September 30, 2011
Dave Campbell
ESKS.com
Home-field advantage.
It’s important in any sport. In hockey, football, or baseball, it’s a huge advantage say in game seven of a playoff series.
Football perhaps is the one game where home field advantage means the most. The defense feeding off the raucous home crowd, the quarterback can use the cadence to its full advantage. In the playoffs, football teams want home field advantage. They want the comforts of home and they want a wild home crowd to make life miserable for the opposition.
The Eskimos at one time were almost unbeatable at Commonwealth Stadium. Visiting teams knew that they were already down by a touchdown or two before the kick-off.
Over the last five years the Eskimos have housed some less than spectacular teams, but this season it’s a different story. The Eskimos are tied for first place in the Western Division, they’re a legitimate playoff contender and knocking on the door of being a Grey Cup contender. Unfortunately for the green and gold lately, success has been hard to come by at home. The team raced out to a 3-0 start at Commonwealth Stadium, but now the Eskimos have lost three straight games on home field. Their road record is an outstanding 4-2. The only reason the green and gold have a shot at first place is because the Calgary Stampeders have a worse home record at 2-4.
The key to securing first or second place is win all or the majority of your home games and win around half of your road games.
Their first two home games they dominated in wins over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and BC Lions, leading from start to finish. Then they came from behind to beat the Toronto Argonauts. During their three losses at home, the Eskimos have scored just 42 points and have allowed 100. Head Coach Kavis Reed has noticed at times a listless team at home.
“I would say we don’t start fast and that’s indicative of the scoreboard since the pre-season. For whatever reason, we’ve started slow at home and we’ve been playing catch-up,” explained Reed. “We’ve had six home games and in four of them we’ve been playing catch-up and that’s not a good way to be at home.”
Nope, it’s not a good way to be at home when you’re playing good teams like the Stampeders and the Montreal Alouettes. You play tentative and good teams will know how to put the squeeze on you early and never let go. It’s almost like a car race or a marathon, you allow yourself to get behind and no matter how hard you try, you just waste your energy trying to catch the leader.
It’s opposite for the Eskimos on the road. They’re the team that plays with a sense of urgency. They don’t wait for the opponent; they make the opponent try to come to them. Quarterback Ricky Ray says perhaps a road mentality at home would help.
“When you’re playing on the road you want to get off to a fast start and take the crowd out of it,” Ray said. “On the other hand, when you’re at home you want to get off to a fast start because you want to get your crowd into it. I think we’re just getting off to slow starts and giving the opponent a lot of hope.”
Both the Eskimos and Stampeders are using first place as volleyball right now. Nobody seems to want to take their vehicle and put the pedal to the metal and leave the other in the dust. The Stampeders had the opportunity last Sunday in Moncton and, much to the Eskimos delight, they laid an Atlantic Ocean sized egg against the Tiger-Cats.
With six games to go the Eskimos are tied for first place in the West. They still hold the tie-breaker over Calgary having won the season series. They still control their own destiny and have three games left at Commonwealth Stadium. Win all three and the Eskimos finish with a 6-3 record on home turf. That would pretty much guarantee the team a home playoff game for the first time since 2004. A home playoff game is one of the major goals for the organization this season. Not achieving that would be a major disappointment.
Eskimos fans have returned to Commonwealth Stadium this season; their last two crowds have been over 40,000. They’ve been a patient bunch over the last few years and they deserve to be rewarded.
NOTES: Eskimo linebacker Greg Peach will not play this Friday against the BC Lions in Vancouver because of a knee injury; Mark Restelli will make his 2011 CFL debut. Restelli returned earlier this month after being released by the NFL’s Miami Dolphins. After using both Damon Duval and Derek Schiavone in the kicking game, Duval will handle all of the kicking duties on Friday in Vancouver. Slotback Fred Stamps missed the final two days of practice resting up bumps and bruises; he’ll play vs. the Lions.