‘Bad business to second-guess’: Mark Kilam doesn’t regret third-and-one field goal in Edmonton Elks’ loss to Montreal

Photo courtesy: Edmonton Elks

The Edmonton Elks were the victims of a league-wide statement from the Montreal Alouettes last week, but fans left wondering whether a different message could have been sent if the Green and Gold were just a little more aggressive at the end of the first half.

Trailing by a touchdown, Edmonton were in the midst of an eight-play, 54-yard drive when they faced a third-and-one from the Montreal 18-yard line. Rather than push the envelope and gamble on short-yardage with 27 seconds remaining, head coach Mark Kilam elected to send out the field goal team to secure a four-point deficit.

In the eyes of some observers, that proved to be the turning point in the game, as Montreal quickly regained momentum and added their own field goal before the break. Edmonton would not score again until late in the fourth quarter of what turned out to be a lopsided 48-30 loss.

“I understand the fans’ frustration. Listen, I want to go for it all the time. A couple weeks ago in Sask, we did, and we got stopped twice on third-and-short. Each one of those is its own entity. It’s bad business to second-guess everything that you do,” head coach Mark Kilam told Edmonton Sports Talk this week.

“You make decisions based on your preparation, your feel for the moment, how the game’s going, and you move forward in-game. We evaluate everything. I can tell the fans nobody is more critical of the decisions than myself. I’m critical of myself all the time, and I’m constantly evaluating that. Cody (Fajardo) was feeling it; that could have played into it, maybe, moving forward. Cody really had a lot of energy. But I don’t regret it. That’s not why we lost the football game. We were outplayed in all three phases.”

Fajardo appeared to be incensed with the decision as he was pulled off the field in favour of the field goal unit, gesturing that he wanted the chance to go for it. The Elks only had one drive all game produce more yardage than the one which preceded the kick, and it came on the final series, once the starting quarterback had already been pulled for his own protection.

“I always run hot on game day, so as a competitor, I wanted to go for it,” Fajardo acknowledged post-game. “But the data says you want to kick the field goal. You get the ball back at halftime, almost a double dip there. We didn’t anticipate them going down, kicking a field goal, which kind of nullified our field goal. They did a great job of being aggressive with under a minute left.”

“Obviously, you’d want to go for it there as an offensive unit. It was the third-and-one, a long one, maybe a yard and a half. If you get stopped there, momentum in the game, it’s just kind of hard. That’s why I don’t make the decisions, because sometimes they’re hasty decisions, and we trust what Kilam does. We trust the decision that he makes. We’ve just got to back him up.”

Third-and-short in plus territory has long been considered an almost automatic gamble in Canadian football, thanks to the one-yard neutral zone afforded by the defence. Coaching trends in general have also begun to skew more aggressive, driven by advanced analytics that suggest more is gained by pushing for touchdowns than is lost by a turnover on downs in your opponent’s half.

While some have accused CFL coaches of lagging behind that trend, Kilam showed excellent understanding of those same principles when he boldly chose to go for it on third-and-goal from the Montreal five-yard line two-and-a-half minutes earlier. That roll of the dice came up in the Elks’ favour, as Fajardo found Josh Cephus in the end zone for a game-tying touchdown.

The contrast between that aggressiveness and the later choice to kick intensified the head-scratching from fans, as the two decisions seemed incongruous. According to Kilam, there was no connection between the two.

“Third-and-five, we’re on the goal line, so we’re going to always be aggressive down there. That’s premeditated thoughts going into the game, and we’re going to continue to do that throughout the football season. Third-and-one, third-and-one-and-a-half, third-and-five-feet, whatever you want to say, they’re each their own entity,” he explained.

“I think the thought process from outside looking in is that those are always automatic, but they’re really not. You saw Calgary lose the game a week ago going for third-and-one and getting stuffed as well. Defences have really gotten better, but that’s not what played into it. I thought we were driving. There’s about 28 seconds left. I know we’re getting the ball coming out of half; it was a little over a yard. Decided to take the points.”

From the perspective of the second-year head coach, the process behind the field goal before the half was fundamentally sound. It was everything that came afterwards which spoiled the party, beginning with a long catch-and-run from Tyler Snead on the subsequent Montreal drive which erased any advantage from the kick.

“What really made it worse for everybody, including our football team, was we gave up a 56-yard play two plays later,” he said. “We get a little bit more depth in our drops on second-and-seven on the following possession, and we force a check down. We’re off the field. We’re down by four going into the half, feeling pretty good. We’re in a game. We know we’re getting the ball coming out of half, but we lost a lot of momentum on that.”

As a result, problems began to snowball in the second half, and the game got away from the Elks.

“We came out of the half, we turned the ball over on our first two possessions. All of a sudden we’re down 17 with two minutes to go in the third,” Kilam recalled.

“Their second drive was a 10-play drive, and you could feel, I don’t want to say the will breaking, because you know we’re going to fight to the end, but you could feel the tide turning because they were pounding us on that 10-play drive, and you could feel it. Our tackling wasn’t quite at the standard. Those are more of the reasons why we lost the game, not necessarily not going for it on third-and-one.”

The Edmonton Elks (6-3) will host the Toronto Argonauts (4-4) at Commonwealth Stadium on Saturday, August 15, with kickoff scheduled for 3:00 p.m. EDT.  The weather forecast in Edmonton calls for 22 degrees with a mix of sun and cloud. The game will be broadcast on TSN and CTV in Canada and CFL+ internationally. Radio listeners can tune in on TSN 1050 in Toronto or 880 CHED in Edmonton.