Geoff Robins/CFL.ca
Repeating as a champion is one of the hardest things to do in all of sports. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking high school volleyball, provincial basketball, university football or professional baseball; the psychology of repeating is difficult to face with a level head and a calm demeanour under the best of circumstances.
Now add in a new head coach, the majority of your staff leaving to a division rival along with several key players and an offence faced with expectations so lofty they could never possibly be met.
Sounds unlikely, unfair and unrealistic, right? Meet the 2016 Edmonton Eskimos.
Against all odds, the Eskimos under former star pivot turned cool handed sideline general Jason Maas have found a way to ignore it all and play some good, at times great football.
Challenge One: Where did all the coaches go?
The big storyline this off-season was the swift departure of Chris Jones from Edmonton to Saskatchewan following the City of Champions’ first CFL title since 2005. When Saskatchewan got its man, the question immediately became who would be the best fit for an Eskimos franchise suddenly looking for answers and direction?
Challenge Two: Your coach is too young.
In his first season in Edmonton, Jason Maas is hoping to make an impact with the Eskimos (CFL.ca)
Quickly, the conversation turned to Maas — a 10-year veteran of the Eskimos’ organization and a successful coordinator for the Grey Cup participant Ottawa REDBLACKS. The primary concern with Maas was his inexperience.
Maas was a quarterback coach to friend and fellow Eskimos alum Ricky Ray for three season before spending just one season in Ottawa, bringing together an offence which turned out to be one of the best in recent CFL memory with four 1,000 yard receivers and a 40-year-old quarterback in Henry Burris turning back the clock.
That’s all gravy, but could he really be the face and brain trust of an entire franchise just five years after playing for it? He took the job, and we would be forced to find out.
Rumblings around the Canadian Football League this off-season from media types suggested that Mike Reilly was over-the-moon excited about working with Maas. Reilly, the proverbial modern day big bodied gunslinger, would be asked to do less, to simplify and most importantly to approach the game less like Mike Reilly and more like, well, Jason Maas would.
As a player, Maas completed 61 per cent of his passes. Not breaking any records, but effective, especially when considering how pass-friendly and thus stat friendly the CFL has become for quarterbacks since his retirement in 2011.
Challenge Three: The Eskimos are one dimensional with Adarius Bowman.
Adarius Bowman is second in the league in receiving yards with 875 yards (The Canadian Press)
When you catch as many balls and have as many targets as Adarius Bowman has had since joining the Eskimos in 2009, this is a legitimate criticism. Bowman has demanded over 150 targets each of the last two seasons, and he is on pace to break that mark yet again this season.
The challenge for any good offence is how to play off its strengths while still accentuating them. A lazy offensive coordinator and head coach would find it very easy to look at Adarius Bowman’s career profile and say he requires a certain number of touches in order to stay happy and help the staff look smart.
I believe the Eskimos staff has done a masterful job of finding Bowman without force feeding this season. There have been moments of wonderment where Bowman disappears mid-game only to reappear late in the fourth, but that says as much about the offence’s flexibility as it might his habit of taking a mid-game siesta.
The only thing to truly cure a one dimensional recover based offence is to give Batman a Robin.
Enter Derel Walker.
Challenge Four: There is no way Derel Walker gets better.
Derel Walker sits just behind Bowman in receiving yards with 837 (Walter Tychnowicz/CFL.ca)
Last season’s CFL rookie of the year Derel Walker would be integral to a successful 2016 Eskimos season. The second-year receiver from Texas A&M shredded secondaries with his smooth route running and quick breaks in 2015 to the tune of 89 receptions for 1,110 yards and seven touchdowns.
Not bad for a guy who had just 59 total catches playing along side Johnny Manziel for two years at Texas A&M after transferring from tiny Trinity Valley Community College in Athens, Texas.
The sophomore slump is as real as the difficulty involved in repeating as champions. Somehow Walker has avoided the pits and valleys of both concepts. He is on pace this season for 116 catches, 1,674 yards and eight touchdowns, all of which would blow the doors off his rookie of the year-worthy season.
So the Eskimos’ offence has avoided the downfall having a young head coach in Jason Maas and the high probability of a second-season slump from their rookie of the year. Good for them, but we haven’t even got to the real challenges yet that are sure to derail their repeat attempts.
Challenge Five: Your quarterback can’t stay healthy.
Mike Reilly sits first in passing yards (2,843) and is tied for the top spot in passing touchdowns (14) (The Canadian Press)
Ironman. Mike. Reilly.
Google “Mike Reilly injury”. It’s an interesting dive into recent history which makes you appreciate what grit looks like in the digital age. A catalog of bumps, bruises, breaks and tears from which to browse and pick your favourite.
Reilly has gone through a lot, but somehow always gets up. To me he’s the modern Brett Favre, Matt Dunigan or Buck Pierce of the league. Like a rock-em-sock-em robot, Reilly always comes back ready for another round despite his ailment.
Last season after sustaining a torn PCL, partially torn MCL and meniscus injury, Reilly finished his victorious Grey Cup campaign with 324 passing attempts. With five attempts tonight he will pass that mark and we haven’t even hit Labour day — when the season ‘starts’.
Challenge Six: Your ex-boss knows everything about you. You’ll never beat him.
When a head coach vacates the premise with as much quickness as an Odell Willis inside pass rush move, people’s feeling get hurt.
Fans, management, remaining players all sporadically voiced their displeasure with the way Jones moved southeast to Regina and rightfully so. When coaches move within the division in any rank of football the guttural reaction is, “damn, he knows everything about us”.
The good, bad and ugly of an organization are never better understood than by the man who helped create the current roster. Jones did that, so the upper hand should be clear right?
In the words of mascot head-wearing Lee Corso, not so fast.
While pre-season is hardly a time to crown a winner, the Eskimos did get a victory over Jones and Saskatchewan way back in June. The truly impressive outing came when Maas stared down the barrel of a Chris Jones-coached defence IN REGINA and hung 39 points on the Riders in Week 3, only days after losing a heartbreaker at home to Maas’ former team the Ottawa REDBLACKS 45-37.
Maas and his newly-formed staff have shown that they take great pride in creating their own brand of Eskimos football. Earlier this season ahead of the Ticats-Eskimos game I asked Maas how he would describe his offence if someone had never watched a CFL game before.
His answer, “multiple and proud. We can do a lot, attack you in a lot of ways and want you to know about it”.
A missing coaching staff? Young and inexperienced replacement? One dimensional passing attack? Sophomore slump curse? Chronically injured quarterback? Unbeatable ex-head coach menacing the entire organization?
None of it matters.
Against all these odds, and many more, the Eskimos have battled through devastating losses to Winnipeg, Hamilton and Ottawa and found a way to win on their first eastern road trip of the year to Toronto. Now the fun begins. The final regular season meeting with their ex-bench boss Chris Jones before back-to-back Labour Day match-ups with their provincial rivals the Calgary Stampeders, who happen to lead the West division.
Sit back and enjoy the show.
