http://www.edmontonjournal.com/sports/f ... story.html
Pre-season gives fans glimpse of work in progress
Eskimos’ best quarterback on this night was Joseph, their 38-year-old backup
By John MacKinnon, edmontonjournal.com June 21, 2012 11:01 PM
EDMONTON - Ricky Ray won’t be throwing any passes for the Toronto Argonauts in these environs until the CFL opener on June 30, but his legacy haunted Commonwealth Stadium on Thursday night.
Just a little bit, anyway. And on the longest, and perhaps the loveliest, night of the summer, at that. Not that too much stock should be put in how things went, a 24-16 loss to the B.C. Lions.
We are talking about a pre-season game, after all. It’s always a mistake to overweight the significance of such encounters.
Remember that last season, one that began with low expectations, the Edmonton Eskimos lost both pre-season games, reeled off five victories to start the year, finished 11-7, played host to a playoff game for the first time since 2004, and came within one victory of qualifying for the Grey Cup.
It’s called the pre-season for good reason. Got it.
Still, any of those among a respectable crowd of 30,891 who showed up to be reassured that the off-season swap that sent the franchise’s all-time leading passer to Toronto was a defensible move probably weren’t so reassured.
The issue is not going to go away.
Steven Jyles, the quarterback who came back to Edmonton in the deal, completed four of seven passes for 53 yards, his longest a 31-yard dart to Nate Coehoorn. He was sacked after he took his first snap of the season.
The Eskimos went two-and-out on each of his first three series, despite excellent field position for all but one of those possessions.
The 29-year-old Jyles ran well, as you’d expect. He’s a mobile quarterback and he showed it.
Kerry Joseph, the Eskimos’ 38-year-old veteran, relieved Jyles about five minutes into the second quarter and generated more consistent offence, using both his arm and his legs.
Joseph was six-for-eight passing for 133 yards in the first half; or in less than one quarter of the first half, to be precise.
A strike to Coehoorn, the second-year Canadian receiver, accounted for 57 of those yards, and that spectacular play ended in disappointment when Coehoorn fumbled the ball deep in B.C. territory as the first half expired.
So, it was encouraging to see that Joseph, the hero of the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ Grey Cup season in 2007, can still command an offence, move the ball, mix up the play selection.
It might not be so encouraging that the most proficient Eskimos quarterback this pre-season is a man who turns 39 on Oct. 4, though.
Ray, by comparison, is 32, and turns 33 in September. It’s not as if shipping him to Toronto has made the Eskimos younger at quarterback.
Trading Ray removed his estimated $400,000 salary from the mix, giving the Eskimos greater flexibility, without question.
It remains to be seen whether some fans might be inclined to believe in the adage “you get what you pay for,” at least on the basis of one pre-season game.
To be fair, both Jyles and Joseph were seeing their first action of the pre-season. It’s not as if they were auditioning for a job. They were just getting some live action reps in front of the home crowd.
Matt Nichols, tabbed as the Eskimos quarterback of the future, played true to form for a talent who needs more experience, more seasoning, more time to learn.
Nichols completed seven of 14 passes for just 40 yards and absorbed four quarterback sacks from a relentless B.C. defence.
"relentless B.C. defence" Yeah
To be fair, the Lions are the defending Grey Cup champions and their leader, quarterback Travis Lulay, displayed a reasonable facsimile of mid-season form.
Lulay completed 15 of 21 pass attempts for 213 yards and touchdown passes to Geroy Simon, Kierri Johnson and Arland Bruce before he took a seat early in the third quarter, his work done for the night, the Lions comfortably ahead 21-9.
Yeah...
Finally, the flow of the game, certainly the outcome, was about what you’d expect from a defending champ playing a team in the midst of a significant redo.
Tillman doesn't like that word, rebuilding.
You have to believe a sophisticated Eskimos crowd went out to get a load of how things are shaping up. Did they see promise at quarterback; how was the offensive line looking; can the pass rush dent that mammoth B.C. offensive line; do the Eskimos have a running attack.
"can the pass rush dent that mammoth B.C. offensive line" No. LOL