Eskimos recover to beat Roughriders 24-19, but their first-half offensive woes are troubling

The Edmonton Eskimos emerged from Regina's Mosaic Stadium with a 24-19 win over the Saskatchewan Roughriders Sunday, and on one level, that's pretty impressive. Mosaic Stadium's always a difficult place to play, and any road win there is a good win. Moreover, the victory improves the Eskimos' record to 11-5 and drops the Riders to 9-7, strengthening Edmonton's hold on second place in the West Division. However, there will be plenty of questions asked about the Eskimos after this one, particularly after a first half that saw them trailing 13-4 at the break.

On the day, Edmonton was better in just about every statistical category. They had the better quarterback (Mike Reilly threw for 260 yards with one interception, while Saskatchewan's Kerry Joseph threw for 213 with two picks and a lower completion percentage), running back (John White had 91 yards on 15 carries, while the Riders' Will Ford had just 27 on nine), top receiver (Adarius Bowman had six catches for 111 yards, breaking a club record for catches in the year along the way, while Saskatchewan's Korey Williams had 52 yards on four catches) and kick returner (Kendial Lawrence had three kick returns for 145 yards, including a 96-yard touchdown one, while Saskatchewan's Tristan Jackson was held to 61 yards on three kickoff returns). The first half was all Riders, though, with them outscoring the Eskimos 3-0 in the first quarter and 10-4 in the second. At the start of this one, Joseph (a 41-year-old quarterback who played with Edmonton last year, retired in January, and only returned to Saskatchewan last week) was the dominant quarterback, and Reilly was struggling. That's problematic for the Eskimos.

Moreover, Edmonton came awfully close to giving this one away. They had a safe-looking 11-point lead inside the last few minutes, but let Joseph put together an excellent touchdown drive, aided by a dumb Eskimos' penalty that created a first down out of an illegal forward pass. Saskatchewan missed the two-point convert and couldn't recover the onside kick, so Edmonton was able to hang on for a five-point victory, but this one easily could have gone the other way with a few different breaks late in the game.

This victory's important for the Eskimos, regardless of how difficult it was. It seals up second place in the West and the accompanying home game that goes with it thanks to Edmonton holding the tiebreaker against Saskatchewan. Thus, they should be happy to get out of Regina with a win. Still, if they're going to find postseason success, their offence will need to improve from what it showed in the first half Sunday, and their defence will need to be tighter than it was down the stretch. There's still a lot of work for them to do.

(Update: This post initially had Saskatchewan still in contention for second in the West. They can't claim that, as the best they can do is tie Edmonton, and the Eskimos hold the tiebreaker.)