No panic in Edmonton after disapointing loss
To put it plainly, the Edmonton Eskimos were terrible in their season opener against the BC Lions on Sunday. They looked disjointed, out of sync and whatever other catchy descriptor you want to use to articulate an effort that had fans shaking their heads leaving Commonwealth Stadium. The CFL season, however, is 18 games long and one performance will not have fans leaping off of the High Level Bridge, especially when you start looking at the stats from the game and take into consideration a couple of key factors that may have tipped the scales in favor of the Lions.
Injuries and coaching decisions started the Eskimos off on the wrong foot even before the opening kickoff. With starting receivers Fred Stamps and Kelly Campbell seeing very little action in the pre-season, the offence seemed to sputter as quarterback Ricky Ray tried to find some chemistry with his wideouts. The decision to start Kelly Campbell over Jason Barnes, who was the most dangerous receiver in training camp and the pre-season for the Green & Gold, certainly didn’t help. Beyond the scripted opening drives of each half, it was hit and miss when it came to the Eskimos’ air attack. Compounding the difficulty of sustaining a drive was the fact that the offensive line could not keep Ray standing upright. Sacked five times, the road graders up front were not on the same page when it came to protecting their quarterback, something that was probably exacerbated by the loss of veteran centre Aaron Fiacconi to injury.
"Given the talent level on the Eskimos' roster .... the chances of repeat performance sometime this season of such low statistical output is pretty low."
Apart from the offence, the defense didn’t fair much better in Sunday’s contest, allowing BC running back Jamal Robertson to scamper for 168 yards on 11 carries, good for a torrid clip of 15.3 yards per carry. Once again, not having defensive tackle Dario Romero or safety Elliott Richardson probably contributed to the Eskimos struggling to make plays on the defensive side of the ball.
Okay, so before anyone says it, injuries are a part of football and good teams deal with them. That’s a fair statement and there is no reason to believe that the Eskimos won’t be able to cope with the injury bug. The team will be better and the injury issues we are looking at today won’t seem to be nearly as important five or six weeks down the road.
So, why the confidence in the Eskimos? Aside from making adjustments for injuries, which the team will do, the Eskimos had one of their worst games statistically over the past couple of seasons. Save for the running game, which was powered by a pretty decent performance by Arkee Whitlock, there were examples of players putting up dismal numbers all over the stat sheet. I won’t go into too much detail here, but if you want to check out the full breakdown of some of the statistical categories where the Eskimos achieved low scores, you can read my article on it over at EsksNation.ca. In addition to those stats, the fact that the defence was unable to create at least one turnover in the game speaks volumes, considering the fact that although the Lions were more efficient than the Eskimos on offense, they certainly were not playing in mid-season form.
Given the talent level on the Eskimos’ roster, and yes, they do have quite a bit on both sides of the ball, the chances of repeat performance sometime this season of such low statistical output is pretty low. For Eskimos fans, getting this stinker out of the way early should be taken as a positive, providing of course that they can rebound from it and execute at a more normal level this coming Sunday when they face off against the Montreal Alouettes. If they can, and they should, then the Eskimos should be able to have successful season in 2010.
Gizzie Willie is a popular CFL blogger, writing for the Edmonton Eskimos, as well as his blog, EsksNation.ca, which focuses on the Edmonton Eskimos specifically. You can follow EsksNation.ca on Twitter.
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I hope the Eskimos don't bounce back :). However, as you said, the chances they will have another 10 point performance isn't likely. I think Ray will have a chance to challenge Montreal deep because their secondary is pretty average so far. While Montreal is probably the favourites in this game, Edmonton could very well win if they score enough points.
[...] disgust felt by fans at the 0-4 start to the season. After the first game of the season, I wrote an article for CFLDailyDose.com stating that there was no need to panic. Well, panic will not help the Esks right now, but [...]