Chris O’Leary
Edmonton Journal
EDMONTON – It was a play that could have crushed the Edmonton Eskimos.
After being gifted the ball on the Saskatchewan Roughrider 29-yard line on Saturday, thanks to a Tristan Jackson fumble that long-snapper Ryan King pounced on, the Eskimos gave the ball right back to their opponents.
Quarterback Kerry Joseph looked to receiver Cary Koch at the Rider 16-yard line. The ball was caught, but popped loose off the helmet of Saskatchewan safety Craig Butler, who collected the ball and ran to Edmonton’s 37 before being hauled down by Joseph. The Riders scored on the possession to go up 7-0.
Joseph then showed the poise expected out of a been-there, done-that veteran. He kept his focus, used his playmakers — hitting slotback Fred Stamps with a 22-yard touchdown pass — and didn’t give up on Koch, who was playing his first game in two weeks after recovering from a collarbone injury.
“Kerry came over to me (after the fumble) and said, ‘I’m coming right back to you. No big deal,’ ” Koch said. “As a quarterback, you’re not trying to throw to someone who’s going to fumble … then following through with it. Not just saying it, he came back to me and we had success.”
Leading 10-7 in the second quarter, Joseph threw a three-yard pass to Koch in the end zone and, this time, Koch came through with a big play. He pulled in a tough pass through tight coverage for his fifth touchdown of the season.
He had three in two years with his former team, the Riders.
“Everyone picked me up on the sidelines and that helped, too,” Koch said. “I came back and got a touchdown, so that felt like redemption a little bit, but we weren’t done there.”
Aside from producing points at a better clip over the last two weeks than they had during their previous 13 games, the Joseph-led Eskimos have gone full-time with a credo that’s so simple it sounds stupid to say it aloud: Go to your playmakers.
Joseph did that with Koch on Saturday and it was more prevalent a week ago against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats when he stuck with Stamps despite a shaky start from the Eskimos’ best receiver. The persistence paid off and Stamps had a nine-catch, 204-yard performance that was pivotal in putting away the Ticats.
“Those guys, those receivers, have been doing a great job and I tell them, ‘You drop a pass I’m going back to you,’ Joseph said. “You can’t stop going back to a guy because the defence will key on that.
“Those guys, they know I trust them and they trust me and I try to execute the offence and they do a good job of getting open. Wherever the defence tells me to go with the football, that’s where I go with it.”
Eskimo head coach Kavis Reed has known all season that Joseph had that type of leadership and resiliency. When Edmonton was 5-8 and nose-diving in a five-game losing streak, the coach shrugged off the optics of going with a 39-year-old quarterback over the younger options of Steven Jyles and Matt Nichols.
Imagine how the season may have turned out if Reed went with option 1B (Joseph) out of training camp instead of 1A (Jyles).
“What it’s been all season since he’s had the ball in his hand: consistent,” Reed said of Joseph’s play on Saturday. “He’s taking care of the football.
“I don’t think the offensive line is getting enough credit. I don’t think they gave up a sack (Saturday) and, if that’s the case, it’s two weeks in a row that our quarterback hasn’t been picked up off of the ground by an offensive lineman.
“When you have that kind of protection, a quarterback like Kerry Joseph is going to make plays and he’s doing that.”
“This is what it could be and it should be,” Joseph said of the offensive production, which trickles down to the rest of the team.
“We’ve got to keep going. We still make mistakes, we’re not perfect, but we can build on the last two weeks and continue to keep this offence turning.
“Our defence feeds off of that. Our defence now, it gets the chance to get breaks, get their legs back under them, and then they go out and play better. And special teams. Collectively, as a group, the last two weeks we’ve been playing good.”
coleary@edmontonjournal.com
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