Playing football, the intent of the game is to obviously be physical and be physical with your intent and make big plays and whatnot,” said Boateng, who is in a three-way tie for first place in team sacks with eight on the season, alongside defensive tackles Almondo Sewell and
Mike Moore — good for seventh overall. “But Mike Reilly, he’s a competitor and he’s a superstar in this league and he’s someone who’s well respected.
“Ultimately, you want to win the game, but I don’t think anyone’s a fan of how it went down and we all respect Mike Reilly. I hope he has a speedy recovery, but we wanted him to be in the game and be competitive. But we’re playing a physical game here, and the intent is to be physical and win games.”
It’s been that kind of year for quarterbacks across the league, with Reilly becoming the ninth of nine quarterbacks who started the season and then went on to miss time due to injury.
“Yeah, and it might just be a coincidence this year but it is what it is,” said Boateng, who played two seasons with Reilly after being drafted in the fifth round (41st overall) out of Wilfrid Laurier. “Playing quarterback, there’s a lot of positives to it, but also the cons, right? You’re often getting hit while throwing the ball.”
This week, an Eskimos pass rush that sits second overall with 50 sacks in 16 games prepares to open a back-to-back series against a Saskatchewan Roughriders squad that leads the league with 53 sacks over that same span.
And that means Boateng &
Co. will have their first crack at quarterback Cody Fajardo.
“Ultimately, I think we’re going into it as any other game and be as physical as I know our defence will be,” Boateng said. “Cody Fajardo, he’s an athletic quarterback, yes. But we’ve dealt with them throughout the whole year with Winnipeg and Montreal, specifically.”
If anything, it will be a tune up for the East Division semifinal Nov. 10 against the Alouettes and quarterback Vernon Adams Jr., as the Eskimos are locked into the crossover playoff spot regardless of the outcome of these final two weeks.