Aug
Goss still looking for first pick in 09
Courtesy Hamilton Spectator:
This has never, not even in a nightmare, happened to Jason Goss before.
“Not in Pop Warner football, not in high school, college, not all the way up,” the Edmonton Eskimos cornerback was saying yesterday, and you can tell it’s driving him crazy.
Goss, the ex-Ticat who had seven picks for a flimsy 2005 Hamilton squad, has never gone into the eighth game of a season with “zero” beside his name in the interception column.
So imagine his absolute incredulity that his entire team has yet to record its first interception of the season.
This is, after all, the CFL where there are only two passing downs and only three career-proven-and-tested quarterbacks, and where the field is so vast a defence is going to grab a few passes merely by accident.
To put this drought in its starkest perspective, Saskatchewan, the team with the next-fewest number of interceptions, averages one pick per game.
“It’s one of those things that if you tried to script it, you couldn’t because the law of averages would come into play,” muses flummoxed head coach Richie Hall. “We’ve had some opportunities. We dropped one against Calgary on their last drive last game. Last time against Hamilton (a late 28-21 Hamilton win Aug. 8), we dropped two.
“We’ve been mostly in position. I’ve always said it’s better to be in position to make a play and not make it, than to not be in position.”
That’s one of the many traits which the Eskimos and Ticats, two promising but incomplete teams, share besides a date at Commonwealth Stadium tonight (7 p.m., TSN).
While Hall says the lack of interceptions reflects the need for more attention to detail (keeping your hands under the ball, following it right into your hands), and that his team is close, they’re still not making the play. Just as the Cats front seven has been putting increased pressure on the quarterback but not completing the sack.
In both cases the team benefits but doesn’t get the immediate boost that a pick or sack ignites and the other team is still left with a chance to make a play themselves.
Neither team is big, or even middle-sized, in the sacks department with the Cats’ trailing the league with 10 (and missing speedy Garrett McIntyre and big Darrell Adams off the Front Four tonight).
Edmonton is only two better, explaining some of their no-pick woes.
Each defence surrenders a lot of yards from scrimmage, with Hamilton trailing the league at 386. 5 per game and Edmonton only five yards stingier. Yet each offence, particularly Edmonton’s under Ray, can score quick and timely points, and each team has built similar 4-3 records because they hang in until the final bell.
Both the Cats and Eskimos trailed Saskatchewan by at least three touchdowns in recent games, and caught up to them: Edmonton surging to a win, the Cats stalling and losing by a dozen in their final game before the bye period which ends tonight.
“I look at our team as the Kardiac Kids, they have the resiliency and personality that they never give up,” Hall says.
His opposite number, Marcel Bellefeuille agrees: “They’re well-coached and they have playmakers all over the field. They are a tough football team.”
For each team, tonight is an oasis of opportunity amid a desert of downtime.
The Eskimos haven’t played in 16 days, the Ticats in 13, and neither will play again until it faces its detested provincial neighbours on Labour Day, eight days down the road.
And both will have to watch thinking through tonight toward the back-to-back rivalry games, the Cats against the Argos, the Esks against the Stamps.
“It’s a challenge in regards to consistency and routines,” Hall says of the Esks’ one outing in 25 days, and the Cats’ one in 22. “The perfect situation is seven days between games.
“We finished the last four games playing some good football and would like to pick it back up, but it’s easier said than done.
“The quicker team to adjust to playing again will have the advantage.”
It appears that Goss feels the way to do that is to take things into his own hands … with regards to the ball, literally.
“We have to cause turnovers,” he says.
“I say to the other guys, ‘Once we get one interception, they’re going to come.
“I haven’t had many balls come my way, but once I do have them come my way, I have to do what I’m good at, and play the way I’m used to playing: baiting quarterbacks or even jumping routes.
“I feel that’s what I have to do (tonight). Get that interception early. I have to get guys to feed off that.”
They’re certainly hungry for that kind of meal.
Read more….
