Can the Eskimos keep their playoff push alive?

Saturday's clash between the Edmonton Eskimos and the Montreal Alouettes (3:30 p.m. Eastern, TSN/ESPN3) is billed as the Hall of Fame game, and appropriately so. Edmonton has held festivities honouring the 2013 class of inductees to the Canadian Football Hall Of Fame all week, and there will be a ceremony recognizing them at halftime during this one, appropriate considering all the great Grey Cup clashes the Alouettes and Eskimos have had over the years. Moreover, while the modern-day Eskimos (3-10) and Alouettes (5-8) aren't exactly playing at a Hall of Fame level right now, there's still huge significance to their clash Saturday. In fact, it may be the most pivotal remaining game in deciding which teams make the CFL playoffs this year.

As remarked a while back, five of the six playoff spots are essentially locked down and the remaining battles there are mostly just for positioning. 10-3 Calgary, 9-4 B.C. and 9-4 Toronto are playoff locks, while 8-5 Saskatchewan's close. (The Eskimos could theoretically catch the Riders, but would need to win their last five, have Saskatchewan lose their last five and pick up enough points in two wins over the Riders to overcome the 69-45 total point deficit they ran up while losing their first two games against Saskatchewan. That's exceptionally improbable.) 6-7 Hamilton doesn't have a playoff berth quite sealed yet, but it's hard to imagine the Tiger-Cats missing the playoffs: even if they can't stay ahead of Montreal, Edmonton would have to win four more games than Hamilton in the five each team has remaining for the Tiger-Cats to miss out via the crossover. Meanwhile, the 2-11 Winnipeg Blue Bombers are all but officially out of playoff contention. Thus, it looks like the battle for the sixth spot is down to just the Alouettes and Eskimos.

Thanks to last week's results, which included a Montreal win over Hamilton and an Edmonton loss to Toronto, the Alouettes have a substantial edge in that competition. The Eskimos would have to be three games better than them over the final five in order to cross over to the East and steal their spot. Thus, a Montreal win Saturday would all but lock things up for the Alouettes; they'd improve to 6-8, while Edmonton would fall to 3-11. The only way the Eskimos could still cross over with a loss Saturday would be to then win their final four games while the Alouettes lost their last four. Another Edmonton loss or a Montreal win would seal that battle in the Alouettes' favour. However, if the Eskimos can pull off a win Saturday, things change substantially: that puts them at 4-10 and Montreal at 5-9, and Edmonton would only have to be two games better than Montreal over the final four to cross over. That's going to be difficult, of course, as the Eskimos finish the season with two games against the 8-5 Riders, one against the 9-4 Lions and one against the 10-3 Stampeders, while the Alouettes have a lighter schedule against Winnipeg, Hamilton (twice) and Toronto, but it's not inconceivable.

This won't be an easy game for the Eskimos to win, though. For one thing, there are legitimate questions about if quarterback Mike Reilly will be sufficiently recovered from last week's concussion to start (and if the team should start him even if he is healthy). Reilly's been one of the league's best players this year, so it's understandable that the team wants him back, but potentially endangering his long-term health in pursuit of a long-shot playoff bid's extremely risky. Edmonton's other quarterback options aren't great, though, as that's pretty much just aged veteran Kerry Joseph (who struggled in relief of Reilly last week) or untested rookie Jonathan Crompton. We'll see what the Eskimos do with their quarterbacks, but this isn't going to be easy for them if the answer's anything but Reilly under centre.

Montreal isn't a juggernaut either, however. While quarterback Josh Neiswander has shown some promise, he was far from dominant in last week's narrow win over Saskatchewan, and the Alouettes haven't been able to establish a consistent ground game regardless of who's carrying the ball. There are intriuging pieces in Montreal, especially in the receiving corps and on the defensive side of the ball, but so far, they haven't added up to a team that's consistently successful. We'll see if they can turn that around Saturday and all but finish off the Eskimos' playoff chances, or if hope will persist in Edmonton for at least another week.