Courtesy The Edmonton Journal:

Make Kamau Peterson a medical examiner for a day and the deep-thinking slotback refuses to list a phantom holding penalty on fullback Mike Maurer as the official cause of death for his Edmonton Eskimos.The same goes for linebackers A.J. Gass and Siddeeq Shabazz and cornerback Omarr Morgan.

“Cause of death? Lack of focus in the fourth quarter,” Morgan said. “Lack of focus on offence, defence and special teams. Period.”

Shabazz, one of the bright lights in Edmonton’s dim year, figures the Eskimos deserve a flag for lack of killer instinct.

To Shabazz, the problems began way before referee Andre Proulx threw a flag last Saturday to negate a game-winning field goal by Sean Fleming against Saskatchewan.

“To me, it started a long time ago,” the dominant linebacker said as he munched on rice and turkey in the Edmonton dressing room. “We let too much slip by. We have such a good team, but we never finished.

“We never finished opponents when we should have. We always let people hang around and ended up losing it at the end.”

The end of the season is near for the Eskimos with one meaningless game against Hamilton left on the schedule Saturday at Ivor Wynne Stadium. Once that’s in the books, team president Rick LeLacheur and head coach Danny Maciocia plan to conduct their official autopsy next week when other teams ramp up for the playoffs.

But the players have already sliced open the body and started to probe for the cause of the second straight season out of the playoffs for the CFL’s most storied franchise.

“The cause of death? The nine games we could have won on the last drive,” Peterson said.

“I keep coming back to that. If we finish a drive or two and win two or three of those games, we could be talking about a whole different season,” added Peterson.

“I’m thinking about Calgary on Labour Day. I’m thinking about the Labour Day rematch. Toronto here. B.C. here. This last one against Saskatchewan.”

Peterson also blames the horrible conversion rate on short yardage for several defeats.

“In most of the close games, we didn’t convert on short yardage or messed up inside the five-yard line or something crazy like that,” Peterson said. “I would say that’s been our Achilles heel this year.”

Outside the dressing room, some fans have blamed head coach Danny Maciocia for the sudden mediocrity of the Green and Gold. Others point to a run of injuries to key players including guard Dan Comiskey, slotback Jason Tucker, guard Kevin Lefsrud and, most importantly, quarterback Ricky Ray.

Ray is the franchise player in Edmonton, no one will argue that. But not one player listed injuries as the major reason for an early winter holiday.

Every team has injuries, Gass said. Every team has to endure bad calls by the officials. The Eskimos of 2007 simply couldn’t overcome the challenges handed to them by fate.

“The cause of death? Inconsistency,” Gass said. “Hands down. There’s no lack of talent; no lack of effort. Just lack of consistency. You could see that throughout the season. At times, we looked great. We looked like a team that could take care of business.”

But business was not taken care of. So the Eskimos will pack their belongings in garbage bags on Monday and grieve for one more time the season that passed them by.

“We could never put together strings of wins,” Gass said. “We could put together strings of losses, but not strings of wins. We just couldn’t get it done.”

Perhaps those words will be inscribed on the proverbial grave stone and be the inspiration for a team that gathers for training camp next May in hopes of avoiding the dreaded three-peat.