Edmonton Eskimos drop fifth straight 34-26 to Argonauts

The Eskimos fortunes continue to trend in the wrong direction, after a 34-26 loss to the Argonauts in Toronto on Saturday.

“It’s definitely a deflating loss,” Eskimos defensive tackle Euclid Cummings said. “We definitely had some ups and downs. You know we had some positives out there. But, you know, we’re going to head into the bye-week and get it right.”

The Eskimos got off to a good start, opening the scoring early in the first quarter after a quarterback sack by defensive tackle Euclid Cummings led to a fumble recovery by Almondo Sewell. Running back Travon Van would score a 12-yard touchdown. But the Argonauts fought back and were up 24-14 at the half.

Two missed field goals by kicker Hugh O’Neill highlighted the third quarter for the Eskimos: one good for a single point, and the other returned 125 yards for a touchdown by Toronto’s Martese Jackson which was the beginning of the end.

With the Eskimos down 34-23, with under five minutes to go in the fourth quarter, a nice over the shoulder touchdown catch by D’haquille (Duke) Williams was negated by a coaches challenge, because Williams pushed off, albeit slightly, from the defender.

Then, down 34-26, a 60-yard strike to Brian Mitchell set up another touchdown pass attempt to Williams, which he missed, and an Edmonton challenge for defensive pass interference failed.

The Argos then sacked quarterback Mike Reilly, which led to a fumble recovery by Toronto. Reilly suffered a helmet-to-helmet blow to the head that wasn’t called, but the Esks were out of challenges since each team only gets one per game now.

After going 7-0 out of the gate, the Eskimos have now lost five straight.

“There’s spurts throughout these last couple of games where we’re playing really good football and then there’s spurts where we’re not — we’re kind of stuck in neutral,” Reilly said. “So we’ve just got to figure out how to play that great football that we’re capable of and do it more consistently.”

Edmonton has a bye-week now, and will try to turn things around Saturday, Sept. 30, hosting the Winnipeg Blue Bombers at The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium.

“We’ve just got to go out there and make some bigger plays,” Eskimos running back Travon Van said. “We’ve just got to take it one play at a time and execute when we can.”

The kickoff is at 7:30 p.m., with the Countdown to Kickoff starting at 6 p.m., on CISN Country 103.9.