Eskimos sink Argos with offensive downpour

This time, Mike Reilly and the Edmonton Eskimos made a big second-half lead stand up.

Reilly threw three TD passes and ran for another to lead Edmonton past the Toronto Argonauts 46-23 on a hot, muggy Saturday afternoon. Reilly staked the Eskimos to a commanding 33-14 half-time lead before putting the defending Grey Cup champions ahead 40-14 with a one-yard TD run early in the third.

But on July 23, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats erased a 25-point, second-half lead for a stunning 37-31 comeback win over Edmonton.

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"We've been in that position before and we all know how that turned out," Reilly said. "We've been preaching to try and put together 60 minutes all season long. It was good to see we learned our lesson . . . tonight we were able to amend for that first one."

Reilly was a big reason for that, completing 26-of-31 passes for 362 yards as Edmonton's offence accumulated 479 total yards. Reilly also showed amazing resiliency after surrendering a 39-yard pick-six to Toronto linebacker Keon Raymond on the game's opening offensive play.

That put Toronto ahead 8-0, delighting the generously announced BMO Field gathering of 15,157 on the opening weekend of the Canadian National Exhibition.

'We didn't fold'

"I threw a touchdown pass the first play of the game and that's generally a great omen," Reilly deadpanned. "Keon is a veteran guy, he jumped it and made a great play.

"It wasn't the greatest decision to throw but I'm not going to take anything away from him as well. The best was our guys had my back. We didn't fold."

Hardly as Edmonton wasted no time erasing the deficit. Reilly hit Nate Coehoorn on a 30-yard TD strike at 7:49 before Calvin McCarty scored on a two-yard run at 11:17 for a 14-8 advantage. McCarty's touchdown was set up by Pat Watkins' interception and return to the Toronto five-yard line.

Reilly made it 21-8 with a 25-yard touchdown pass to Adarius Bowman just 16 seconds into the second before Sean Whyte connected from 27 yards out at 5:32. Cody Fajardo's one-yard TD run on third down cut Toronto's deficit to 24-14 and capped a 75-yard, 13-play drive 12:09.

But Edmonton countered with Reilly's 19-yard TD pass to Derel Walker at 13:36 before Whyte's 38-yard field goal 14:59 gave the Eskimos their 19-point half-time lead.

"It's better to happen the first play of the game than the last, to be honest with you," Edmonton head coach Jason Maas said of Reilly's pick-six. "He's battle tested more than anything.

"He knows what it's like to win, he knows what it takes to win. He's a winner and will always be able to bounce back from adversity."

Maas said Edmonton's collapse against Hamilton was the reason why he didn't take Reilly out of the game until very late in the final quarter.

"We've given up a 25-point lead this year in the second half and there was no chance in hell we were going to allow anything like that to happen," he said.

Reilly improved to 28-22 in his 50th regular-season start for Edmonton (4-4), which moved into a third-place tie with idle Winnipeg in the West Division standings. But the CFL passing leader and MVP of last year's Grey Cup game earned just his second career win over Toronto (4-4) in six starts.

Disappointing loss 

Toronto starter Logan Kilgore struggled again, completing 7-of-14 passes for 41 yards and two interceptions before being replaced by rookie Fajardo in the third. Kilgore threw five interceptions in last week's 34-17 home loss to Winnipeg as the Argos dropped to 1-4 at their new home.

Fajardo was 6-of-12 passing for 44 yards and rounded out the scoring with an eight-yard TD run at 10:23 of the fourth. But he suffered a wrist injury on the play and was replaced by veteran Adrian McPherson.

"As disappointing a loss as I've been a part of in a while," Argos coach Scott Milanovich said. "Every week as a coach you think you're going to win.

"It got away from us."

Ray soon to return 

Fortunately for Toronto, veteran Ricky Ray could be back soon. Ray (knee) didn't dress Saturday but was removed from the six-game injured list last week and might return Aug. 31 when the Argos host the B.C. Lions.

"Not one guy is going to change everything," Milanovich said. "It never hurts to have your leader back."

Whyte finished with four converts and four field goals.

Toronto's Lirim Hajrullahu booted two converts and a single. The other points came on a safety.