Due to his wife’s critical remarks, the Edmonton Elks head coach has decided to end his…
It was a fatal kneel-down taken by C.J. Sims that condemned the Edmonton Elks to their fifth loss of the season on Thursday night, but head coach Chris Jones wouldn’t pin the blame for the defeat on his rookie returner.
“We’ve got to do a better job of coaching our young kids to perfection on exactly all the nuances of our game,” Jones told reporters post-game, referencing the game-deciding conceded rouge in the final minute.
“The kid knows (he made a mistake). The moment was big and he’s a good little player. There will probably be a whole lot more people talking about this than when he had 300 yards returning the other day.”
The 28-year-old Sims was signed by the Elks in January and had impressed since being inserted into the lineup in Week 3, returning nine kickoffs for 220 yards and nine punts for 133 more in two games. He added four punt returns for 21 yards and a 15-yard kickoff return against Saskatchewan, only to make a tragic error in the waning moments.
After the Riders tied the game at 11 with 1:04 left in the fourth quarter, Sims went back to receive the Brett Lauther kickoff with a chance to set up a game-winning drive. Instead, the New Mexico Highlands product looked unconcerned as the ball bounced into the endzone, casually taking a knee and unknowingly conceding a single point to give away the lead.
The game management mistake was exacerbated when he shoved one of Saskatchewan’s taunting special teamers, erasing any potential field position gain with an objectionable conduct penalty. Four plays later, quarterback Taylor Cornelius was picked off by Nick Marshall to end the game.
“It hurts, man. It hurts. I feel like I let the team down. It hurts,” Sims told TSN after the final whistle. “It was a boneheaded play by me, but I’ll learn from my mistakes, and it’ll never happen again.”
It remains unknown exactly what level of communication Elks’ coaches had with the returner before he trotted out for the critical play, but it was not enough to drive home the importance of keeping the ball out of the endzone. Inexperience and exhaustion likely combined to create the unfortunate mental lapse, as Jones noted that his team ran out of gas late in the game.
“We brought 28 kids that are either first or second-year guys. It was three games in 12 days with two trips, so that’s a hard little road,” he said of the team’s tough recent schedule.
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t pull this win out. The kids played hard. I thought that we worked extremely hard during the course of the game, just in the fourth quarter, we didn’t execute.”
Despite leading for most of the match, winning the turnover battle, and leading in time of possession by over 14 minutes, the Elks’ late-game gaffe dropped them to 0-5 for the first time since 1965.
That season, Edmonton scored just 16 points per game. This year, they are average 12.4.
“It was a strange game,” Jones admitted. “I felt like both defences did a real nice job. Second-down accuracy, I think we were in the 50s or high 40s, and they were in the 30s. Nobody was really getting any offence; it’s kind of uncommon for the CFL to have such a low-scoring game.”
The Elks (0-5) next play host to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats (0-3) on Thursday, July 13, with a chance to equal the pro sports record for straight home losses at 20.
