2024 Edmonton Elks, game 14: A depressing missed chance.

Week 16: Winnipeg Blue Bombers 27 @ Edmonton Elks 14

That was the opportunity to fire up the home stretch of the season. 10-10 in the fourth quarter with the ball, they had it in their hands to make a stamp that these Elks are for real.

What a flop.

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Things I liked. Justin Rankin’s productivity, 14 carries for 157 yards. Loved Jarious Jackson going offence on the first-half third down. 3rd and 4 from the opposition 42 is a top spot for it – only controversial because most kickers can be trusted for the odd 49 yard field goal. But Mike O’Shea could certainly have learned from Jackson; rather than go for a 3rd and 3 he opted to watch Sergio Castillo doink his second kick of the night, from 55 yards.

Possession is valuable. Longer field goals are not gimmes, no matter how much misinformation TSN’s court jester stuffs you with. The multi-billion-dollar NFL has figured it out, let’s catch up.

I also liked the trick play touchdown to Geno Lewis, and the defence’s first half. That’s all.

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Not sure what to make of the coach’s game. Jackson really caught my attention with the great third down. Then in the second half he burned a lot of the good will he’s built up. Gonna collect some thoughts and meander around to it.

Turnover recap first: Tre Ford fumbles in field goal range; interception through Rankin’s hands; admirable third down deflected by Willie Jefferson at the line; Kevin Brown fumbles in field goal range; crushing Ford interception thrown at what I believe was an extra offensive lineman running a route; end of game turnover on downs.

Yeah the players are responsible for fumbles, but that’s a lot of ‘flukes’ in the grand scheme of things. The team’s yardage production was fine overall, and they will not repeat that bakery performance next week. The Bombers are unquestionably not 17 points better than the Elks – they were tied in the fourth quarter despite a +3 turnover edge, remember. In the bigger picture they are well-matched.

What worked for the offence was the run options. Rankin’s longest carry resulted from Ford correctly handing it off with an overeager Jefferson focused on Ford. I dare to say they were over-reliant on Rankin, though. 10/17 for 131 yards is a sad passing performance by the offence (we can safely ignore McLeod Bethel-Thompson’s 5/10 for 48 yards – after I glare at him for a seven yard pass on 3rd and 9, which is the second time the Veteran Quarterback™ has done that this year), whether it was receivers not getting open, Ford not seeing them, or the line not holding up long enough for either.

I try not to make too strong of claims on that from a single live TV viewing, which is the same thing you hear from coaches when they say they “have to watch the film”. Likewise, I’m not sure how much I can criticize the offensive plan when it could very well have been mostly on the players.

The offence’s other problems included Lewis having only one catch beyond the touchdown, and major trade acquisition Kurleigh Gittens Jr. having three catches for 27 yards. Same point as Ford though, it’s not that I necessarily blame the players for that, but the offence’s inability as a whole to make use of them.

You don’t love to see Ford’s scrambling so limited (two for nine yards). But I would argue that Dustin Nielson wrongly suggested that called runs are an answer. Incidentally, Ford’s fumble looked like a designed quarterback draw – he’s an improviser, when space has opened up and chaos ensues, not someone you scheme specific runs for.

There has been precious little to criticize about the offence lately. Much of this week’s flop will be from going against a better defence, compared to recent opponents. As far as the quarterback switch, I’m not inclined to say Ford was a major problem, but the offence was listless enough to try it. Unfortunately the ‘spark’ did not come through.

In the context of “does Jackson deserve to be the permanent coach next year?”, this week will be decisive, both in what he makes of this game, and how he adapts for Friday.

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How hard does the wind have to be blowing to be worth forfeiting an extra possession? I’m generally skeptical of it, and it turned out the Elks got a total of seven (arguably only four) meaningful plays with the wind in the fourth on Saturday. Winnipeg, meanwhile, started the second half with a touchdown on their extra possession.

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Both teams struggled offensively/excelled defensively in the first half, with the Bombers holding a 5.3 to 4.8 edge in yards per play. Both flipped it around and got over 7.0 yards per play by when time wasting kicked in. Not that Winnipeg’s offence can be considered dangerous – 19/27 for 191 yards is hardly Zach Collaros delivering blows – but you still can’t trust Edmonton’s defence not to collapse by the end. Qualifiers that even I was finally starting to feel optimistic about them somewhere in there, and dealing with the offence’s six turnovers is a hard spot.

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Formal complaint about the second quarter penalty that basically killed an Edmonton drive that started in Winnipeg’s end. The flag (evidently for a wrestling match at the edge of a rugby scrum) was extremely late, and they had the audacity to say “before yards were gained”, which meant instead of a 13 yard gain and some kind of 1st and 10, the Elks got a 1st and 25. At minimum the Elks would have been expected to tie the game there (down 3-0), and the butterfly starts a hurricane. The arbitrary eye in the sky can’t fix that, but at least he can change a Winnipeg pass to an incompletion a couple minutes later (/s).

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Periodic gripe about Winnipeg killing with a lead in the fourth. I’ve been on this for years, so kindly don’t @ me with “your mad u lost”. It was frankly one of their less egregious games – it’s not uncommon to push a full minute running off between snaps, and this one held around 50 seconds on most plays – yet eight plays, despite including a helpful injury pause, took over five and a half minutes.

Bomber fans will call it great clock management, I call it a flaw in the league’s design. The final three minutes works great, but outside of that they need a clock adjustment to add plays, action, and ultimately entertainment. Set a simple running clock, or even easier, you could tell the officials to spot the ball and whistle the play in faster like they used to!

“More plays and entertainment” is what the CFL is openly concerned about, no? They’ve trackably gotten very lax (chart from end of 2022). Fans love to talk about the CFL being faster than the NFL, yet every time the stats come up, you see NFL teams actually run more plays per game despite the CFL having a “shorter” play clock.

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I am disgruntled, yes. Like I said, the Elks were in an outstanding spot to make this a special season. Instead they’re three points out of a playoff spot with four games to play.

There is one bit of good news I put together after the game: Toronto is 7-7, to Edmonton’s 5-9. The Argos can very well lose to Montreal, Winnipeg, and Ottawa. The Elks can very well win at least two of Winnipeg, Saskatchewan, and Calgary. That would set up a closing week 21 matchup, Argos at Elks, with the winner taking third place in the East.

Sounds good to me.