  Saskatchewan Roughriders quarterback Darian Durant looks to pass while playing the Edmonton Eskimos during the first half in Regina, Sask., Saturday (David Stobbe/Reuters)
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REGINA — It’s hard to have any compassion when it comes to a football team losing games the way the Edmonton Eskimos are losing games.
And there’s certainly no suggestion here that it shouldn’t be open season on everybody involved in the Eskimos organization from Rick LeLacheur to Danny Maciocia to Richie Hall to Ricky Ray and down through just about anybody you want to blame Edmonton’s stumbling, bumbling start to the season.
Damn near everybody deserves just about all the spit and abuse the town can throw at them right now.
The loss equaled the 0-3 start of the 2004 Eskimos and put them in a position next week in Winnipeg to have their worst start since they went 0-5 back in 1965. The last time the team lost their first two at home was in 1969. So compassion should definitely not be the storyline of this column.
Except for Fred Stamps.
The guy caught 12 passes for 213 of the 333 yards the Eskimos amassed in the air in Sunday’s 24-20 loss to the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
And for the second week in a row, the guy spent the post game getting grilled for the one that got away.
Last week, Stamps sat in the dressing room and wore it on behalf of the team. He said his 63-yard, wide-open, all-alone, hit-him-in-the-hands touchdown pass that he miraculously managed to drop late in the third quarter was the play that turned the day.
“On a play like that, you gotta catch it,” said Stamps after the loss to the Montreal Alouettes. “It was the perfect pass. I took my eyes off it to get ready to run to the end zone. I let the team down.”
Stamps made big-play catches of 43 and 42 yards and drew three more big-yardage pass-interference calls in a six-reception day for 119-yards against Montreal.
Saturday, he caught passes of 13, 14, 16, 21, 22, 27, 34 and 42 yards. But it was about that 42-yarder.
The emerging CFL superstar, who now leads the league with 24 catches for 399 yards and an average of 16.6 yards per catch, fumbled it after the catch.
If he had caught the one the week before and held on to this one, the Eskimos might have won both games.
But he wasn’t standing up in the middle of the room and taking the blame on this one.
“Things happen like that. That wasn’t the thing that made us lose.”
No, if you are looking to play the blame game look at everybody else.
“We’re our own worst enemies,” said head coach Richie Hall. “We’re playing against 13 men and we’re the 13th man,” said the coach, not attempting to make fun of the Roughriders losing the Grey Cup game for having too many men on the field. “We can’t overcome ourselves.”
The Eskimos are blushing because they added three more trips to the red zone, after gong 0-for-5 last week, without scoring touchdowns. On one, a fumble inside the 10 by Calvin McCarty, they didn’t even get to settle for a field goal.
“We’ve got to come away with more,” said Hall. “We’re averaging one touchdown a game so far this season. We’re giving up big plays defensively.
“I’m not very happy and I told this team that. We’ve got to start to finish. And we have to start playing the last 15 minutes like we play the first 15 minutes.”
The quarterback says it’s almost slapstick.
“Right now we’re just getting in our own way,” said Ricky Ray. “What’s so frustrating is that we’re doing some good things. That’s what’s so hard. But we’re making critical mistakes at the wrong time.
“There’s just so many missed opportunities. Right now we’re just not getting it done. We’re leaving so many points out there. Last week, we were handling Montreal pretty easily. But we left all those points out there. It wasn’t the same kind of a game (Saturday), but it’s still the same story. We’re just not getting it done.”
The much maligned Mr. Maciocia said he doesn’t know what to say.
“If the talent wasn’t there or the coaching wasn’t there, that would be one thing. But it’s not the talent and it’s not the coaching.”
Maybe the guy who picks the players should go kick the players. But if there’s one guy in that dressing room who doesn’t need to be taking any grief it’s Fred Stamps.
terry.jones@sunmedia.ca
