There are no moral victories in professional football, and coming close won't get the Ottawa Redblacks.
Once again the Canadian Football League expansion team played hard, but once again it failed to take advantage of their opportunities, and this time the result was a 27-11 defeat against the Edmonton Eskimos.
The defence hung in there for a while, the special-teams units played better than they had in the season opener against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, but penalties (12) continued to be a significant problem and the Redblacks offence got stuffed.
Case in point: On third down and inches short of the marker at their own 25-yard line and down 18-8 early in the fourth quarter, but still in the contest, the Redblacks were unable to squeeze backup quarterback Thomas DeMarco — in on the play in place of starter Henry Burris — far enough to get the first down.
A handful of plays later, Edmonton's Adarius Bowman caught a one-yard pass from Mike Reilly for his third touchdown of the second half, and that fast the game was over. The Redblacks were on their way to an 0-2 start, while the Eskimos were 3-0 and still tied for top spot in the West Division with the Blue Bombers.
"You want to do that every single time," DeMarco said of the failed third-down gamble. "It's supposed to be, not a guarantee, but it's supposed to be in the offence's favour.
In contrast to their raging start in the season opener against the Blue Bombers on July 3, the Redblacks did virtually nothing on offence in the first quarter against the Eskimos. Just one first down in that period, and that was due to a penalty against the Eskimos.
Things changed, briefly, in the second quarter. After a pass from Burris to Patrick Lavoie produced the Redblacks' first offensive first down of the night, Chevon Walker cruised around left end and outraced Eskimos defenders on his way to a 65-yard touchdown run.
With the convert, Ottawa took a 7-1 lead. The Eskimos threatened to go ahead before the break, but the Redblacks' defence stiffened and the hosts had to settle for a single point after Grant Shaw missed a chip-shot field attempt from 23 yards.
That was the good news. The potentially bad news was that Reilly was running circles around Redblacks pass rushers to the tune of 47 yards on seven attempts. There was some unexpected help, though, as Edmonton pass catchers let down Reilly by dropping a mittful of balls.
After the intermission, though, the Eskimos quickly broke through for a score: three plays to cover 77 yards, capped by a 41-yard pass-and-run connection between Reilly and Bowman. A breakdown in coverage by the Redblacks made that score easier than it needed to be.
With Shaw's convert, Edmonton led 9-7, and a single on the subsequent kickoff — aided by a roughing penalty against Ottawa on the pass to Bowman — gave the home team a three-point edge.
Another single, this time on a 47-yard punt, gave Edmonton an 11-7 lead, but it could have been worse. Two sacks of Reilly, by Zach Evans and Jerrell Gavins, had pushed the Eskimos out of field goal range.
Late in the third quarter, a great punt by Maher pinned the Eskimos deep in their end. However, the Redblacks offence couldn't get past the 24-yard line, and Maher missed a 36-yard field-goal attempt, with the resulting single leaving Ottawa behind by an 11-8 count.
To a large degree, the Eskimos pass rush was responsible for several Redblacks offensive failings, with Almondo Sewell recording three of five Edmonton sacks.
Reilly made the visitors pay for their lack of production, too. For example, on the second play of the fourth quarter, he threw a high, looping pass that Bowman tipped to himself for a 30-yard touchdown play and, after the convert, an 18-8 lead.
Ottawa's other points came on a 34-yard field goal by Maher with five and a half minutes left in the final quarter, while Edmonton capped its scoring with a safety, when Marcus Howard sacked Burris in the end-zone.
That next one will be the Redblacks' home opener at TD Place stadium, next Friday against the Toronto Argonauts (7 p.m., TSN, RDS, TSN 1200 AM, Unique FM 94.5).
League statisticians have credited the Redblacks with becoming the first Canadian football team to score touchdowns on all of their first three drives in a regular-season game after managing that feat in their regular-season opener against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on July 3.
Russ Jackson hasn't played a CFL game in 45 years, but he has moved back into fourth place on the career rushing list for quarterbacks.
CFL statisticians had indicated that Burris overtook the Ottawa Rough Riders legend by gaining 20 yards on the ground against the Blue Bombers on July 3, increasing Burris's career total to 5,053.
However, it turned out that Jackson's career total should have been 5,122 yards, 77 more than the previously indicated. The difference came from a reclassification of 12 losses that were originally registered as runs in 1958, but should have been shown as sacks charged to the passing attack. A league media release said that was how sacks were classified in every other season since 1954 in the CFL's East Division.
In the end, the 39-year-old Burris still has a chance to pass Jackson and No. 3 running quarterback Jackie Parker (5,210), but he has no genuine hope of overtaking No. 2 Tracy Ham (8,043) and all-time leader Damon Allen (11,920).
Allen ranks third all-time among all CFLers, trailing only Mike Pringle (16,425) and George Reed (16,116).