It is required that the Eskimos be convinced that it is all set-up for the upset.
It is necessary for the Edmonton Eskimos to believe the noose is already around the neck of the Calgary Stampeders.
It is advisable that they think the Saskatchewan Roughriders hung the noose around the Stamps neck last weekend and that now all Edmonton has to do is spring the trap door.
The Stamps have appeared to be in denial about it all season, that what happens to defending Grey Cup champions and Grey Cup hosts is almost always a sorry story in the end. It has often been observed that there appears to have been something missing with the southern squad this season, that they're not the same team they were last year.
If the Eskimos can be the team we watched in the last two weeks and not the team we watched the last two times they played in McMahon Stadium then this is going to be a football game and the noose-around-the-neck thing will definitely be in play.
The Eskimos want to encourage panic in front of the fans who expected to be going to McMahon Stadium to watch their Stamps in the Western Conference final next Sunday not the semi-final this Sunday.
Richie Hall's inloo-dwellers want to induce John Hufnagel's cowboys into becoming an up-tight team front of the fans who paid the big bucks for their Grey Cup tickets hoping to have the home town team in the game.
“You want psychologically for it to all creep in,” said rookie head coach Richie Hall. “You want to put some pressure on early against them and let them try catch up. You want them to not hear cheers. You want them to feel concern from the crowd.”
It's all built in to make home field advantage turn to home field disadvantage as it has for so many Grey Cup hosts in the past who have failed to get to the game, who were forced to vacate
their own dressing room and let another team move in as the Eskimos did to win two of the three Grey Cups previously played in Calgary.
“You have to believe there's a lot of pressure on them,” said quarterback Ricky Ray.
“You have to believe they have a lot of expectations for themselves and from their fans. When you have that sort of situation, there's going to be guys who try to do too much. You want to get them out of their rhythm.”
Andrew Nowacki, who along with Ray, Jason Maas, Patrick Kabongo, Joe McGrath, Mathieu Bertrand and Taylor Inglis are the only Eskimos still around from their previous Western Conference playoff game, says they don't have to go back to 2005 to know what to do.
“We need to do exactly what we did in the Labour Day rematch,” he said of the Friday follow to the 32-8 loss in the annual classic in Calgary.
Huh?
They lost that one, too.
“We need to get the jump on them and then stay on them. We got the jump on them but we didn't stay on them,” he said of blowing a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter and losing 35-34.
“If we get up on them, I like our chances.”
The Eskimos aren't telling themselves that Calgary is going to come to the game and hang themselves. But they believe if Edmonton comes to town and essentially plays the same game the
Eskimos did to make it back into the West playoffs for the first time since running the table on the road in 2005 as a third place team with the run starting in the semi in Calgary that they can do it again.
“The No. 1 thing we need to do is focus on what we do,” said defensive coordinator Jim Daley.
“The No. 1 way to impact this game is to have great execution combined with great intensity. We need to play exactly the way we played in Vancouver where we combined being very physical with taking only two penalties.”
There's also the matter of getting Stampeders quarterback Henry Burris reacquainted with the demons from his past which he shook off last year by winning the big ones but which appeared to revisit him last week.
“It's important to get the quarterback affected,” said Daley. “You do it with pressure and disguise. We have to both.”
The biggest difference between the Eskimos and Stampeders this year is shown in one statistic. In the giveaway/takeaway stat the Stampeders were plus nine and the Eskimos minus 11.
It wouldn't hurt to have stuff happen to turn that around, too, especially early.
Anything to tighten the noose around the neck of the defending Grey Cup champion and 2009 Grey Cup host.
