The Canadian Press
“I was just talking,” Duke Williams said, thinking back to this past Monday morning in Calgary, where he and Don Jackson met at the 55-yard line at McMahon Stadium.
“He came from out of his running back drills to come to my face and talk trash to me,” he continued. “Then he pushed me. I can’t just let that slide. You push me, I’m going to push you back. Now we’re even.”
Williams, the Edmonton Eskimos’ star receiver and Jackson, the Calgary Stampeders’ running back, have a couple of things in common. They’re both 25 and they’re both enjoying breakout seasons with their respective teams. Williams goes into Week 13 leading the league in receiving. Jackson has battled injuries this year — his ankle will keep him out of Saturday’s game in Edmonton — but he’s fourth in rushing.
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They’re a pair of rising stars, but right now, that line between them stands out more than anything else.
The Esks and Stamps have been playing back-to-back sets for 59 years now and as Jackson and Williams demonstrate, you don’t need to know the history to buy into the longstanding beef that’s existed between Edmonton and Calgary.
“It’s gotta be like that,” Williams said. “We don’t like them, they don’t like us. It don’t make sense to pretend we like each other because I know I don’t like them.
“It’s going to be like that come Saturday as well. We’re ready to dominate. We’ve put in a hard week of practice and we’re just really ready to play. We’re in our house. It’s time. We have to protect our backyard.”
Stamps receiver DaVaris Daniels is another 25-year-old on the field, but this is his third year of these midseason clashes. He watched from afar as Williams and Jackson stood toe-to-toe. In a way, he was waiting for it.
“It was bound to happen,” he said. “Something was going to happen because there’s always something between us.”
Calgary-Edmonton is always intense, but it’s so much better when both teams are Grey Cup contenders. These teams have met in the Western Final three of the last four years and have won two of the last four Grey Cups. Bo Levi Mitchell handed off his 2016 MOP to Mike Reilly last year and they’re both strong candidates to win it again this year.
“There’s a little edge to it this year because…they think they have a lot of talent on their side, just like we have a lot of talent on ours,” Daniels said.
“We’re here to prove that we’re the best team for a reason and they’re there to knock us off our high horse. There’s a lot going on, there are a lot of other factors that go into it this year.”
Duke Williams is eyeing a win against his rival Calgary Stampeders this weekend (Johany Jutras/CFL.ca)
The only disparity in the rivalry right now comes in the win column. Calgary has handled the midseason meetings over the last seven years, holding a 13-2 advantage. That doesn’t stop Williams from seeing the positives in the pairing.
“We just have to finish. It’s not like they’re just beating us into the ground,” he said.
“We’re losing close games and we’re killing ourselves, they’re not beating us. We’re beating ourselves. Every team we played we’re beating ourselves. No team just came over here and put their foot on their neck and just beat us. We’re killing ourselves with these turnovers and penalties. We just have to finish. Once we get that all checked in it’ll be very hard to stop us.”
That we-beat-ourselves idea has drawn the ire of the Stamps over this past week. Mitchell was vocal about it with the media and then expanded on it on his radio show in Calgary. He ran through the Esks’ mistakes in Monday’s game — fumbles by Williams and C.J. Gable, an interception from Reilly — and dismissed the idea.
“Where are y’all giving the game away? The game was taken from you,” he said on air.
“I don’t think that we ever just hand someone a game. It’s not something we do around here,” Daniels said. “For them to say that it was kind of disrespectful, but it’s more reason to go in there and try to get another win.”
You won’t change Williams’ mind on the matter.
“Honestly, I don’t care about (Mitchell) or Calgary. That’s not my concern what he thinks,” Williams said.
“I don’t care about that. I’ll say it to him and I’ll say it to their whole team. We beat ourselves. They didn’t beat us.”
When you eventually get past the back-and-forth, Williams knows that his team needs to win on Saturday.
“We lost two straight and we can’t lose three in a row. We’ve got to win this game. That’ll help us more down the road, you know?” he said. Halfway through his second CFL season, he’s only beaten Calgary once, but he knows that there’s a satisfaction that comes with it.
“Calgary, everybody just be talking about, ‘Calgary this, Calgary that.’ But they made it to the Grey Cup a couple of years and never finished it,” he said. “It’s been a minute since they won it. They’ve been doing all that winning and they’ve been losing the games that count the most. So, we’re ready. That’s all I can say.”
