 Calgary quarterback Henry Burris has more than one way to show his team is No. 1 in the CFL West. (DARREN MAKOWICHUK/QMI Agency). |
CALGARY — If there isn’t a coming together of the Edmonton Eskimos here, there may have to be a further tearing apart.
And in there somewhere is what this game could be all about for not just the 1-5 Eskimos but even the 5-1 Stampeders.
A lopsided Calgary win could result in more in-season firings beyond general manager Danny Maciocia which would mean more instability with the Eskimos going forward. And you’d have to think that could only be a good thing for their southern rivals.
And that further pushing of the plunger, of course, could start as soon as Monday with the bye week between now and the Eskimos next game Aug. 28 against the Saskatchewan Roughriders being the most logical place for a major shake-up to occur.
Calgary GM and coach John Hufnagel has the lid on his team talking about anything involving the immediate future of the Eskimos. But you can tell that there’s a focus involving his 5-1 team for this game which doesn’t normally exist for a game against a 1-5 team.
Very few Stampeders see the Eskimos as a 1-5 team.
|
“There’s a reason why the B.C. Lions are struggling. I don’t think there’s a reason why the Eskimos are struggling,” said Stampeders veteran Wes Lysack of the two one-win teams in the league.
“They have a lot of talent and a good coach that the players should want to play for, a coach I know I’d want to play for.
There is no rhyme or reason for that team to be 1-5,” said the member of the Stampeders secondary who will be playing the 102nd game of his career.
“Their record is not indicative of how good a football team they are,” said running back Joffrey Reynolds, who will be playing his 101st game here. You look at their games against Saskatchewan, Montreal and Toronto. They could have won all those games.”
But most of them can see the Eskimos being a 1-6 team in Monday morning’s standings.
“We’ve spent the week providing that belief to our young guys,” said Lysack.
The bookies certainly see Calgary 6-1 and Edmonton 1-6 which wasn’t the way anybody saw it back at the start of the season when the Eskimos were supposed to finish ahead of the Stampeders in the standings for the first time since 2004.
The betting line has made the Stampeders nine-point favorites for Sunday’s 6 p.m. game to celebrate the 50th anniversary, to the day, of the first game ever played in McMahon Stadium.
It’s easy to have home playoff games, Calgary has discovered recently.
Finish ahead of Edmonton.
The Stampeders have done that every year since 2004, the last time there was a playoff game in Commonwealth Stadium. And the easiest way to finish ahead of the Eskimos is to make sure you win your games at home, which the Stampeders did last year 32-8, 30-7 and then 24-21 using home field advantage to win the western semifinal.
The northern squad has managed but one win in their last seven trips here and Calgary goes into this one with a nine-game unbeaten streak in McMahon.
If Edmonton, a team which didn’t have a single play go for more than 20 yards in the entire first half against Toronto last week, is to have much hope of getting their season back on the rails it’s going to have to happen against Calgary in a schedule which sees the two teams meet in three of the next four games.
To this point, the Stampeders have been able to do all the the things the Eskimos have failed to do.
“We’ve been able to connect on second down,” said Reynolds of a 48.3% second-down conversion rate to Edmonton’s 38.6%. “Our defense is getting us the ball back with a lot of two-and-outs. We seem to be able to do whatever it takes to win.”
Hufnagel says there is a real focus on the games in this stretch of the season.
“Our schedule is unique this year. We broke it into sections. The first three games. And then the next nine games. Eight of these nine games are against teams from the west. It’s what we do in this span which will likely determine where we end up at the end of the season.”
Quarterback Henry Burris says he just wants to enjoy the two-week break.
“You enjoy the time with your family and everything a lot more if you win the last game before the break,” he said.
Try losing it and going north with a 1-6 record. That flight home to visit family may not require a return ticket.
terry.jones@sunmedia.ca