The Edmonton Eskimos had a great season last year, winning the Western Division with a 14-4 record and winning the Grey Cup too over the Ottawa Redblacks. Although the general perception might be that a champion has a lot of parts still in place for an encore, that’s not exactly the case here. To start, Edmonton will have to replace head coach Chris Jones as well as almost the entire coaching staff. That’s almost unprecedented for a league champion. The good news is they have a lot of players returning, including 20 of 24 starters (all 12 on offense, eight on defense). How they handle the changes on the sidelines will determine how much success they have.
Team Strengths
Even though they have had a lot of transition with the coaching staff this offseason, this should be one of the top offensive teams in the league. New head coach Jason Maas is a former CFL quarterback and he was impressive in getting Ottawa to succeed last season as their offensive coordinator. Incumbent quarterback Mike Reilly will have a chance to toss the ball to Chris Getzlaf this season. He has been dinged up the past couple of seasons, but he has proven over his career that he can be a weapon when healthy and adds to a deep receiving corps that will likely lead the offense. Having the exact same group of starters as last year will help in a big way.
Team Weakness
It is not uncommon for a championship team to lose a coordinator and some key players, but it is rare for them to lose their head coach (and entire coaching staff) to another team in the same league, but that is what happened. New head man Jason Maas is very familiar with Edmonton as a football market, but he only has one season as a coordinator and a few as a quarterbacks coach under his belt. It remains to be seen whether he is ready for the opportunity that he has been given.
What hurts here is that it just wasn’t Jones that left. If that was the case, there could have still been a lot of continuity. Instead, we’re not exactly sure how the incumbent players – who won the Grey Cup last year – will handle a new coaching staff that simply didn’t go through the trials and tribulations with them.
Team X-Factor
The defense. Maas has proven he can coach offense, but you need to play defense in this league too. There are a couple of players from last year’s “D” that are likely to be on NFL rosters this season and those calibre of guys are hard to replace. Linebacker Odell Willis might be the best defensive player in the league, but without the kind of talent around him that was there a year ago it will be hard for this unit to be nearly as effective.
The Season Will Be A Success If…
The transition from Jones to Maas is smooth. Remember, they’re implementing a new system and Maas wants to speed things up on offense. The Redblacks were No. 1 in the league last year in plays run and time of possession. Can that translate? If that doesn’t work or if there are any other hiccups between the players and the staff, it will torpedo the Eskimos season.
And remember that Maas is a rookie head coach too, so there will be a learning curve for him as well.
Outlook
The Grey Cup is one of the oldest championship trophies around and it’s hard to recall a defending champ in any sport that lost as much as Edmonton has on the sidelines. Still, with enough continuity in terms of player personnel, they should be able to hang with most teams as they wait for their defense to become a more equal contributor. Every successful coach was once a first time head coach and Maas is very familiar situation with the league and the city, so expect him to be more acclimated to the position than most rookie head coaches.
Pick: Second place in Western Division. They are not falling off the map, but some deterioration is to be expected.
