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The Edmonton Eskimos believe they are on the right track.
The patience of the Edmonton sports fan has truly been tested over the last number of years. The Oilers haven’t made the playoffs since their Stanley Cup run of 2006. The Eskimos have only two playoff wins since their last Grey Cup win in 2005 and they’ve missed the playoffs three times in the last seven years.
| Turning the corner |
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“I think it’s a good reflection of him and how he carries himself. When we see he’s not panicking, and blaming or anything like that. He takes it on his shoulders every time. It calms you down and makes you want to win that much more for him.” – J.C Sherritt on Coach Kavis Reed |
The “re-build” word might be thought of more as a curse word in Edmonton. However that is the direction new General Manager Ed Hervey has chosen. The Eskimos are a young football team and their early-season play has reflected their inexperience. Friday night could be termed as the “Nervous Nellie Bowl” as both the Eskimos and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats are looking for wins.
The Eskimos have lost three straight games, however, their last two games have shown some improvement. Last week in Montreal, the Eskimos fought back from two possessions down twice, and at one point held a 27-26 lead before losing 32-27.
Despite the loss, the Eskimos remained an upbeat group, not resembling the team that has had their fair share of troubles. Head coach Kavis Reed says the mood of his locker room is upbeat.
“You have to be and I think that’s the character of this football team,” Reed said. “We understand that we are in a process of getting things right. People establishing their rapport, and getting used to coaches, and coaches getting used to players. The guys have seen tremendous progress in the last three weeks, and they are very confident they have turned a corner and hopefully that will culminate into a win.”
So let’s get this straight. With all the outside distractions from fans and media, the psyche of the team hasn’t been disturbed? How can this be?!
Easy, according to middle linebacker J.C Sherritt. He says it all starts with the leadership of Reed.
“It starts with Kavis, he sets the tempo for our locker room and for the way we carry ourselves and it trickles down,” Sherritt explained.
“I think it’s a good reflection of him and how he carries himself. When we see he’s not panicking, and blaming or anything like that. He takes it on his shoulders every time. It calms you down and makes you want to win that much more for him.”
We’ve seen Reed get really emotional after a loss and we’ve seen him with much poise too. Welcome to the life of coaching a young football team. Any coach would struggle with a team developing a quarterback and lacks in experience. We saw Corey Chamblin have trouble with a young defence last season.
Now he has a veteran presence to work with and an elite running back (Kory Sheets) and an elite quarterback (Darian Durant). Even the greatest head coach of all-time Wally Buono went through the dark times recently with the BC Lions before they captured the Grey Cup in 2011. Most coaches will struggle with young football teams.
The Eskimos need to have more consistency on offence. Too many two-and-outs and an rough 25 per cent conversion rate last week on second down won’t get the job done. The defence needs to find a way to stop the run. And although it’s getting better, the penalty numbers needs to decrease.
On the hopeful side, the Eskimos have shown the penchant for the big play offensvely in the last two games. Quarterback Mike Reilly rung up a 262-yard passing game vs. Montreal and a QB rating of 97, his second highest rating of the season. The defence rose to the occasion last week in the fourth quarter with a goal line stand and gave the ball back to their offence. Heck, special teams produced the first punt return for a touchdown in almost two seasons thanks to Cary Koch.
The Eskimos will try to avoid a fourth straight loss overall and a third straight loss at Commonwealth Stadium to start the season. That has never happened before and Sherritt doesn’t want any part of it.
“I think it’s huge,” Sherritt said. “I always feel so embarrassed when we lose at home and losing in general. To lose in front of our fans in our home city that’s something that just can’t happen. We need to protect Edmonton and our fans deserve to see us win. That’s something we stress on our team and it’s something we are going to take accountability for.”
Moral victories are building blocks for re-building teams. As long as they propel a team ahead to actual victories at some point because actual victories let you sleep at night.
