Argos down Eskimos, keep pace in race for first

The CFL's East Division continues to be on the rise. After struggling through the first part of the season, the East's teams went 4-1 against the West in the last two weeks, with Ottawa adding another East versus West win Friday, and the 4-8 Toronto Argonauts continued that trend Saturday with a 33-32 edging of the 9-4 Edmonton Eskimos. With the win, the Argonauts have the same amount of wins as Montreal and Hamilton (the Tiger-Cats are in action later Saturday against B.C., while the Alouettes have a bye), and they're still very much in contention in the playoff race. Along the way, they showed how they're rounding into dangerous form ahead of the playoffs, and how the Eskimos still have issues to address.

Unusually enough for an Argonauts' win this season, this one wasn't overwhelmingly about quarterback Ricky Ray. Ray's performance was okay, as he threw for 224 yards and two touchdowns, but he also tossed an interception and completed just 66.7 per cent of his passes, low by his standards. The Toronto ground game was better, with Steve Slaton collecting 54 yards on just four carries and Curtis Steele adding 56 on nine, and Chad Owens had a spectacular day, making nine catches for 106 yards and two touchdowns and adding 58 yards on six punt returns. Still, this win may have been mostly started by the defence; giving up 32 points isn't ideal, but eight of those came on a last-minute touchdown/two-point conversion, and overall, the Argonauts did a solid job of limiting Mike Reilly in the passing game and an excellent job of shutting down the Eskimos' ground game.

That's a promising sign for Toronto down the stretch. Their passing game has been pretty consistently good all season long, but the ground game and the defence have struggled. Posting a win over a good team on a day where their passing attack wasn't fully operational is an excellent indicator that the Argonauts are rounding into a more complete team. They've been noted as one of the lesser problems in the East before, and now they're starting to show it. They'll be a team to watch out for in the drive to the playoffs.

For the Eskimos, there are more concerns. Yes, this was a one-point loss in the end, but it took them too long to wake up, especially offensively. Reilly's final line of 24 completions on 32 attempts (a 75 per cent completion rating) for 272 yards and two touchdowns with one interception is pretty solid, but a lot of his yards came once this game was already almost out of hand. He has to get the pass game moving more consistently early on. It didn't help that his offensive line started to show some weakness, allowing three sacks and countless pressures, and that the ground game was invisible (Reilly led the team with 36 rushing yards on four attempts; RB John White had just 16 yards on six carries, a 2.7 yards per carry average that was a huge step down from his First Star performance last week), so this isn't all on Reilly, but he and this offence will have to improve for Emonton to succeed. The Eskimos entered this as the much better team by record, but they leave with many more questions.