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Rookie Whitlock has night to forget for Eskimos
Courtesy Edmonton Journal:
As if proving you can run in the Canadian Football League isn’t tough enough, now Arkee Whitlock has to affirm that his hands can actually work.
The Edmonton Eskimos running back, who replaced injured starter Jesse Lumsden in the backfield, failed to hang on to a pair of possible touchdown passes, fumbled once, and had another dropped pass turn into a Montreal Alouettes touchdown in a 50-16 loss at Molson Stadium on Thursday night.
After dodging a number of bullets early, the Esks had two major scores of their own slip through Whitlock’s fingers in the first half.
The first was a challenging over-the-shoulder opportunity in the first quarter, which still should have been caught. The second was inexcusable, a gentle second-quarter toss from Ricky Ray that bounced off Whitlock’s chest as he stood alone five yards deep in the Alouettes end zone. The routine catch would have actually put the Esks up 10-9.
Instead, they settled for a 15-yard Noel Prefontaine field goal to trail 9-6, then watched Als quarterback Anthony Calvillo pick apart the defence for the rest of the game.
“It’s a catch I have to make. I hold myself accountable for that,” Whitlock said of the first one. “If it hits your hands, you have to catch it. I made it a lot harder than it was.
“It’s not the quarterback’s fault. It’s not anyone else’s fault. It’s Arkee Whitlock’s fault. I’m going to put the onus on my shoulders and I’m going to work hard and get better.”
It couldn’t get much worse. He finished with three catches for 27 yards and another 29 yards rushing on 12 carries, a far cry from an excellent pre-season.
To compound matters, Whitlock had another pass — from backup Jason Maas–deflect off his shoulder late in the game. It was snatched by Cory Huclack, who sprinted 38 yards for a major to end the Montreal scoring. That was the type of night Whitlock had.
“He struggled a little bit,” understated Esks head coach Richie Hall. “But he’s a good football player and those things happen to everybody.
“It’s unfortunate that we weren’t able to overcome our miscues that happened out there, not only to him but to a lot of other players. We came here together, we played together and we left together, and it wasn’t good enough.”
Not even close, really.
It didn’t take long for the Alouettes to strike. Anthony Calvillo capped a 79-yard drive with a 28-yard touchdown pass to Kerry Watkins just 3:32 in. Watkins got behind Jonte Buhl, eluded his tackle and rookie safety Elliott Richardson — replacing injured starter Scott Gordon–got over too late.
Ray then had the ball stripped by defensive end John Bowman on Edmonton’s first possession and Keron Williams jumped on the loose ball at the Esks’ 12-yard line. Penalties pushed the Als back and Damon Duval’s 37-yard field goal sailed wide left as Edmonton dodged a huge threat and trailed 8-0.
It was another bungling start, but the Esks had their chances, if only Whitlock hadn’t dropped the ball.
Calvillo sparked the Alouettes in the dying seconds of the second quarter on a four-yard touchdown run which gave the hosts a 19-6 lead with just 4.9 seconds left before intermission.
Edmonton still had a chance to fight back as Ray found Maurice Mann on back-to-back catches to move inside the Alouettes 10 late in the third quarter. But a pair of in-completions forced a 14-yard field goal to make it 19-9.
It all came apart in the fourth quarter as Montreal roared back with a 21-yard TD strike from Calvillo to S. J. Green, a 24-yard field goal by Duval, a 68-yard punt return for a TD by Larry Taylor, Avon Cobourne’s one-yard TD run, and Huclack’s pick.
Prefontaine was three-for-three on field goals and Whitlock scored from one yard out in the last minute after Joel Wright committed pass interference on Maas’s end-zone throw to Mann.
The late score failed to take back the early blunders, but at least Whitlock has something to try to build on, however hard that might be.
“I’m never going to quit, no matter how bad a day it is,” he stressed.
He’ll try to turn it around at home on Thursday to the B. C. Lions.
